Paul Greenberg, a CRM thought leader and industry pundit, kicked off Sugar CRM’s Acceleration Event last week in Chicago with some compelling remarks around Web 2.0 and its influence on CRM. Referencing some of the latest and greatest uses for analytics, Greenberg brought up an interesting point concerning a company’s use of analytic data to influence its CRM practices, and how Web 2.0 is starting to influence that.

Businesses have traditionally used analytics to determine their most profitable customer bases and to measure the long-coveted “customer lifetime value” metric. The end result has been the practice of diverting large volumes of resources and exceptional service to those high-value customers and while low-value ones were relegated to the bottom of the totem pole, if not outright fired, ala Sprint Nextel this past summer.

But as Paul noted, few companies are realizing the consequences of “firing” one of their customers in the Web 2.0 world we live in today. As Paul said, “anybody with Internet access and a blog or YouTube account can create an overnight marketing nightmare for any corporate entity.” For corporate America, it will be interesting to see how businesses will take into account the kind of impact Web 2.0 will have on their customer relations, and how the power pendulum has swung back to the consumer.