"The fact is," Balliet says of the software evaluation process, "youmay end up with a product selected that has seemingly inexplicabledecisions behind it."

A sales job

As it's happening, the sales process doesn't feel thiscallous. This Machiavellian. All along, the vendors promise hugebenefits from a cross-enterprise platform. All this functionality,they say, will create decisive competitive advantages. The worde-business will come up as a badge of honor, as in, "This CRM projectwill make you a true e-business."

In a fantastically ironic moment, the vendor will probably tout itsCRM platform's ability to increase the bottom line by homing in oncustomer buying habits in order to up-sell them.

"They're successful vendors, which is why they're in your evaluationin the first place," AMR's Shepherd says. "There's a lot of emotioninvolved, and that's where the skill of the salespeople becomesimportant. They're probably pretty good at convincing people of whatthey want to convince them of. I mean, that's basically what asoftware sales rep does, right?"