It's a tough one hey? A company can't really make good decisions without reliable information... and it's hard to get reliable information without really good data... but data takes a ton of effort and time to collect. My guess is some Business Development dude sold them this CRM, and maybe if your spreadsheet works well they'll realise the sunk cost and just bin it... after all, the beauty of getting someone new in is to let you know where things can be done better.
I've actually got to think about this myself... I'm running a project and have an amount of work to be done in 12 months... and we're currently just trying to quantify the amount of work that needs to be done, hopefully then I can figure out a way to keep us on track.
You're exactly right and I said this to my State Manager last week. The problem is someone made a decision on this CRM who is not a BDM and so it was based on a hunch plus information sold to then about what it will do for the company.
In reality it is full of gaps, at the same time as being overloaded with rubbish. It's not flexible or adaptable and, probably the worst thing, is not intuitive.
I use some of the features and will continue to do so, but will swap over to my own spreadsheet for KPI tracking and will use the CRM as a basic address book as such. I wonder how much they pay for it and assume a lot considering it's used nationally.
Good luck with your project and aim hope you find an appropriate way to measure the progress against the target.