Gartner predicts growth in CRM marketplace
The market will continue to grow, but CRM must be implemented as a phased programme that takes near-term "pain points" into account.
The CRM services market reached US$22 billion in 2001, up 10% on the US$19.9 billion achieved in 2000, says Dataquest, a unit of Gartner. The company forecasts that spending will reach US$25.3 billion in 2002 (up 15% on 2001) and US$47 billion by 2006.
Development and integration continued to dominate in 2001, but IT management services and business management services also grew significantly, and are expected to become increasingly important in the overall market for CRM services. Business process management, including contact centre outsourcing in support of CRM solutions, is predicted to show healthy growth in 2002.
From tactical to analytical According to Debashish Sinha, principal analyst for Gartner Dataquest's IT Services programme, the focus of CRM initiatives is expected to turn from operational and tactical CRM initiatives to CRM analytics and business intelligence. Web-based customer support will stabilize, but remain still quite important.
Says Sinha: "The CRM services market will become increasingly challenging for most service providers, and continued success in this market will depend on the vendors' ability to look beyond implementation services and focus on developing CRM strategy and architectures that map with specific process expectations."
Growth from SMB segment One key to the market growth is that the small-to-midsize (SMB) segment is set to grow faster than the broader market, as large enterprises pause to re-evaluate their CRM strategies.
Integrated enterprise architectures, new solution delivery models and an overall reduction in price points for application software will contribute to the wider acceptance of enterprise CRM solutions, especially by the upper mid-market.
Long term view needed Beth Eisenfeld, research director for Gartner, says that CRM solutions must continue to be developed as a comprehensive, enterprise-wide, iterative business strategy. "Service providers must develop a road map for phased implementation of enterprise CRM that begins with a strategy, and in turn is implemented as part of a phased programme that takes into account near-term 'pain points,' but which has a long-term view to execute on the strategy for the enterprise transformation to becoming customer-centric."
More information is available in the Gartner Dataquest report CRM Services Market Size and Forecast, 2001-2006, which provides the outlook for CRM services through the various segments of the industry. For a table of contents or to buy the report, click here and then search on ITES-WW-MS-0111
Summit Gartner is also staging its IT Services and Sourcing Summit 2002 on May 15-17, 2002 at the Rio Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. For more information on the conference, click here.
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