Corporates that view customer relationship management (CRM) implementations as technology projects will never realise a return on investment, says Steve Rogers, VP for Siebel Systems UK and SA.
Speaking at the first local Siebel symposium, held in Johannesburg yesterday, Rogers said there was "lots of speculation around whether people`s investment in CRM has paid off".
Those companies that kicked off CRM projects without a clear business vision would probably never see any real benefits, he said. "You will be staggered how many CRM projects do not have a clear vision."
Rogers said one of the main objectives of the one-day symposium, which was attended by over 200 delegates, was to address the negative publicity around CRM. Many CRM projects had delivered real value, he said, citing the results of research by the Aberdeen Group into his company`s customer base as an example.
According to a report released by the research house earlier this year, more than 95% of the customers surveyed said they would continue to use their Siebel solutions, while over 90% said they would recommend the solution to others considering a CRM deployment. Almost 90% had experienced a drop in operating expenses of more than 10% since investing in this CRM software.
Discussing Siebel`s current leadership in the CRM space, Rogers said the vendor has "somewhere in excess of 1.5 million users of our software. No one else out there can say that."
Rogers believes there is real room for growth in the South African market. Siebel, he said, would be selling into its existing local customer base, which included over 30 corporates, as well as targeting companies keen to move away from CRM systems that had been developed in-house and were proving expensive to maintain. The vendor would be concentrating on the financial services, telecommunications, government and fast-moving consumer goods sectors.
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