Slowing Economies and CRM

The bubble has burst and economies are slowing down. It is time to cut back to the basics and the essentials. In the sales and marketing function questions different questions will inevitably be asked.

Is the sales team focussing on the right opportunities?
Can we identify the productivity of the good and not so good performers?
Are campaigns analysed for effectiveness and corrected?
Is there a need to redesign the sales organization?
If there is a plan to cut back on operations and build up of inventory, won't the sales pipeline be a better indicator than past operations data?
What are the payments due where efforts on collections can be put?
How can key customers be kept satisfied?

Organizations which had a CRM in place would be in a much better place to get quick answers, act rapidly and weather such storms - may be even gain from it. Such times are also the best times to implement a CRM since there is more leeway to create a team responsible to execute the project.