Worldwide Customer Relationship Management Software Market Grew 12.5 Percent in 2012
Salesforce.com passed SAP as the lead vendor in the worldwide customer relationship management (CRM) software market in 2012, according to Gartner, Inc. Total worldwide CRM software revenue totaled $18 billion in 2012, up 12.5 percent from $16 billion in 2011. Vendors benefited from strong demand for software as a service (SaaS), which represented nearly 40 percent of CRM total software revenue in 2012, as organizations of all sizes sought easier-to-deploy alternatives to replace legacy systems.
North America and Western Europe remained the largest regions for CRM, accounting for more than 80 percent of total software revenue, but all regions saw growth. Western Europe's growth was less than one percent, due in part to the strong dollar, which made overall comparisons with prior years difficult. Overall spending in the IT market in Western Europe has been muted because of economic reasons. Areas of growth continued to be in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East and Africa, which saw IT spending for the modernization of countries' infrastructure (utilities, telecommunications, banking and government).
57% of Finance Executives Say their Companies Are ‘Fair’ or ‘Poor’ at Ensuring Big Data and Similar IT Projects Yield Expected Returns
At a time when Big Data and other cutting-edge information technology (IT) is being actively evaluated in boardrooms everywhere, 57% of senior finance executives at large and midsized North American companies say their companies are either “fair” or “poor” at ensuring that such “improve-the-business” IT projects are actually yielding expected financial returns.
The survey also reveals that “keep-it-running” IT costs – non-discretionary support and maintenance systems – are cannibalizing funds available for business-improving IT. A plurality of respondents (49%) estimates that, over the past two years, their company has maintained approximately a 70-30 ratio of keep-it-running to improve-the-business IT spending, and of that amount, a solid majority – 63% – believes that their company’s spending is weighted too heavily toward keep-it-running IT services, and that a greater share should be directed to improve-the-business IT projects. 71% of the executives polled also say their companies should have access to more robust business information for the money spent on IT.
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