Using Outlook as the Contact Manager for your Corporate Database

Microsoft’s earlier promotion of Outlook as a “Personal Information Manager” created the impression amongst users that Outlook was only intended to manage one’s personal contacts and was not suited as the basis for a corporate-wide Customer Management System. However when synchronized with a back-end SQL database that the majority off the office-based organization has access to, Outlook can be a powerful tool that satisfies most of the requirements for basic contact management.

The reality is that many mobile workers do not have time to record more than just the basics of their interactions with customers. And the fact that they can do this recording via the standard Contacts, E-Mail, Tasks, and Appointments functionality on their notebook via Outlook or on their Windows Mobile or Blackberry devices and have this contact information shared automatically with the rest of the company greatly enhances the organization’s ability to manage their customer base efficiently.