Hum Aapke Hain Kaun

Bollywood buffs will remember the 1994 Hindi blockbuster, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, for three reasons: One, for its 14 songs, most of them highly popular. Two, for its unusual length at 3.5 hours, the longest reel time of any film in the 1990s. And three, for its box office bonanza which raked in about `300 crore. The title, which translates as Who am I to you? won the 1994 Filmfare award for best film, best director, and for best actress in a leading role.

This column is not about the movie but about customers asking the rhetorical question, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, to IT vendors and service providers. Thats because even if customers supposedly come first for most companies and have prominent mentions on corporate mission statements, most companies have not taken a deep interest in how customer relationships are managed.

Is that changing? Yes. There is a sudden surge of interest in CRM (customer relationship management) solutions. In fact, CRM has become so crucial to companies that IDC has launched what it claims is the industrys first global tracker to cover CRM apps in 13 of the largest country markets. And a poll of 1,500 CIOs in 40 countries by Gartner revealed that spending on CRM software is set to see the largest increase among all apps software this year.

Cloud-based CRM major Salesforce.com has forecast full-year revenues to exceed $2 bn for the first time due to strong demand for its CRM software. While it took us a decade to achieve our first $1 bn, we anticipate reaching $2 bn just 3 years later, CEO Marc Benioff says.

The global market for CRM solutions is worth more than $16 bn. IDC says revenues in H1 2010 crossed $8.5 bn, up 13% year-on-year. Of that, the marketing segment rose 16% in H1 2010, with revenues reaching $1.6 bn worldwide. The Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) was the fastest growing region with y-o-y growth of 28.2% in H1 2010.

According to Gartner, most CRM buyers are focusing on solutions that help retain customers and enhance customer experience and are seriously exploring CRM on SaaS (software as a service) as a delivery platform. SaaS adoption within the CRM industry may exceed $4 bn in software revenues by 2014, representing more than 32% of the overall CRM market, Gartner says.

The convergence of CRM and SaaS has given a great boost to Salesforce.com which added 19,800 net paying customers for its year-ended Jan 31, 2011. On Jan 6, the company bought Dimdim Incwhich offers real-time communication technologies such as presence and messagingfor $31 mn. And on Jan 3 it acquired Heroku, a privately held firm that powers 110,000 apps written in Ruby, a language for cloud computing platforms.

Whichever way vendors connect with customers, there is no doubt that loyal customers are like close relatives who need to be nurtured and treasured. Thus, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun is what every vendor needs to check every time with every loyal customer.

And finally, heres some trivia: Hum Aapke Hain Kaun was made under the Rajshri banner that starred Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit, and was directed by Sooraj Barjatya. The movie was in fact a remake of a 1982 movie called Nadiya Ke Paar, also made under the Rajshri banner that starred Sachin and Sadhana Singh, and was produced by Soorajs grandfather, Tarachand Barjatya.