Economic Outlook: Customer Relationships Management (Market Focus)

As the increasing number of organizations understands the importance of positive customer experiences and strong customer relationships, the market for CRM applications continues to expand. In this brief, Datamonitor provides an analysis of the main trends affecting the market and advises vendors on how to respond to the changing market conditions.



Report Highlights
Customer relationship management (CRM) applications are a crucial element of enterprise application portfolio. Despite relatively high penetration rate of CRM solutions, the market is not maturing and the outlook for vendors is positive: investment, adoption and product revenues are all set to rise. Enterprises still list strategic issues as the top inhibitors. Issues such as solution complexity, high total cost of ownership and lack of strategic support of CRM installations are causing enterprises to be cautious when considering or deploying CRM solutions. The market is increasingly segmented along the enterprise size axis. In such market deployment and go-to-market strategies are crucial. On-demand solutions have emerged as credible alternative to traditional on-premise solutions. Although this method does address certain adoption inhibitors, CRM on-demand alone can not transform the market.


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DATAMONITOR VIEW 1
CATALYST 1
SUMMARY 1
ANALYSIS 2
Market definition 2
Enterprise applications support CRM methodologies 2
Second wave of CRM? 3
Market development 4
CRM penetration and investment are related to the enterprise size 5
Market trends 7
Market conditions 7
Nurturing relationships, not capturing transactions 7
The public sector: citizens or constituents can be served using CRM methodologies 7
CRM market trends: drivers and inhibitors to CRM adoption 7
The market is still apprehensive following early CRM implementations 7
Business process issues can block deployment of CRM 8
Total cost of ownership can be high and return on investment (ROI) unclear 8
Transaction-focused CRM can not capture the complexity of customer relationships 8
CRM is converging with communication technologies 8
Basic CRM functionality is improving 9
Vendors are streamlining user interfaces 9
Enterprise application suites drive CRM adoption 9
On-demand CRM 9
Subscription-based licenses and hosted architecture can address certain inhibitors to CRM adoption 9
Lack of robust functionality and service availability are perceived as obstacles to adoption 10
The on-demand CRM market is increasingly competitive 10
Market trends favor hybrid on-demand / on-premise solutions 11
CRM go-to-market strategies 12
Optimal vertical strategy depends on vendor positioning 12
On-demand CRM emerges as a cornerstone of SME go-to-market strategy 13
Market size 15
The CRM market will continue to expand during the next five years 15
SMEs will drive CRM adoption but large enterprises will still account for the majority of the revenues 16
The rate of growth within the Telecommunications, Public Sector and Healthcare sectors will accelerate 17
SUMMARY 18
APPENDIX 19
Definitions 19
Methodology 19
Further reading 19
Ask the analyst 19
Datamonitor consulting 19
Disclaimer 20

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Table 1: Which of the following technologies do you currently have or use, and which would you have in six months and 24 months time? 5
Table 2: Which of the following technologies do you currently have or use, and which would you have in six months and 24 months time? - CRM responses only by enterprise size (no. of employees) 6
Table 3: How important are the following criteria when selecting CRM solutions? Please rate on scale from 1 to 4 (where 4 = extremely important, and 1 = not important at all 13
Table 4: Datamonitor's CRM revenue model ($ millions, product license and maintenance revenues) 16
Table 5: Datamonitor's CRM revenue model ($ millions, product license revenues only) - by enterprise size 17


Figure 1: Customer relationship management (CRM) process cycle 2
Figure 2: CRM application stack and adjacent modules 3
Figure 3: Despite high penetration rate, many enterprises are planning to invest in CRM in the next two years 4
Figure 4: CRM investment and penetration levels are related to the enterprise size 5
Figure 5: IT decision makers believe vertical specialization is the least important factor in solution selection 12
Figure 6: The CRM market is set for significant growth over the next five years 15
Figure 7: Small and medium enterprises will be of increasing importance 16

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