What is CRM

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, it is a set of process and procedures to handle customer interaction. Usually within Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service. With each of the processes involving different communication channels and different supporting systems and are today more and more data and insight driven. This forms the contour of a typical CRM system.

If implemented correctly, a CRM system is suppose to provide the following values:

  • Cost reduction through data-driven automated processes
  • Higher sales through up-selling, cross-selling
  • Higher customer satisfaction thus leading to lower churn rate
  • Higher employee satisfaction through automation of redundant tasks and routines

There are plenty of CRM systems today, from niche players who focus on an individual process, to bigger players who builds a whole CRM platform to tackle all CRM related tasks. The biggest CRM players today are: (in the order of market share in 2015)

  • Salesforce
  • SAP
  • Oracle
  • Microsoft
  • IBM

With none of them being dominant since the market leader, Salesforce, only have about 18% of the market share, though the growth rate of market share for Salesforce and Microsoft are twice as fast as the other big players on the list.

Some of the focus area for the CRM platforms in the near future:

  • Cloud support
  • Data analysis
  • Omni-channel support, specially social media
  • Marketing automation

Last but not least, something worth thinking about before purchasing a CRM system:

  • Do you have the support from the executive?
  • Who are the end users (Across the whole organization or just an individual group)?
  • What are the process and routines of the end users?
    • Communication channels
    • Supporting systems involved in process
  • Which processes give us the edge over the competitors?
  • Which processes need improvement?
  • Cost analysis for implementation
    • Monetary
    • Human resource
      • Business analyst
    • Training
  • Cost analysis after implementation
    • Support and maintenance
    • Future upgrade of platform

Leave a comment