Diamond Industries' CFO and IT manager, Berry de Klerk was an early adopter of Microsoft's first-generation CRM product which "wasn't very satisfactory".

"It was based around selling widgets or bicycles as the model in the package alluded to," de Klerk said. "We are in the services industry - for air conditioning and mechanical - and it didn't address the complexities of our relationships."

The CRM application was first installed in October 2004 in a release de Klerk said had all the makings of third-party software acquired by Microsoft and rushed to market.

Diamond Industries' business involves managing large-scale air-conditioning and mechanical services projects for the mining, marine, and residential tower markets. Wanting to remain at the forefront of technology adoption, the company decided to upgrade to Microsoft CRM 3.0 late last year and is now finalizing the required customization.

"Version 3.0 is far more customizable, so we can put in more entities to address our business application [and] this was not possible with 1.2," de Klerk said. "The primary objective was to track the hundreds of projects that come out into the market each year. Approvals need to be gained [and] we need to track changes and stakeholders. You could have as many as four or five builders [or] investment parties."