Although the use of customer relationship management (CRM) software has become almost a de facto standard, its rise to this elevated position did not happen overnight. Paralleling the rise of computing, it started with digitizing the Rolodexes of an earlier time, first in mainframe computers using custom relational databases. The next move was to personal computers and the era of database marketing. Next was salesforce automation…and then, in 1995, the first software using the name “CRM.”

It was a bold move by Marc Benioff and his co-founder Parker Harris in 1999—to create Salesforce.com and the first software-as-a-service CRM—that heralded the current generation. Cloud customer relationship management software now rules the day, with a reported 80% of all CRM deployments. And 20 years after its founding, Salesforce is the undisputed market leader, ranked number one in market share revenue...