CRMCustomer relationship management applications are widely used by businesses who have large client bases and who do extensive sales. Sales staff need a good crm platform to maximise their sales. These can be email marketing based or sales & database orientated. Both are used by modern businesses to increase sales. In 2002, the worldwide customer relationship management (CRM) applications market actually shrunk 25 per cent from 2001, and major vendors like Siebel and Oracle suffered precipitous declines in licence revenues. The market will recover with vendors whose solutions extend beyond CRM to incorporate whole business processes, which sometimes involve supply chain or financials functionality, are likely to have the upper hand. The key to survival for many could be small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) Penetration of core CRM applications among SMEs in almost all verticals and national markets is low, and there is much room for growth. Penetration of core CRM applications among SMEs in almost all verticals and national markets is low, and there is much room for growth. Large enterprise applications vendors are not well-positioned to take advantage of this growth. The key to success will be the establishment of a pre-packaged, very low-priced product with 80-90 per cent of the functionality of the high-end version. Direct sales into the low-end are therefore prohibitively expensive. It is therefore likely that smaller CRM vendors who focus exclusively on the SME market, and have a lighter sales structure maybe through internet sales, will be in a better position to generate profits from the low-end market.
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