And here comes a new IT darling, CRM - promising profit by enablingcustomer-focused operations. It turns out, though, that CRM is no morelikely to succeed than past hot technologies. CRM failure storiesalready abound, a despondent echo of past IT debacles. Gartnerpredicts that through 2003, the CRM failure rate will increase to 70percent, up from 55 percent in 2001.

This IT entropy is happening again because in many cases, you don'tdrive the software evaluation process, the vendors do. They're betterat evaluating you - and how to get money out of you - than you are atevaluating them. Vendors can oversell simplicity and functionalitybecause customers let themselves be oversold. You may be the players,but in a broad sense, they direct the play.

Understanding how vendors exploit your software evaluation process isthe first step to wresting some control from them.

Why you are not in control

Simple math explains the vendors'advantage. They sell this stuff every day. Buyers go through theprocess maybe twice in their careers. CRM vendors, like ERP vendorsbefore them, pitch a staff of Pedro Martinezes against rookie hitters.