En ce début de millénaire, la volatilité des marchés est devenue un facteur majeur dans les relations d'affaires :

« (...) companies are having trouble keeping their best customers. The average company loses, according to various studies, between 20 percent and 50 percent of its customer base every year. With tech companies, these percentages are even higher. »

John Taschek, How to avoid a CRM failure, eWeek, 15 octobre 2001, pp. 31 et 33.