The focus on customer relationship management (CRM) solutions has continued to be at the forefront for most organizations over the last several years, and is the top priority of IT spending in 2014, according to a Computer Economics study published this spring. The near-term future looks just as bright, with CRM spending due to surpass ERP spending by 2017, according to Gartner. That’s a greater than 15 percent compounded annual growth rate in the five-year period between 2012 through 2017.
Why is CRM spending increasing at such a rapid rate? Quite simply, organizations are seeing substantial return on investment from their customer-focused initiatives in both hard and soft dollars. Spending forecasts, especially IT spending forecasts, are always tough to project out much beyond five-year windows, but the underlying trends supporting customer-based solutions are solid.
If you are researching customer solutions for your own organization, I would strongly suggest you start with the companies listed in the following pages. Also make sure to visit our Web site, destinationCRM.com, to see their full listings and all of the editorial coverage they’ve garnered from the editors of CRM magazine over the years. Many of these companies will also be exhibiting at our conferences, CRM Evolution and Customer Service Experience, this August in New York. If you’d like to attend either of the conferences or just visit the exhibit floor, email me and I’ll send you a special publisher’s discount.
Have a great summer!
Best regards,
Bob Fernekees
Vice President/Group Publisher
CRM Media, a division of Information Today, Inc.