2015 Top CRM Vendors Loose Market Share (2 exceptions)
I pride myself in keeping touch with the CRM technologies, I hit a road block in some aspects since no one tracks CRM market share on a day to day basis.
That’s the reason I look forward to Analyst reports as a way to catch up with the market. You can make a safe bet that Gartner report is the best in that space.
Gartner’s 2015 CRM Report says that the CRM market grew by 13.3% to USD 23.2 Billion in 2014 .
CRM market is growing consistently, and that is not quite unexpected. Gartner says the CRM investments are happening more in -
- Communications, Media and IT Services
- CG
- Banking/Financial Services
Although the spending in the industry is as expected, I was quite surprised with the IT services space. I believe there is a strong CRM work still to be found in that area, but a lot of it will be SaaS and will be gobbled up internally within those organizations.
All CRM vendors hold on to dear life and rankings (or loose them) in 2014. The only notable exceptions are Salesforce and Microsoft - no surprises there.
| Company | 2014 Revenue | 2013 Revenue | 2014 Market Share (%) | 2013 Market Share (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salesforce | 4268.5 | 3330.2 | 18.4 | 16.3 |
| SAP | 2809.4 | 2621.3 | 12.1 | 12.8 |
| Oracle | 2115.2 | 2060.8 | 9.1 | 10.1 |
| Microsoft | 1438.6 | 1181.8 | 6.2 | 5.8 |
| IBM | 873.1 | 792.1 | 3.8 | 3.9 |
| Others | 11681.9 | 10474.7 | 50.4 | 51.1 |
Source: Gartner Report - CRM Software Spending by Vendor, Total Software Revenue Worldwide, 2014 (Millions of Dollars)
The top 10 vendors account for more than 50% of the CRM market. While the market throws up nothing exceptional in 2014, there are couple of things to note about the top two spenders -
Telecom & Media industry is neglected by standard CRM products
Companies assume that a lot of work gets done in B/OSS and a standard CRM product with customizations will suffice.
This cannot be any farther from the truth. Managing customer experience requires consolidation from multiple systems in this space, but there is a tremendous opportunity for cloud vendors.
Siebel has been playing a big role in this vertical for a long time, but the product is held back by its non-SaaS model and its inability to provide quicker time to market.
Moreover, this is the industry that is at the forefront of rapid technology change. Skype/Google Voice may be the largest “telephone” product, consumers increasingly head on to social media rather than approach the support that is stuck in early 2000s, and employees are disgruntled with the systems that do not enable them to quickly/easily sell or service.
Consumer Goods is somewhat same
The CRM stuff in CG does not fit nicely into the standard sales, marketing, and service capabilities that CRM vendors are so proud about. There are a number of activities that do not fit nicely anywhere, and there’s a tonne of things that needs to get done - loyalty, distributor management, social media management, field visits, and even for outsourcing the trade promotion validation
CRM may not be the nicest place to be in if you are an IT service provider looking at projects that span months or years. But the market is open to changes and full of niche products & services that provide ample opportunities for smart developers and organizations.