What's Ahead for CRM in 2008?
Top CRM News
What’s Coming in 2008?
Experts predict that this year will bring many exciting things to the CRM marketplace – new trends, new announcements, new products, and much more. So, what can you expect from CRM in 2008?
State of the Market
The CRM market grew an impressive 14 percent last year, according to Gartner, reaching $7.4 billion. The analyst firm is projecting an additional 12.5 percent growth in 2008, with the market topping $8.3 billion by year end.
New Products
• Microsoft CRM Live, which was in beta throughout the latter part of last year, will formally launch in the first half of 2008.
• TigerPaw CRM 10.6 began shipping on January 1st and includes such new features as quote management, project management, and materials management.
• Expect SugarCRM 5.5 to appear in the middle of this year, according to company CEO John Roberts. The new release will feature some of today’s most advanced Web 2.0 collaborative capabilities.
Key Trends
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 technologies are expected to spark new innovation in the CRM market this year, with companies scrambling to leverage social media to enable the kind of collective intelligence gathering and instant feedback and communication needed to create closer connections with existing and potential customers.
Mashup Services
Some CRM vendors will be working on features that allow customer data to be dynamically recombined with other information.
For example, forecasting accuracy can be enhanced by incorporating credit history reports from third-party sources with the records of prospects that are currently in the pipeline. Or sales reps can better plan their client visits by combining customer addresses with a Google map.
[Photo courtesy of terrainfirma.]
