Microsoft Outlook is Microsoft’s messaging and personal information management program that helps you manage the following:

• Contacts

• Scheduling (Calendar/Appointments)

• Time/To-Do Management (Tasks)

• Activity Tracking (Journals)

• Messaging (Inbox/E-Mail)
  

With reference to the requirements list above, Outlook at least satisfies the following requirements:

1. A mechanism to store and profile Contact information: The “Contacts” folder in Outlook already allows a comprehensive profile of any personal or business contact to be maintained.
   
   
2. A means to plan and organise appointments for those contacts: Outlook’s calendaring facilities provide these very effectively and when coupled with Exchange Server incorporate a huge number of collaborative features that are extremely difficult for any other stand-alone CRM system to emulate or reproduce.
   
   
3. A means to schedule tasks and to-do’s for those contacts: Outlook’s task management facility is excellent for this.
   
   
4. A mechanism to record any kind of interaction with a contact: The “Journal” facility of Outlook contains the standard fields necessary to record phone calls, meeting, etc. with clients, and can even time such activities.
   
   
5. A way to send and track e-mail communication: The Inbox and Sent Items stores inward and outward e-mails.

However, while Outlook does have the basic foundation for solid contact management functionality, there are certain limitations of Outlook that one needs to be aware of.