Customer relationship management (CRM) involves managing relationships with customers to increase customer retention and profits. CRM focuses on acquiring new customers, enhancing existing customer relationships, and retaining valuable customers. It provides tools to track customer interactions, personalize services, and reward loyal customers. While CRM can increase profits when implemented correctly, many projects fail due to lack of preparation, stakeholder participation, and not addressing underlying business process issues first. Trends in CRM include operational CRM to improve customer convenience, analytical CRM to tailor offers to customers, and collaborative CRM to improve supply chain responsiveness.