Sales professionals tend to travel more than the average worker. Unfortunately, CRM was originally developed as an extension to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, which are famously “back office” in orientation. As a result, CRM applications (even when presented across the Web) have a tendency to be awkward when accessed on the road, often requiring a full screen laptop to be truly practical. Unless a road warrior can find a fast, reliable wireless hotspot, such a CRM application can be a real hassle.

All of that is about to change, though, according to studies by several market research firms. According to the market research firm IDC, pressure on companies to provide work/life balance programs for employees combined with advances in mobile technologies are increasing the number of mobile workers in the U.S. and around the world. As a result, CRM companies are beginning to think about applications that use mobile devices in their native mode, rather than adding mobile access as a Web-based afterthought.

By year-end 2011, IDC expects that nearly 75 percent of the U.S. workforce will be mobile, a figure that’s bound to include millions of new sales professionals. Howard Stevens, CEO of The Chally Group, a company that researches sales trends, claims that over 50 percent of all students who graduate from college today end up going into sales directly out of college.

IDC notes that the current generation of workers is demanding more flexibility and mobility in their schedules. Such workers also have a higher comfort level with technology in general, including remote access technologies and mobile devices.

Not surprisingly, to meet the demands of today’s workforce, enterprises are deploying mobile solutions to meet both horizontal and vertical industry needs driven by increasing business response time as well as to help reduce corporate space (and leasing) requirements. IDC notes that organizations deploying mobile solutions enjoy a strategic competitive advantage over their competitors who have not invested in integrating mobility into their cultural roadmap.

Under the circumstances, such enterprises (and the sales professionals working within them) will increasingly want a CRM application where the default mode of operation is mobile, rather than dependent upon a stationary computer. Such applications treat the smartphone or PDA as a primary device for CRM interaction, rather than something that’s supported via an awkward, semi-functional Web browser.

Not surprisingly, sales professionals overwhelmingly express interest in being connected to their CRM data via mobile devices, according to Sheryl Kingstone, the director of enterprise research at the market research firm the Yankee Group, which recently surveyed users of on-demand CRM systems. “Combined with an equally high number of responses expressing interest in application ease of use, it is clear that there exists a pent-up demand for consumable mobile applications,” she says.

Kingstone differentiates between “wireless CRM” (CRM on a wireless notebook with a full screen) and mobile CRM (CRM that’s native to a small mobile device like a smartphone.) As an example of this new breed of CRM application, Kingstone cites Oracle’s new “Mobile Sales Assistant.”

Unlike traditional CRM applications, the “Mobile Sales Assistant” allows sales professionals to use a smartphone or BlackBerry device to view account team information and customer contacts, communicate with the team through a call, an email, or a text message, and get driving directions off the Web. For CRM work, the product has automated prompts to remind users to follow-up or enter notes at the end of a conversation. This information is stored locally on the smartphone or can be saved real-time to a more traditional CRM application (in this case Oracle’s CRM On Demand).

While such applications apparently represent the future of CRM, Stephen Drake, program director of mobile enterprise services at IDC, counsels caution. “Although mobility deployments can bring a number of benefits to companies, they also bring risks associated with sensitive data sitting on small devices that can be easily lost,” he says, warning that “developing a plan around managing and securing devices should be part of any large mobility deployment.”