Does CRM Really Work?

I was just reading a blog entry by Jim Dickie from CSO Insights on the effectiveness of CRM. The headline reads "What Does CRM Really Do For Salespeople?". In it Jim says, "We asked participating sales executives to assess the impact that technology was having on their sales performance. A consolidated review of their responses found that 71.9 percent stated that CRM was improving their performance, 18.2 percent said it was having no effect, and 9.9 percent didn't know."

I have to agree that CRM is "improving perfomance" but still has a long, long, long way to go. A few months ago I led a rountable discussion at the Direct Focus Conference in Salt Lake City on the effectiveness of CRM. Of the 12 VP Sales and CMO's present only one (that's 1) said it's CRM was viewed as effective by it's salesforce. And you guessed it, the VP was from Seibel... I mean, Oracle. ;)