Customer relationships represent a firm's most valuable assets. Within value-based management it is therefore crucial that customer relationships should be treated as assets or investments that need to be actively managed to maximize corporate value. However, (mono-)disciplinary approaches often do not explore the true economic potential of CRM. Therefore, this paper first presents the state of the art of CRM in academia and practice in general. Furthermore, specific challenges of a value-based CRM for the interaction between marketing, financial management, and IT are analyzed in detail. In addition to a mutual alignment of marketing and IT, the development of financial performance measures is crucial. Based on these measures and on an adequate IT support, the contribution of CRM to the corporate value can be measured and controlled.