This white paper explains how the pandemic exposed weaknesses in manufacturers’ customer engagement models and showed that relying on manual effort and channel partners does not scale. It describes how companies without strong digital foundations struggled to respond to surging ecommerce demand, lost control of customer relationships, and experienced employee burnout and margin pressure. The paper argues that modern customers expect seamless, Amazon-like experiences and that manufacturers must now compete on customer experience as well as product quality. It outlines the role of CRM as the backbone for unifying customer data, supporting consistent engagement, and automating repetitive work. The paper concludes that building a CRM-centered digital platform, guided by a clear understanding o

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