One of the most significant trends is on-demand CRM

As the core of the businesses are becoming consumer-driven, the need of
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has anticipated by several vendors and
solution providers. Among the varied benefits that are derived through
automation and synchronization are, streamline of sales and marketing activities
and processes; improved service support and customer retention; up-selling and
cross-selling of products; and reduction in expenses. Market trends clearly show
a business inclination towards CRM solutions. Springboard Research estimates the
growth of SaaS CRM market at a CAGR of

61 percent between 2006 and 2010. While in Asia, it is expected to reach US$460
million by 2010. In addition, the SMB segment is increasingly adopting CRM tools
and solutions.

In a conversation with the DQ Channles, Subhomoy Sengupta, Group Director,
Microsoft Business Solutions said that the changing dynamics in the industry
builds customer loyalty and generates business from the existing customers. "One
of the most significant trends in the CRM market is on-demand CRM which focuses
on small- and medium-sized business. Running on the core cloud principle, CRM
on-demand will allow ease-of-use of CRM software enabling organizations to get
up and running quickly and cost-effectively with the flexibility to meet the
unique needs of any business," he said.

The new age marketing aims at winning customers and to forever making CRM an
imperative need, primarily for the services industries which are data intensive.
Some of the emerging sectors include BFSI, BPOs, retail, telecom and government.
According to Sengupta, businesses today are seeking tools, which will give them
great returns in terms of productivity with faster ROI. "Mobile sales force
applications lead to cost saving as well as quicker access to relevant
information to businesses. The reasons for the adoption of sales force
automation in India primarily springs from the fact that mobile penetration in
India is amongst the highest in the world, "he said.

"Microsoft believes that the sales force, which is mostly mobile can function
best if supported by a tool which will give access to relevant customer
information at the right time. For organizations in India, Mobile Express is a
Web-based mobile access solution for Microsoft Dynamics CRM that provides access
to CRM data and functionality anywhere, any time, on any device and is available
to customers at no cost," said Sengupta. Some of the key benefits that licensed
CRM offers include superior integration capabilities with other systems and
complete control over data. "Microsoft Dynamics has a host of specialized
dynamics partners, which support in the critical process of verticalization and
deliver the last mile on the solutions. Currently, there are 120 dynamics
partners in the country," he added.

According to Thomas Abraham, Managing Director of Sage India, SMB segment has
starting taking up CRM now at a faster rate. "Some of the areas where we see
traction include, hosted CRM, mobility-based applications that uses low cost
devices, vertical solutions, niche areas like service management, integrated CRM
and ERP solutions, entry level CRM and contact management options, basic
analytics built into the CRM and integration with social media," he said.
Abraham also believes that there is very good opportunity for Mobile CRM.
According to him, the focus has to be on simplicity of the application, ability
to port the application on low cost devices and ensure usage by sales and
service teams. "Adoption would be faster where this becomes a core application
like service management, wherein field service reps will necessarily need to use
this for updating their daily service reports. For sales organizations, the
utility will be maximum with SMS-based applications for lead management to start
with," he told.

The company has over 50 partners in India with about 15 partners for CRM.
Many of them have built up domain expertise that helps them to penetrate
relevant segments faster. "These are implementation partners with capabilities
in sales, pre-sales, consulting, customization and implementation. Our partners
also have expertise in handling large projects where integration with legacy
systems is important. There are also skill sets available for providing
end-to-end solutions with ERP CRM and payroll," he said.

"Many of our current partners are scaling up their organizations and entering
new markets in terms of verticals and geographies. We are looking at several
areas to expand our CRM presence. For instance, we are entering the hosted CRM
market with a fully customizable offering at an affordable price. We are also
pushing the entry level market to accelerate our installed base growth. We have
started piloting projects with low cost handhelds," said Abraham. According to
him, the company has a unique proposition with CRM and ERP integrated and has no
competition in the SNB space with this proposition. We will continue to expand
with that offering.

Muntazir Abbas

muntazira@cybermedia.co.in