Money for future muscle: CRM investment continues to increase in the vertical as companies turn to PRM, analytics, and order management to get a tighter grasp on customers.(MARKET FOCUS: MANUFACTURING)

There's a lot of space separating the company and the customer in the manufacturing industry. However, manufacturing is one of the verticals in which CRM adoption is growing the most quickly today. In a buyers' market where partner relationships are becoming more crucial to competitiveness, manufacturing companies are looking to invest in PRM and data integration to gain elbow room in this saturated space.

Customer retention is becoming more crucial as companies look to service for revenue, says Ray Wang, a senior analyst at Forrester Research. "You don't make money selling products anymore. People are looking at ways to hold onto customers not only in the presale, but after." With service fees, …