Gartner (News - Alert) has updated its customer relationship management conference with a renewed focus on business and IT collaboration and on what company officials say is 'harnessing the potential from the emerging social dimension of the customer experience and relationships.'

The Gartner Customer 360 Summit will take place June 28-30 in Los Angeles. Company officials say it's designed to 'bring Gartner's CRM research to life,' concentrating on strategic advice and best practices for creating a customer centric enterprise, social CRM, analytics & performance management, customer experience management, marketing and sales optimization.

The Customer 360 Summit is an event that brings together senior business and IT people along with Gartner analysts and practitioners to 'collaborate in learning and discussing the strategies and technologies' that enable organizations to better understand, grow and engage customers.

'If your organization is not a customer-centric culture, one that listens, learns, adapts and ultimately innovates continuously around customer needs, you will find yourself at a competitive disadvantage relatively soon,' said Adam Sarner, research director at Gartner and Summit co-chair.

Sarner added that in the brave new social customer engagement world, it's 'critical for organizations to understand the range of the customer relationship and expectations and how to derive the most value from it.'

The vent will focus on such areas as business & IT collaboration, looking at how to align and foster collaboration from all stakeholders to ensure buy-in, adoption and success of customer-focused initiatives.

It will also consider social CRM, discussing how to work with user-driven social communities, practices and platforms, and cut through the hype around social media to get real return on investment.

The event will feature a presentation on how to create a customer-centric enterprise, discussing ways to make the customer the center of the business and IT strategy, processes and culture of the organization.

And there will be a session on understanding the customer, including how to capture, measure and analyze the right customer information to better manage the current and future needs of customers.

Special guest speaker Paul Greenberg, author of the best-selling book 'CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century' and diehard New York Yankees fan, will provide his insights and outlook for social CRM and into social CRM and how to use social media for customer service.