Companies feel CRM will yield high RoI: IDC

BANGALORE: Indian organizations, irrespective of their size, recognize

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as an important tool to achieve high

return on investment. They perceive CRM as an essential tool to automate their

customer relationship components. This has been the conclusion of a study on the

CRM market in India, conducted by IDC India.

According to the study, at 70 per cent, there is a high level of awareness of

the CRM concept among large organizations (more than 500 employees). In the

Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) segment (less than 500 employees), the

awareness level stood at 25 per cent. However, amongst those who are aware, CRM

is rated high on the Return on Investment (RoI) perception scale across both

SMEs and large organizations. This reflects the inherent need of the

organizations to automate their customer relationship component, pointed out IDC

India in a release. The ‘ROI’ perception is highest amongst medium-sized

organizations.

With respect to willingness to adopt the CRM concept, amongst SME

organizations, only one out of three that were aware of the CRM concept would

actually adopt it. Among large organizations, three out of the seven who were

aware would adopt the CRM concept. However, once educated about the CRM concept,

about 7 per cent of the ‘unaware’ and ‘aware but non-intending’

organizations across both SMEs and large enterprises, have indicated their

willingness to adopt the CRM concept. This in terms of absolute number of

organizations turns out to be very high for SMEs, said the release.

SMEs willing to adopt CRM have indicated ‘acquisition of new customers’,

‘improved customer service’ and ‘access to international markets’ as the

major drivers. Among large organizations, ‘creation of sales knowledge base’,

‘improved turn-around time’ and ‘enhanced corporate image’ have been

indicated as drivers for their willingness to adopt CRM. Organizations have laid

more stress on extrinsic factors such as ‘acquisition of new customers’, ‘improved

customer service’ and others rather than intrinsic factors as need drivers for

CRM. This indicates that organizations perceive a high degree of implication

that would bear upon their business while going in for a CRM solution.

The CRM market in the country is still in the ‘educate, test and try’

stage. While SME organizations stand to gain by adopting the standalone

module-wise implementation, large corporates look at integrating the entire

value chain of their organization.

‘Customer care and support’ has emerged as the most preferred CRM module

among SME organizations willing to adopt the CRM concept. The second most

preferred module is ‘marketing automation’. Among large organizations, ‘pre-sales

management’ has been indicated as the most preferred CRM module, followed by

‘sales management’.

According to IDC India, the study covered the top eight cities in the country

and was based on seven in-depth interviews with CRM software, services and

e-customer services vendors. Approximately 1,400 SMEs and 266 large corporates

were interviewed for the study.