destinationCRM.com: What's in Store for '04?
by Martin Schneider
...As the New Year approaches, some wonder what 2004 has in store for the CRM industry. Industry pundit Barton Goldenberg, president and founder of CRM consultancy firm ISM, Inc., predicts a lot of positive momentum on the horizon for the industry.
...This past year was one full of major mergers: PeopleSoft acquired J.D. Edwards, Siebel Systems acquired UpShot, Pivotal Corporation merged with chinadotcom, Best Software announced plans to acquire ACCPAC. Goldenberg says the consolidation trend will continue into 2004.
Another hot spot in the coming year will be continued explosion of Web-services. "CRM Web services applications will blossom in 2004, and Microsoft will substantially increase its promotional budget for both Web services and .NET initiatives," Goldenberg says.
While the Do-Not-Call list may have sparked fear in the hearts of telemarketers, Goldenberg says that the legislation will prove a boon for permission-based direct marketing solutions providers in 2004. "This in turn will generate new and impressive enhancements in the marketing automation component of CRM software," Goldenberg says.
Other hot trends in 2004 include the emergence of CRM in the social networking space, especially in the sales field; further acceptance of the hosted CRM model as a viable CRM strategy; and 30 to 40 percent growth in the number of companies operating as true real-time enterprises, according to Goldenberg...
K-Collector Topics: Explosion Listings Social networks Web Services Microsoft Siebel