Update

Large customers want to go beyond basic customer service

Like most other enterprise applications segments, CRM too has seen some tough times on the adoption front recently. Rajendra Chaudhary caught up Gerald Prabhu, Executive Director, Strategic Alliance & Marketing of CDC CRM Solutions and asked him about the current market scenario, adoption trends in CRM

Gerald Prabhu, CDC CRM

By and large the overall Enterprise Application Software (EAS) market has suffered significantly and CRM is no exception. Can you tell us how the global melt-down has affected CRM business?

Well, to be quite honest we've seen some fairly mixed signals [for CRM] in the market. As a vendor, traditionally we've focused primarily on the financial services as it presents us with the number of opportunities. And so when we first launched our CRM solution we were rather excited about the boom in the capital market. Right before the recession hit the global economy, we were in talks with several leading financial institutions in the country and were about to receive purchase order from three cusotmers. Unfortunately all those opportunities vanished when cash crunch began. Large customers pulled out of CRM projects and put it in the backburner. Suddenly it became extremely difficult for us to even talk to potential customers. Although we did manage to secure two out of those three projects, we had to do it at a discounted price. It became a customer's market overnight where customers ruled the roost. Additionally the sales cycles have now become extremely long with customers scrutinizing every investment however insignificant it might seem.

But the last 3-4 months have seen a renewed customer interest in CRM solutions. A number of companies have taken time to work on their investment plans going forward and have identified the areas they need to improve upon.

A lot of them have come out with RFPs. SBI Life for instance recently began evaluating a CRM solution. Additionally there are at least three other large public sector banks which are currently hunting for CRM solution. So things have certainly looking up.

What new CRM trends you have witnesses in 2009?

We are currently witnessing the second wave [CRM deployment] where people are looking for capabilities beyond basic customer service. Customers want to know what is happening on the customer engagement front, visibility of the sales pipeline, productivity of sales folks and how sales leads are being distributed so on and so forth? So while customer service remains a key concern of organizations and they want to communicate with their customers in a consistent manner.

So what are the key issues organizations are trying to resolve through CRM?

The burning issues for most companies these days are related to lead management, increasing the productivity of sales force, customer service/ customer retention, and so on. While acquiring new customers is always a priority for organizations, they are trying hard to get their customer information systems right so that accurate and complete information can be made available to those who need it. I think Indian companies still have a long way to go before they can truly reach that goal.

Despite the advances in technology and proven business benefits, why mobile CRM has not been acccepted?

Interestingly, I have been following the global trends for a long time when it comes to enterprise mobility and mobile CRM. I recently came across a study by Springboard Research, which said that India is likely to witness a CAGR of about 21% for the next few years in the enterprise mobility. However, it also said that a majority (nearly 60%) of enterprise mobility initiatives would be limited to mobile email. Several other studies and industry experts have also suggested a similar trend. Making business applications such as CRM available to employees on the field, that too, on their mobile devices is something that is likely to happen towards the end of the second wave of CRM adoption in India. Mobile CRM and Mobile SFA are still limited to larger enterprises with senior executives using their notebooks to perform field tasks. Even they aren't using BlackBerry's or any other smart phones to access these applications and there's good reason why it is so. There are various obstacles hindering the growth of mobile CRM in the country such high CAPEX intensive nature of such engagements, lack of standardized platforms, connectivity issues, security etc.

We aren't likely to go beyond some perfunctory initiatives unless some of these issues are resolved first.

— Rajendra Chaudhary