I have a friend, a VP of Sales for a Microsoft Gold Partner, that is certain that CRM tools are sales force De-automators. He claims when CRM is rolled into a sales team, sales efficiency is rolled up. Is deploying CRM into a sales team akin to grinding your gears? Probably.
CRM solutions, like salesforce.com try to do all and make simple tasks hard. Most function of Salesforce.com, to select one, is heavy and unusable for the salesperson. The sales person is trying to make money, is killing himself to get leads, qualify to opportunities and close them. A common everyday workprocess is to call a lead list. Many crms will present a lead list to the user but force the user to go through clicks to get to the details. On finishing edits and entries the salesperson closes the lead and is back to the list. Often the list goes back to page one and the user must figure out where he left off. This simple process of calling a list becomes an adventure. Online sales tools have fixed this. Tools like onlinesalessoftware.net which provide a simple, NEXT button to work thru the list.
If any process in a CRM tool is easier to do in a spreadsheet, the sales tool is sales force de-automation.
