Most organizations use sales pipeline as a snapshot of future cash flow, but, you can do more that by using sales pipeline. You can use sales pipeline as a strategic growth tool, using it as a channel to help you prioritize resources for critical sales, identify stuck opportunities, and create new opportunities based on metrics from historical data. CRM can help any organization by capturing more leads, team with marketing team to engage prospects, tailor content to match prospects, measure your performance and improve, and control your sales cycle. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-crm-can-drive-better-sales-results-in-every-phase-of-the-sales-cycle-74937

According to Gartner, CRM has a global market of $23 billion. So, there is an opportunity for industry specific CRM. A general CRM has many features that control your sales pipeline, but may not fit into your sales process. So, there is a need to have an industry specific CRM. The following article link gives details about this: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/do-you-need-an-industryspecific-crm-69783

Customer relationship management tools can be valuable if it is not overloaded with plenty of data. Many CRMs allow business to customize dashboard so that you can identify critical data at a glance, such as meetings with prospects, potential value of your deals, total value of your sales pipeline and other information. So, to know the most important data points you should configure in your CRM, follow: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/the-most-important-ataglance-data-points-for-your-crm-69784

Sales pipeline helps in revenue forecasting for the sales department. It defines the distinct stages of your sales process. CRM tools also help in analyzing prospects in each pipeline stage and also determine whether a lead needs additional encouragement. There are also some features which will help in optimizing the sales pipeline. They are: clearly defined sales pipeline, Integrating CRM Information, Identifying customers leaving the pipeline, and Lead Scoring Criteria. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/optimizing-your-sales-pipeline-with-crm-68441