I think the most significant trend to watch for in CRM for the next 5 years will be that CRM will finally move beyond the beachhead of sales and marketing team adoption in businesses to the rest of the customer facing departments. The conversations occuring with a businesses constituency will need to be joined by the entire company. I say constituency because a companies eco system is much more than it's prospects and customers. Sales, marketing, customer service, product, accounting and especially the c-level executives will all need to be actively engaged in listening, engaging and collaborating about and with the community that empowers a company to succeed.

I believe that this future may not be made up of one big monolithic solution but by a collection of best fit and best of breed that is selected by a company to fit their unique needs. The cloud and open API's will enable this to happen. Throw in a healthy share of mobile, social, big data, analytics and you've got the future.

Over the past decade we have seen CRM adoption shift from just top management, to sales and then marketing. With more and more businesses relying on quantitiative modeling and CLV becoming the accepted customer valuation metric, we can definitely see CRM becoming the center piece in customer acquisition, product strategy and growth in the businesses of tomorrow.

I think the adoption of CRM can be broken into three phases. First is, the Management piece, and the importance of data-driven strategizing spreads to even the smallest of businesses. Second is the customer piece, with marketing automation tools becoming less "magic" and more marketer friendly. But the most importance piece is the "Relationships" part. I think Jon is bang on when he says "CRM will finally move beyond the beachhead of sales and marketing team adoption in businesses to the rest of the customer facing departments"

I think the single significant trend will be 'CRM's' continued transition away from being a  'system of record' to a 'strategy' for differentiation.  

I think Jon F nailed the detail, and I agree that 'listening', 'engagement', 'empowerment' and 'influence' will all be key factors in shaping the transition in CRM as we know it today.  I'd also throw in 'customer intelligence' but, then I'm biased.  

Integration of social media as a channel of communication with customers from Marketing and Customer Assistance. 

I don't know if this is a trend per se but I think we'll see the rise of leaner, lighter CRM solutions. As a CRM software "user" I am finding that acquisitions and product developments are leading to feature creep and bloated solutions which are not very user friendly. I imagine we'll have some new nimble companies rising up to offer solutions that focus more on the user than the data it captures.

Business is becoming and will continue to become more virtual.  Today a SMB is a fear for most "workers".  However, large companies no longer offer the benefits or the security many used to seek.  And many more in the US who used to look for "jobs" will be creating them.  Sophisticated infrastructure is not needed given the SaaS services from Google, Microsoft and many of the smaller, startup vendors in CRM Idol.  We're enabling the flexible, individually driven economy.

And we're even more on the go.  With public workspaces, ubiquitous wifi, mobile broadband (4G speeds) and virtual addresses, we can be anywhere and in many cases can be where we need to be at all times, not stuck in our offices or on the road.  And our equipment today support this.  Smartphones now are more an more just "devices".  Perhaps they're just phones and what we used to use are "dumbphones".  The same device that can allow us to update support tickets, update deals, find prospect information, provide turn by turn directions, provide a hotspot for a team and can also reach our cloud based music and react to voice commands. 

SaaS and Mobile CRM technologies will be our best move towards lowering auto use and fuel consumption, increasing family time and improving efficiency. 

Above beyond staying on course with current technology trends, watching how younger generations are working today is critical to your future success as a CRM vendor. I’ll be open and share that at Mothernode we constantly look at how our younger generations are working (or have worked in higher education). What is it about their workflows that may be different from the current corporate world? Social is a good example of a heavy influence.

What is it that we can do to become a transparently appealing software, through technological synergies; whether they focus on social concepts, collaborative techniques or the way individuals are accustom to interacting with information? Newer generations view the cloud as a no-brainer, while some traditionalists still doubt the web’s security, among other reasons for not leaving on-premise solutions.

We look at many types of technology for inspiration that would have what we would consider a significant influence on Gen X and Y users, which includes the gaming world. A lot of the dashboard analytics that were introduced in Mothernode ERP (and eventually Mothernode CRM) were inspired by EA Games’ Battlefield 2142. They were a good muse for personal performance and benchmarking for individuals. In addition to adjusting matrix to measure relevant data to actual business (not how many bad guys you blew up), we maintained some of the style and formatting. Face it, Generation X grew up with Atari, ColecoVision and Intellivision, and now intheir 40s, many still play games (console, desktop, mobile), so giving them business analytics in a format they could be familiar with might be subconsciously appealing. At least that was our thought.

Since first looking at Battlefield 2142 user analytics, we’ve continued looking at other popular titles for inspiration like Gears of War or Call of Duty, just to name a few. I’ll admit to having many conversations over Xbox Live with co-workers admiring statistical presentations in between tournaments. In addition to complementing one of your developers on delivering an awesome throat-rip the night before, the water cooler chat usually focuses on statistical reporting and how some player analytics could be translated into real-life business analytics. Sales and video games are both a competitive sport, so why not?

We think the next big trend in CRM is going to be understanding, mapping and aligning to customer digital behaviour. Understanding which social networks and communications channels people use to conduct research, solve problems, resolve issues, or seek connection with companies (and for what purposes) and how that behaviour changes over time. Imagine if you were able to have a complete picture of how a customer was interacting with your company or brand regardless of channel, an accurate record of their activities on an opt-in basis, updated real-time as they connect, communicate, consume content and converse.

The reality is we use different networks and channels to get information and connect with others over time, and developing a data-driven understanding of how that behaviour shifts and moves on both an aggregate and individual basis (vs putting programs in place to control and manage that behaviour) will change CRM fundamentally over the next few years.

I think the future will lead to more corporate transparency. This is more of an idea or culture than a technological movement. Basically, customers will become part of the company - the old infrastructures will be torn down and there will be no more "outside looking in" ...this will be the beginning of seamless interaction of business transactions in a model that is more fluid, more responsive and much more intelligent. The old nomenclature of "customers" and company "employees" will be non-existent. The model will revolve around the transaction itself without barriers.

As Jon and Vikram pointed out, I agree that CRM will definitely move beyond just sales, marketing and promotions.
A key factor in managing a relationship is to have two-way communication with your customers. This would require CRM to get a lot more social. I think we are going to see a lot more direct interaction between companies and their customers in the coming years, as social networks are where consumers are reaching out. Not only does this help to maintain relationships, but it promotes and markets, based on good service, at the same time. Engagement helps integrate customers into core brand messages and improves customer loyalty. In the next five years, if CRM is to keep up with customers, it will continue to follow them into social networks, and businesses will need to adopt the expected standards of communcation social media sets.