Gartner Survey Shows CRM Projects in Europe Largely Remain in Place in 2009

Analysts Examine the Next Generation of CRM Technologies at Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit 2009, 3-4 March, in London

Egham, UK, According to a recent survey from Gartner, Inc more than three quarters of respondents in Europe said they are planning to enhance their investments in CRM initiatives in 2009. These projects will focus on improving customer retention and increasing wallet share.

Gartner surveyed nearly 90 European business and IT leaders who influenced the CRM strategy in their organisation in the third quarter of 2008 and carried out a follow up poll in December.

“The responses to this later survey indicated that, as expected, some budgets for CRM initiatives were negatively impacted, but, the latest survey results showed that their earlier budget allocations for CRM initiatives largely remained in place,” said Chris Pang, principal research analyst at Gartner. “It was clear that many projects such as implementation of direct marketing tools, customer analytics, and customer service and support capabilities are too strategically or tactically important to be suddenly abandoned.”

Gartner estimates that CRM spending in 2009 will not decline as dramatically as it did after 2000, but growth will be more moderate than in previous years. It forecasts that the European CRM software market will reach $3.5 billion (€2.4billion) in 2009, an increase of 4 per cent from 2008.

The survey respondents also reported that their primary objectives for their CRM programmes were first, to enhance cross-selling or upselling of products and services, second to increase customer satisfaction and third to increase sales revenue. “These objectives take on added importance in a downturn because the cost and effort needed to sell to existing customers is often less than that for acquiring new ones,” said Mr Pang.

The only area that saw a notable change in emphasis from the two surveys conducted was an increase in efficiency and reducing cost.

In terms of their CRM technology focus, the majority of respondents indicated that they were not currently looking to select new CRM technologies (40 per cent) and were reviewing existing technologies (32 per cent). Many organisations have gone through their first- or second-generation CRM technology implementation and are looking to optimise or move to a newer product to benefit from new functions and business process support for their CRM strategies.

“CRM projects are still of high interest for 2009 and that key concern during this economic downturn is ensuring that approved CRM initiatives are considered a technical and business success,” said Mr Pang.

Gartner analysts will provide additional analysis on the next generation of CRM technologies and techniques during the Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit 2009, 3-4 March, at the Royal Lancaster hotel in London. More information is available on Gartner’s website at www.europe.gartner.com/crm.

Additional information is also available in the Gartner report “Key Themes to Be Addressed at Gartner’s 2009 European CRM Summit.” The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=860626&subref=simplesearch

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