You Know You Need a CRM System When You Have a BONA
These days CRM system are more than just sales force automation; they are a central place for all information about the people and organisations you do business with and the interactions with them. Moreover, a good CRM system will have a workflow engine in it to help manage the processes of the business. Notifications, escalations and approvals are the bread and butter of a modern CRM system.
The icing on the cake is you can create different ‘record types’ (for those of a database persuasion, think new tables). So, if you are in the business of managing elevators, you could create a new elevator record type to store all your elevators in. If you manage cows, you can create a cow record type to store Daisy and Buttercup.