Strong investment in business intelligence, the rise of social media, and the success of cloud-based CRM solutions has been driving a relatively high-rate of investment in CRM technology since the end of the recession. This year, however, the percentage of companies investing in CRM has dropped from the previous few years to a moderate rate.
Figure 1 from our study, CRM Adoption Trends and Customer Experience, shows that the CRM investment rate as only moderate when compared with the investment rates of 15 other technologies in our annual study. Enterprises appear to be digesting investments made in these solutions over the past few years or they may be shifting to technologies that are currently capturing a greater level of investment interest.
The study also finds that the adoption rate for CRM remains high, and customer experience with total cost of ownership and return on investment is strong. In fact, enterprises report higher rates of success with predicting total cost of ownership (TCO) and with reaching at least a break-even return-on-investment point with their investments in CRM. The growing popularity of cloud-based CRM offerings may be improving the ability of adopters to accurately forecast ongoing support costs, making return on investment easier to achieve.
Our CRM profile in Figure 1 is based on comparisons of the adoption rate, investment rate, ROI success rate, and TCO success rate with those of 15 other technologies in our annual survey. The survey involved 209 organizations worldwide and was conducted between Nov. 1, 2013, and Jan. 31, 2014. The comparisons are on a relative scale, and each technology is categorized as having low, moderate, or high rates relative to other technologies in the study.
The full CRM study analyzes the market forces that are driving the increased popularity of CRM systems today. We show the three-year trend in CRM adoption and investment rates, with a breakdown by sector, organization size, and geography. It also shows the actual ROI and TCO success rates for CRM adopters. Finally, we assess CRM investment budgets for new implementations and improvements to existing systems. We wrap up with our recommendations for improving the ROI of CRM.
This Research Byte is a brief overview of our management advisory on this subject, CRM Adoption Trends and Customer Experience. The full report is available at no charge for Computer Economics clients, or it may be purchased by non-clients directly from our website (click for pricing).