CRM application suites to provide 90% of required ecosystem capabilities by 2005, says META Group

META Group today announced the availability of its newest METAspectrum evaluation for the CRM application suite market - comprising operational, analytical and collaborative applications that help organisations manage and optimise their customer relationships.

CRM suites enable users to manage customer-related information and data; automate front-office business processes across sales, marketing, and service; optimise customer transactions and interactions; and understand customer behaviour patterns.

"CRM application suites provide a valid and compelling means of jump-starting a broad range of CRM technology initiatives," says Johan Jacobs, Practice Leader at META Group Consulting for Customer Relations Management. "Organisations must rationalise the expanding importance of CRM suites within their CRM portfolios and to the extended enterprise at large, while gaining a clear understanding of market dynamics, economic impact, and the tumultuous vendor landscape."

This year, continued economic pressure will force organisations to refocus CRM programs on "tactical" strategy, which entails smaller, incremental investments with accelerated time-to-value. Concurrently, technical and budgetary challenges will impede CRM upgrades and efforts to consolidate disparate CRM applications and information. However, within the next couple of years, CRM will re-emerge as a non-discretionary initiative, focused on business transformation and revenue attainment, while CRM application suites will evolve to provide 90% of required ecosystem capabilities.

This evaluation looks at 10 vendors: Amdocs, Chordiant, E.piphany, Kana, Onyx, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Pivotal, SAP and Siebel.

Our analysis reveals that vendors must excel equally in presence and performance to succeed. Key presence criteria include awareness and reputation, vision and strategy, industry focus, and business drivers, whereas key performance criteria include technology and products, financials, pricing, and execution.

CRM purchase influencers are spread throughout the organisation, risk tolerance is low, process and technology integration requirements are significant, and adjacent vendors can enter - though not necessarily succeed in - the market.

Despite a challenging 2002 for the CRM sector, CRM excellence continues to require close consideration of people, process, information and technology. CRM application suites provide a broad range of technologies to support implementation of customer lifecycle patterns and CRM processes across the organisation. However, organisations must understand their unique requirements relative to the customer lifecycle and tailor the CRM technology decision accordingly. Value to the organisation continues to be the currency by which CRM success must be judged.