Firms to rethink CRM in 2002
Gartner analysts predict that firms will shift the focus of their CRM initiatives, concentrating more on balancing personalisation with privacy, and spreading the CRM net wider.
Almost half (four in ten) of the firms that have already installed CRM solutions will rethink them this year, with an emphasis on balancing the need for privacy with increasing pressure to support personalisation. According to Scott Nelson, VP and research area director for Gartner, Inc.: "Enterprises will find that customers want to see why all this data is being gathered, and they will expect the CRM experience to reflect intelligent use of personal data. Otherwise, enterprises will not be in a position to ask for the data at all." He predicts that a rethink of how the data is gathered, how customers can access and control their data, and how firms can safeguard it from others who shouldn't have access to it, will become top business priorities. "Legislation will force this anyway, but in 2002, customers are increasingly going to be demanding it," he adds.
Success stories The poor economic conditions have caused firms to scale down their CRM projects and to focus on saving money rather than on building turnover. Nelson predicts that 2002 will see some case studies of large scale CRM successes emerge - in what may well prove to be the year's most important events in CRM. The industry has been waiting for some "big wins" to emerge: they will clearly help sell the strategy to other, still sceptical, managers.
Spreading the net Gartner forecasts that firms will focus on spreading their use of CRM over the whole workforce by ensuring that they can all use it effectively, and will also spread it outwards to their partners and affiliates, providing customers with a uniformly high level of service in all areas.
Report More detailed analysis on the CRM market is available in the Gartner Spotlight report Gartner Predicts 2002: Customer Relationship Management. This features reports on the outlook for CRM, and provides analysis on how business strategies, behaviours, processes and technologies will evolve. It can be found on Gartner's Web site.
CRM Summit Gartner is also holding a CRM Summit on March 4-6, at the Sheraton Chicago in Chicago. The Summit will provide unbiased analysis of CRM's value for businesses that are seeking to evaluate, reassess or implement CRM technologies and processes. The foundation of the conference will be a case study orientation, conveying the keys to what companies can do to achieve CRM success with measurable results in a reasonable period of time. For more information or to register for the event, go to www.gartner.com/us/crm.
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