The Name
Currently we are in the 4th generation or wave of technology from an ERP and CRM perspective. Here is a description of each wave:
wave 1: physical to electronic
This is where companies took those books, sticky notes, ledgers and converted them into electronic format.
wave 2: business process automation
Now that we have everything in an electronic format, we want to add some business automation. Practical examples would be “I want to be able to receive an email for any deal greater than $X.” We let the software do some basic automation to help us with the trivial items.
wave 3: insight to action
Technology brings together different pieces of information to give us a holistic view of the customer. Applications bring together order history, promotion information, marketing efforts, other various customer interactions to gain a better understanding of customer behavior. Using all these data points, the businesses can deliver the right message at the right time
wave 4: Artificial intelligence
The current wave of technology is taking all the various data points and utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence to help us make better, more informed decision. This wave of technology is allowing us to understand our customers better than they understand themselves.
