MDM Editor Lindsay Konzak recently spoke with Mark Dancer of channel and sales solutions firm Channelvation Inc. about a recent growth in interest in using customer relationship management software to manage sales pipelines, leads and marketing programs. Used correctly, CRM can build brand and reinforce relationships, leading to improved sales and profits, he says.

This interview, from MDM’s monthly Executive Briefing on-demand webcast series, provides a look at the research Dancer conducted for his book on CRM published by the National Association of Wholesaler Distributors. Learn more about the book here. He also provides advice and insight on how to best use and implement CRM packages.

MDM: Why do you think CRM has a bad rap in distribution?

Mark Dancer: I would say that CRM has had a bad rap, not just in distribution, but in all industries for a very long time. It wasn’t that long ago, I would ask whether [a customer’s] CRM tool was a useful way to reinforce the strategies that we were trying to execute, and more often than not, CRM was more of a barrier or something to be avoided.