P&G thinks of its upcoming efforts as "closing the loop" between sharing data with and gathering data from its customers, and using that information to make smarter, faster business decisions. Butler believes that CRM's true power lies not merely in collecting and storing specific sales or promotional data but in capturing something less tangible but ultimately more important: conversations with customers about business strategies that will help P&G improve its business processes. Says Butler: "When you can use something like CRM to pull together the knowledge you have on a customer with the systemic transactional data, that's where you really start to see the whole CRM picture coming into view." Before, he says, business strategy plans were often captured "on napkins, in people's heads, or not at all."

P&G's results with the North American and initial Western European Siebel implementations have been so positive that the company is looking to speed up expansion across Western Europe. This approach seems to be working so far; now other countries are clamoring for a piece of the action. That's a call P&G hopes to be able to answer quickly. "This is a snowball that's really growing for us," says Scott. "Our single biggest challenge is to figure out how to accelerate this program broadly around the globe." A formidable challenge that may be, but if P&G manages to meet it, the company and its retailers will be smiling bigger, whiter smiles than anyone.