Customer Relationship Management (CRM) beat out database management systems (DBMSs) to become the highest software revenue market in 2017 and will continue to lead in 2018, with a growth rate of 16 per cent, making it the fastest-growing software market this year, according to Gartner, Inc.
Worldwide CRM software revenue reached $39.5 billion in 2017, compared to DBMS revenue at $36.8 billion.
Julian Poulter, Gartner research director, attributed the strong growth rate of CRM software revenue to the areas of lead management, voice of the customer, and field service management, each of which is achieving more than 20 per cent growth.
Gartner reports that there has been a general increase in both marketing technology and sales technology in the CRM market and that, while the growing market is attracting a significant number of new entrants, existing major vendors are also showing above average growth and successfully cross-selling additional modules to their customers.
“Organisations are keen to avoid silos of information and to obtain a 360 degree view of the customer, said Poulter. “The 360-degree view allows better application of artificial intelligence to make the users of the CRM system more effective.”
CRM poses GDPR non-compliance risks
Gartner is predicting that the cost of GDPR compliance will increase the existing budget for information security, CRM and customer experience in the next three years. The research firm identified marketing technology, data loss prevention, security information and event management, and security consulting, especially in Western Europe, as key areas for technology investment. Gartner noted that, since CRM systems typically contain vast amounts of personal data that is kept for considerable lengths of time, they may be a more likely source of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) noncompliance than other systems.
“It is critical that organisations are compliant with GDPR as soon as possible, or at the very latest May 25, because when customers don’t trust an organisation’s customer data protection, they put their own safeguards in place, like providing false data or closing accounts,” said Gartner research director, Bart Willemsen, explaining the risk.
“This reduces an organisation’s chances of reaching the right customers with the right offers at the right time,” he said.
“Poor CRM will lead to a privacy violation and a GDPR sanction. Application leaders need to enhance control over personal data usage throughout the data life cycle and safeguard processed personal data so that it is not used beyond the context of predefined and documented use cases,” said Willemsen.
