India missed out on the first phase of CRM adoption

As the SaaS model gained momentum during recession, how

is the Indian SaaS CRM market doing?



We are currently offering two SaaS models to our consumersthe on-premise

model and the on-demand model. Unlike others, we align our solutions to the

customer requirements and their business strategy, and do not necessarily push

the on-demand or the on-premise model per se. In India, we are doing well with

Siebel CRM in the B2C market while CRM on demand is picking up in the B2B

market. CRM is in demand since people are now seeing products as a commodity.

The only differentiating factor is your relationship with the customer. In the

Indian market, the strategy is to increase the coverage by increasing the sales

people in the direct model as well as adding new partners for indirect selling.

We have been seeing a lot of traction in the social CRM

space. How is the Indian market developing?



Social CRM for me is the introduction of customer-to-customer relationship;

while CRM was food for business-to-business. The consumer-to-consumer

relationship is extremely crucial for businesses since the consumers trust each

other more. For instance, when one buys a mobile, one would go with the friends

referral first. However, I would like to add here that social CRM is in the

early phase since globally only 3-5% companies are doing social CRM, the rest

are in the waiting mode. In India, it is more of a research project rather than

any actual on-ground implementation. In the Indian context, with growth of the

Indian economy, all companies are benefiting; however, companies are now

increasingly becoming more concerned about their consumers.

While in the mature markets there is a desire to

differentiate, it is not the same here in India. This is because in India there

is a large population and all companies do good business. However, certain

industries like telecom are rapidly losing differentiation, and the existing

players are being challenged by the new incumbents like VoIP players, license

broadband and the new handset players. The situation is more or less similar in

the financial services industry where banking is becoming a commodity, and the

banking companies have to differentiate; but companies do not want to be engaged

in a price war where it leads to loss.

What are the advantages of social CRM?



Companies that can define and maintain social relationships will do well

than others who are unable to manage relationships. While India may have missed

out on the first phase of CRM adoption wherein people mistook CRM for ERP; in

the second phase, people now fully understand CRM and its processes which was

not so in the first phase.

Stuti Das



stutid@cybermedia.co.in