"This should really be the heart of a sales organization," says Thomas Abraham, managing director, Sage Software India. Getting the sales team to function in an organized form is a major task for companies, he adds.

Sage has recently launched a new product, Sagecrm.com, which, it believes, will expand its market presence dramatically at a price of Rs 33 per user per day, as salespersons can get started without any investments in hardware and systems administration.

The other area which is making a significant impact is Market-on-Demand. There is Oracles Siebel CRM-on-Demand that delivers a comprehensive set of sales, marketing, and service automation capabilities, with virtually no up-front IT investment at a predictable cost.

Thomas points out that there are exciting trends shaping the Indian CRM market. He says, "Organizations are dumping home grown lead management systems and migrating to scalable options. They have realized the futility of in-house development work."

A case in point is UTI Bank (now rechristened as Axis Bank), which had opened its doors in 1994 after the government issued licenses to private banks. Since its inception, Axis Bank has been one of the prime drivers in exploiting technology within Indias banking sector. In 2001, the institution realized it had to delve deeper into its business to identify problems and opportunities. The following year, Axis Bank went for Oracle Consulting Services to deliver a Product and Strategic Business Unit Profitability Solution based on Oracle Financial Services Applications.

"The solution gave us unprecedented insight into how customers respond to our business, and allowed us to tailor our products and services to target specific groups," says S Harikrishnan, vice president, IT, Axis Bank.

Customer service is another important area covered under the service industries like travel, hospitals, and finance. "Process automation is crucial for organizations to stay in control and keep customers happy," says an industry expert.

For Fortis Healthcare, it was more to do with getting the strategy in place than using technology. The hospital developed an in-house CRM.

"In our industry, the multiple interaction points with a patientfrom the moment he enters the hospital to the point he is dischargedrequire us to be entirely focused," says Fortis spokesperson. "Given the fact that patients are our main customers, we wanted to improve and refine patient experience in our chain of hospitals. To achieve this, we not only had to take care of our patients, but also their families (attendants)," he says.

Pointing out another trend in the Indian CRM market, Thomas says that CRM with ERP is getting popular now. "One single system makes for seamless operations in organizations. This is increasingly true for trading and distribution companies," he says.

He adds, "Integrated CRM systems with lead management, sales, marketing, and customer service that ensure seamless working across customer facing business groups and SAAS model too are catching up with companies newly embarking on their CRM journey."

Further, with mobility picking up as a business trend, Mobile CRM with client-based applications on blackberry and pocket PC or browser-based access from windows mobile platform is also picking up.

Overcoming Challenges
CRM, obviously, is not new to any part of the world and in any vertical the nature of challenges is not fundamentally different, says Agarwala. "Basic fallacies exist pertaining to how it is viewed. The premise that CRM can be implemented quickly, as it is a technology function, and that it will solve business development problems, are both not true."

He adds, "CRM, like ERP, needs complete clarity on its objectives. Unless there is clarity across the entire organization, CRM will not be seen as a success, simply because the goals are not clear."

Agarwala says, "While hard data for the unrealized potential of the CRM market in India is not available as the market is still at its early growth stage. But, growth rate should accelerate in the next couple of years."

On the whole, vendors and analysts feel that sky is the limit for the CRM market. Thomas says, "In India, we have only scratched the surface in CRM adoption while the market has huge potential, and at present we just see a certain level of maturing in various industries." Many companies have also completed their ERP implementations and are now gearing up for CRM, he adds.

"We expect the adoption to get accelerated in a number of ways," says Thomas: mobility enabled CRM, SAAS model to lower entry barriers, CRM plus ERP integrated offering, and CRM integrated with entry level accounting solutions are just some ways to go forward.

Urvashi Kaul
urvashik@cybermedia.co.in

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