As part of our mission to help companies make the best software selection decisions. The goal was to answer some of the critical questions that companies should ask themselves before embarking on this business task.
2. TABLE OF
CONTENT
CRM MARKET 2020
• CRM Market by Numbers
• CRM Buyers survey
• Who looking for CRM and Why?
• Why CRM is important and how does
market define
• Buyers behaviour
• Ready to invest in CRM
• Change of the CRM selection Process
• Looking for in a CRM system
• Cloud vs on-premise
• CRM Vendor in a Crowded and
Competitive Marketplace
• Conclusion
3. CRM Market by numbers
The CRM industry has been booming for the past several years, and the growth is
expected to continue. Here are some fast facts about the state of the CRM market in
2019.
$48.2B Global spending on CRM in 2018
75% Forecasted percentage spend on SaaS CRM
in 2019
$80B The projected CRM market worth by 2025
41.2% Combined market share of the top 5 CRM
vendors
19.5% Marker share held by Salesforce in 2018
4. CRM buyers survey
As part of our mission to help companies make the best software selection decisions. The goal
was to answer some of the critical questions that companies should ask themselves before
embarking on this business task.
Questions like:
1. Given the large number of CRM software vendors, each proposing and offering
what they consider to be the best product in the marketplace, what’s the most
helpful strategy to align the company’s needs and priorities to the CRM products
and their multiple features and functionalities?
2. How can research conducted within and by the company help in this effort to
select the best possible CRM product?
3. Who, in the company, should be assigned to spearhead the selection process?
Including the specific functionalities that would best serve the company’s
objectives?
4. How much time should be allotted to this selection process? Or should the
process be fluid, allowing it to develop and finalize its goal without fear of meeting
a deadline?
5. WHO looking for CRM and WHY?
Eighty-four percent of the companies surveyed have under 1,000 employees, with the greatest
concentration found between 1 and 500 employees.
Fig 1: Breakdown by number of employees
6. Cont.: WHO looking for CRM and WHY?
Seventy-five percent also have an annual revenue between $1 and $50 million, with a
concentration of 58% between $1 and $10 million. Together, these demographics reveal
that 70% of companies have an annual revenue ceiling of $50 million and an average of
between 0 and 500 employees with a maximum of 1,000 employees.
Fig 2: Respondent breakdown by annual revenue
7. Cont.: WHO looking for CRM and WHY?
The breakdown of companies in
business sample, by industry, is as
follows: services represent the
majority at 32%, followed by
information technologies(IT)and
manufacturing, both at 13%.
As a point of clarification, many of
the manufacturing companies that
have an ERP system expressed
the concern that the CRM
features available in their ERP
solution were inadequate and
opted to purchase a dedicated
CRM system.
Fig 3: Respondent breakdown by industry
8. Why Is This Important?
The most common way of defining business categories is by the number of employees and
annual revenue. For SMBs, the number of employees ranges from 0-999, and they have an
annual revenue between $5 million and $10 million.
When it comes to choosing technology solutions that best fit your particular
business, understanding how your business is classified is important. This is why
many technology solutions are built with business classifications in mind and
have features and pricing that correlate to these business classifications.
Example: As such, let’s consider the following: small and medium-sized
businesses (SMBs), are the backbone of the U.S. economy. They make up 99%
of all firms, employ close to half (47.5%) of the private sector workforce and
generate 1.9 million net new private sector jobs according to the SBA’s 2018
Small Business Profile.
9. How Does the Market Define This Category
of Businesses?
When its comes define this category of business it first comes in mind; Do you understand
your customers?
The relationships that you cultivate with your customer base will determine your company’s
level of success. And, as with any important relationship, its level of success will depend
heavily upon how well you know one another. But unlike most personal relationships, the
company-customer relationship is one that may feel a bit lopsided. After all, most clients don’t
have to work very hard to learn about your business; everything that they might want to know
is likely readily available..
The benefits of CRM mean never having to worry about incomplete data.
• CRM helps turn you into an improved informational organization.
• Elevate your communication with CRM.
• CRM means improved customer service.
• CRM can help automate everyday tasks.
• CRM means greater efficiency for multiple teams.
• CRM leads to improved analytical data and reporting.
10. Enterprise Software Selection Myths
selecting and implementing a new Enterprise solution can confound even the most
experienced IT professional. It’s this confusion that leads to many of the myths and
fallacies surrounding Enterprise software selection.
Here’s a quick reality check as you embark on your Enterprise software selection project:
• The Cost of an Enterprise Software Should be the Biggest Factor
• Enterprise software Selection Should be Entirely Managed by the IT
Department
• Enterprise software Selection Should be Entirely Managed by Consultants
• The More Enterprise software Functionality, the Better
• The Research Phase Ends When You Contact a Vendor
11. Buyer Behavior: A Guide to the CRM Selection
Process
The graph below (Figure 4) represents the distribution of the software and tools used by
companies to cover important CRM functions.
Fig 4: Distribution of the solutions currently used by respondents
12. Ready to Invest in CRM
The graph below (Figure 5) is a shopping list of grievances (in order of importance) that the
companies surveyed have given as reasons to invest in a CRM solution.
Figure 5: List of features that drove companies to CRM
13. Who’s in Charge of the CRM Selection Process?
Responsibility for selection appears to be anchored both to position in the company and to the company size.
For companies with an annual revenue below $50 million, the selection was largely in the hands of the
president or CEO at 20%, followed by sales at 15%.
For companies with an annual revenue over $50 million, the CEO’s role dropped to 2%, while IT most
commonly headed the search at 30%, followed by marketing at 15%.
Fig 6: Breakdown of individuals responsible for
CRM selection, per business role
Fig 7: Breakdown of individuals responsible for CRM
selection, per business role and per company revenue,
less than and greater than 50 million
14. Companies Looking for in a CRM System
All the basic functions (as identified in our graph) that make CRM run smoothly and efficiently were
rated highly by respondents. Technology, an equally important component, shows a little more
variance, with automation and integration identified as the most important features (Figure 8
below).
Fig 8: Top 5 functional and technical requirements outlined
by respondents
15. Delivery Models – Cloud vs On-Premise
Cloud CRM (also called CRM cloud) refers to any CRM technology where the software and accompanying
customer data is housed in the cloud and is accessible via the internet.
Alternatively, on-premise CRM software is installed on your own servers and controlled and maintained in-
house.
Fig 9: Delivery models preferred by respondents
A survey results revealed a definite preference
for the cloud delivery model at 99% of
respondents. However, 43% of those were also
willing to consider the on-premise model. Only
one company expressed exclusive interest for
on-premise delivery (refer to Figure 9).
16. A more in-depth analysis of the delivery model preferences isn’t surprising and appears to emphasize the
following:
•SMBs, on the whole, are more likely to choose the cloud delivery model, the more obvious reasons being
lower cost and greater flexibility.
•The percentage of SMBs considering both options (cloud and on-premise) is 20%, but 80% want cloud only.
Delivery Models – Cloud vs On-Premise
Medium to large companies show a
greater propensity to consider both
models (64%). This is supported, in
part, by the fact that many of them
have larger IT departments and IT
infrastructure in place that can be
used to support an on-premise CRM
(refer to Figure 10).
Fig 10: Delivery model preferences by company size
17. CRM Vendor in a Crowded and Competitive
Marketplace
The results below outline our client survey responses to questions about vendor viability and
provide a point of departure with which to analyze them.
Fig 11: Comparison of the most used and the most
considered vendors
18. CRM Vendor in a Crowded and Competitive
Marketplace
• Microsoft CRM has historically catered to
the SMB market, they are steadily
extending their reach to the global
enterprise market.
• SAP and Oracle are the primary
competitors to Microsoft CRM in the
medium and large company category,
• Zoho’s web-based CRM is designed to
offer a low cost and quick CRM software
solution, including providing a free trial
model and starting solution.
• HubSpot CRM is also promoting the
simple-to-use, low-cost model but is
additionally marketing itself as a CRM
platform that allows sales teams to
regroup quickly by not significantly
changing their existing workflow.
Fig 12: Top 5 vendors by company size (in order of
importance)
19. The number of respondents in the ‘other’ category is
quite high, at 21% of total respondents. This
category’s market share is larger than that of
Microsoft. On reflection, however, this number is
possibly another indication of the market’s abundant
number of products and its turn towards consumer-
friendly models (detailed in Figure 13).
Smaller vendors are more and more addressing
consumer needs by creating quasi niche solutions
for many business scenarios, attracting many
smaller and first-time buyers.
CRM Vendor in a Crowded and Competitive
Marketplace
Figure 13: Some of the other vendors
mentioned by companies (in alphabetical
order)
20. Conclusion
• An investment in the time and resources needed to make a sound and fruitful software
selection makes good business sense. While the average lifespan of a CRM product may
be less than other software investments, purchasing an efficient system that enhances
business productivity is worthwhile.
• the overwhelming propensity was to focus on completing the task as quickly as possible
without much thought for the outcome.
• An inclusive process that listens to as many stakeholders as possible is always best, but
keeping a close eye on the features and functionalities that best meet your company’s
priorities and business goals is critically important.
