CRM Systems — Salesforce, HubSpot, and Dynamics 365
What CRM systems actually do, how they differ, and the integration points every developer needs to know.
Every enterprise you'll ever work with has a CRM. It's where the sales team tracks leads, the support team logs tickets, and the marketing team manages campaigns. It's also the single most common integration target for custom applications. If you build enterprise software, you will integrate with a CRM. Probably more than once.
The three dominant players — Salesforce, HubSpot, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 — each take a different approach to the same problem. Understanding their architectures, APIs, and customization models will make you far more effective when prompting your AI agent to build integrations.
What a CRM Actually Does
At its core, a CRM manages the lifecycle of a customer relationship. That lifecycle follows a predictable pattern:
- Lead capture — someone fills
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