Two clear leaders set to dominate enterprise CRM software

Those names are Oracle and SAP. “Although the CRM applications market is very competitive and there are plenty of players who can challenge the current leaders in specific circumstances, only two vendors, Oracle and SAP, can be considered market leaders,” says Vuk Trifkoviæ, technology analyst at Datamonitor and author of its latest report, released today. Its study, Decision Matrix: Selecting a CRM Vendor, assesses the strengths and weaknesses of leading CRM vendors in what it estimates to be a global market likely to hit $6.6 billion by 2012 for CRM application licenses. It provides a decision matrix to help businesses select vendors based on their technology strength, reputation among customers and impact in the market. Conclusions, it says, are based on a quantitative assessment of end-user sentiment, the capabilities of the associated business intelligence solutions on offer and technology features. According to Datamonitor both Oracle and SAP provide: “Complete solutions replete with functionality, integrate CRM with new communication technologies and offer full flexibility of deployment options, from conventional on-premise, through to variations of hosted and on-demand solutions.” The analyst also says that Oracle should be considered the clear leader in CRM. “Having augmented its CRM product line through the acquisition of Siebel and PeopleSoft, Oracle now commands an incredible portfolio of CRM solutions,” it asserts. Datamonitor’s analysis reveals that Oracle Siebel CRM sets the quality standards in terms of technology and execution – although it also says that Oracle E-Business Suite CRM and Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM may be more suitable, “depending on the functional requirements, specific sector demands and the deployment environment required”. “Oracle’s CRM offering will be improved both through incremental best-of-breed feature cross-fertilization and its ambitious project of re-engineering completely new solution based on its Fusion platform,” says Trifkoviæ. As for competitors, he points to Chordiant, Infor and Salesforce.com as principal challengers, saying: “All offer very good solutions but lack certain elements to compete consistently with the leading duo. More importantly, this group of the market will become more competitive if Microsoft’s forthcoming Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 release is a success, or if vendors such as RightNow Technologies and Consona improve their standing.” And he adds: “Given the increasing competitiveness in the second tier of the market and the advances of the market leaders, it is safe to assume that market leadership will continue with Oracle, and probably SAP. The rest of the field will produce some very good alternatives, but not an outright market leader.”