Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software packages are designed to help companies manage their relationships and activities with current and prospective customers. A typical CRM implementation might include tools related to sales force automation, data mining/sales analytics, campaign management, marketing automation, and other key features.  

MAPI surveyed our Marketing and e-Business Councils to understand how members are using CRM, and where they’ve found success as well as roadblocks.  Highlights from the 32 responses include: 

      A little over half of respondents (52%) currently use a 3rd party CRM program, and 10% use a homegrown system. 

      26% of respondents don’t currently use CRM but are considering it. 13% don’t use CRM and have no plans to use it.

      40% of respondents currently using a 3rd party CRM program use Salesforce.com.  33% use one of several SAP products. The remaining 27% use CRM provided by other providers such as Sage Group (SalesLogix), Selltis, Infor (Epiphany), or Oracle.

      Most members are either very satisfied (17%) or somewhat satisfied (61%) with the results delivered by their CRM system.  We didn’t see evidence that members who use specific products were particularly more or less satisfied than their peers.

      CRM received the highest marks in driving account and contact management, channel management and segmentation, and lead and campaign management.  Lower marks were received for quotation management, data mining, and commission management. 

      The greatest CRM-related challenge was internal resistance to change, and the most minor challenge was high software costs.

      When asked about productivity gains from CRM, half of the respondents felt that there have been gains, although they haven’t measured this.   A third of respondents didn’t know if their CRM software has improved productivity.

      Just over half of respondents plan to upgrade their CRM system at some point in the future.

      For members who are planning to upgrade, half are planning to hold off until 2010 (or later), and 29% are uncertain due to the economic environment.  21% are planning a CRM upgrade in 2009.

Recommendations for deriving value from CRM include starting slowly with a clear owner and well-trained employees. Challenges encountered by members include inconsistent use, lack of a long-term CRM plan, and integrating with existing ERP platforms.

The MAPI Marketing and e-Business Councils are networking and benchmarking forums for senior executives from larger, global manufacturers. For information on membership, please contact us.