Customer Relationship Management

This segment is witnessing some very interesting trends. While the number of

users who currently own a CRM solution remains the same as last year, there

seems to be a lot of demand for CRM software in the market. As compared to las

year, double the number of respondents said that they're likely to choose a CRM

software brand. This is obviously very good for all the key players in this

market.   But there's some bad news also. The top of mind recall for some of the

brands has come down as compared to last year, and has gone up considerably for

some. Maybe that's why last year, we had four brands competing for users'

mindshare. This year, only two players are left-SAP and Oracle. The other two

Microsoft, and Ramco didn't get sufficient votes to make it to the club. Maybe

the other brands have not been as active as SAP and Oracle in this segment. In

case of SAP and Oracle, we've noticed considerable improvement in their

positions.

Of the two brands, the most future ready brand continues to be SAP, which

makes it this year's winner of Users' Choice award. The brand has also

considerably improved its brand persuasion situation over last year and remains

on top of the relative brand persuasion index. The same goes for its brand pull

as well, and while it was loosing pull last year (more users switching out than

switching in), this year it's been gaining pull. The brand has even gained more

loyalty amongst its existing users. While it stood at 27% last year, this year,

it's gone up to a whopping 67%. It does have 26% existing users, who're not sure

which brand to switch to.

If SAP is moving at 100, then Oracle's speed is 52%, which is quite a gap.

Nevertheless, this brand has also improved its performance as compared to last

year. Oracle seems to have done a lot of work to improve its brand persuasion

(ratio of top of intention to purchase and top of mind recall). Basically, a lot

more users said they're likely to go for Oracle CRM as compared to last year.

The same goes for its brand pull situation. Last year it was loosing pull, while

this year it's been gaining on it. Its brand loyalty has improved from 19% last

year to a whopping 56%. Of concern however is the brand shift. Last year, only

11% of its existing users said they're likely to switch to another brand. This

year, the figure has gone up to 26%.

Another point worth noting here is that there are many other Oracle owned

brands that still have a high recall value, and are being considered by users.

These include Peoplesoft and JD Edwards. On their own, they don't have

sufficient votes to enter the club, but anybody who choose their solution is

obviously giving the business to Oracle. As we're analyzing various brands and

not companies, we've kept all those votes separate.