CRM goes Mobile

Attracting new customers and
retaining the existing ones is the foremost need of any enterprise business.
That is where customer relationship management (CRM) strategies are playing a
pivotal role as they facilitate enterprises to manage and nurture their
interactions with customers vis-à-vis sales prospects. CRM strategies now rely
on various technologies to organize, automate, and synchronize business
processes that include not only sales related activities, but also customer
service and technical support.

According to Forrester Research, global investment on CRM is
expected to touch $11 bn annually by 2010, as companies strive to grow topline
revenues, improve customer experience, and boost the productivity of
customer-facing staff. According to Frost & Sullivan, the enterprise mobility
market in India is worth about Rs 354 crore growing at 30-40% over the past
three years. Gerald Prabhu, director, CDC CRM Solutions says, "We believe that
over 85% of the enterprise mobility market is corporate email that is deployed
over smartphones like Blackberry, etc."

Evolving CRM

Now the CRM strategies are going mobile with the advent of handsets
featuring conducive applications for CRM. As sales teams spend most of the time
in the field, mobile CRM (mCRM ) is becoming the need of the hour. Pull out your
iPhones and Blackberrys, they are your tools for CRM on the go and for getting
more information or feedback from your customers. Not only that, even a Rs 1,000
mobile handset can be used to support CRM functions, be it lead assignment and
management, sales processing, or field service.

Shubho Bhattacharya, CEO, CDC CRM Solutions says, "We see a
big shift in the market with more and more workers across companies having
access to wireless devices. According to a survey, this could be as high as 60%
by next year itself. With both customers and employees going mobile, it was only
a matter of time before CRM players realized their software better be light on
its feet, as well to support those nimble footed, always on the move, customers
and businesses."

Mobile CRM is set to revolutionize the enterprise mobility
market in India. Large enterprises who have to reach to their extended 'feet on
street' would leverage mCRM to get the right information at the right time. This
will eliminate a whole set of processes that are currently done manually, and
hence reduce the time needed for obtaining data from fifteen days to an instant.

Prabhu of CDC CRM Solutions says, "We see that only less than
5% enterprises have deployed mCRM like applications. Among them, most
organizations have deployed them as a 'point' or a departmental solution with
little or no integration with the back-end CRM solution. The prevailing trend is
that enterprises that have large 'feet on street' are looking at deploying a
mCRM application that can work on multiple handsets; multiple operating systems
such as Symbian, Windows, and Android; and use multiple transport mechanisms
like GPRS, SMS, USSD, etc." Enterprises are now looking at solutions that can
extend the capability of their existing CRM and allow quicker deployment of
modules on the same application.

Jeremy Cooper, VP, marketing, Salesforce.com, APAC says,
"There is consensus that over the next few years, more data will be consumed on
mobile devices than traditional PC environments in India. The opportunity to
enable roaming knowledge workers is enormous." He also adds, "The market for
mCRM solutions is already flourishing in other countries like the US and the UK.
India's mCRM market is still relatively at a nascent stage. But India is fast
catching up."

The number of mobile phone users is increasing in India. The
country witnessed a 54% y-o-y growth in subscriber base, adding over 100 mn new
users in 2009. With the mobile penetration level having exceeded 25%, a
considerable growth potential still remains. There is a tremendous potential for
mCRM in India and all major CRM players have started offering mCRM products in
the market.

Sairaman Jaganathan, VP, business solutions division, Wipro
Infotech says, "Integrated CRM solutions are helping enterprises increase
revenues and lower costs by improving customer acquisition and retention
capabilities. Real-time, customer-centric CRM solutions offer businesses a
competitive advantage in routing, servicing, and maintaining their existing
customer base by identifying highly-valued clients. In India, the penetration of
mCRM looks very positive in the coming years."

Market Potential

IDC-a global provider of market intelligence on IT and telecom
industries-expects the number of mobile devices accessing the Internet to
surpass the 1 bn mark over the next four years worldwide. Furthermore, IDC
believes that accessing online business applications and corporate email systems
are also expected to grow rapidly as businesses move to empower their mobile
workforce.

Cooper of Salesforce.com says, "Nowadays, sales
representatives need to perform many tasks, such as managing appointments,
collaborating with sales teams, and connecting with customer contacts, etc. To
serve their needs, Salesforce.com is offering Mobile Lite, which enables users
to access sales cloud and service cloud from their mobile devices.
Salesforce.com is working to expand its mCRM market in India. We already have
many clients in India including a number of SMBs. We provide a solution that is
scalable to an organization of any size."

Salesforce's Mobile Lite service allows end-users to log
calls and emails, update activities and tasks as well as view account and
contact details, leads, opportunities, cases, solutions, assets, and
dashboards-all from their mobile devices. Mobile Lite offers a subset of the
features available in the full mobile version-Salesforce Mobile-and with just a
few clicks, customers can upgrade to the full functionality.

Rajendra Mruthyunjayappa, MD, Talisma, APAC & Europe says,
"India being the third fastest growing market for smartphones, the adoption of
mCRM looks very positive. Enterprise adoption of mCRM is still in its nascent
stages. But many enterprises are keen on deploying mCRM applications for their
sales and field force activities. We assume the market to witness a growth of
25-30%."

Jaganathan agrees, "There is already wide acceptability for
CRM solutions among Indian enterprises. Today, they are essential tools for
enterprises to manage, grow, and develop customer base. With increased broadband
and mobile usage, a mobile sales force represents an efficient and productive
sales team. The availability of good connectivity also acts as a boost for mCRM
applications in India. All these factors act as a catalyst for increased
adoption of mCRM solutions."

Moving from 2G to 3G will also have a bigger impact in the
realm of mobile applications. Mobile CRM will become an extension of CRM
solutions and will gain increased acceptability across enterprises and
industries. Although this market is still emerging, rapid growth is expected as
bandwidth and inter-connectivity capabilities expand over the forecast period.
Even though mCRM only works on smartphones like Apple, Blackberry or the ones
using Windows mobile, the market for mCRM continues to expand. India is the
third fastest growing smartphone market in the world.

And, when we compare the Indian market with that of the US,
there emerges a huge contrast as the latter is more mature and caters to the
high-end mobile worker who would be typically using a Blackberry or smartphone
to access the mCRM market, whereas here in India we see a great demand for mCRM
for the FOS who may number over 50,000 in an Insurance company or a bank. MCRM
needs to work on a high-end phone as well as a low-end phone that has no GPRS.

The Edge

No doubt mCRM facilitates you to get the right information at the right
place at the right time. It avoids delay in getting information from the field
and simplifies data capture for immediate action. The enterprise is profited
from up-to-date information availed through mCRM solutions.

As Prabhu points out, "The benefits of mCRM are immense for
enterprises as the cost of getting information and providing service is greatly
reduced, thereby increasing profitability." Mruthyunjayappa adds, "Mobile CRM
enhances the productivity while ensuring successful accomplishment of
sales/service plans."

Cooper says, "Salesforce Mobile makes a relevant subset of
Salesforce CRM data that is immediately accessible on a mobile device. This
solution helps keep the data on device manageable, while providing instant
access to important records. With Salesforce Mobile, information is
automatically delivered to a user's device when it's connected, so there is
constant access to latest information." By mobilizing AppExchange applications,
along with custom applications, managers can access all the information they
need when they are out of the office.

Mobile CRM from CDC CRM Solutions allows companies to extend
all existing CRM applications to wireless, so that their executives on the field
or on the move can get mission-critical information anytime, anywhere. It offers
a full suite to business management, communication, and collaboration software
as a service. Which essentially means you won't have to interrupt your work to
go offline or worry about losing your data with occasional disconnections.

Challenges

Though there are huge benefits of going for mCRM, the telecom coverage and
connectivity issues need to be addressed in remote locations in India. Limited
screen size and storage on a mobile device will be challenges for the CRM
process.

As mCRM standards are still evolving, there are challenges in
keeping pace with mobile technology platforms, numerous devices and protocols.
The challenges are in user adoption as most FOS are used to have the mobile for
only voice communication. Prabhu says, "It requires for them to be trained and
incentivized to use them. Furthermore, most enterprises have outsourced the last
mile or FOS to third parties, and hence, the adoption is still a challenge."

From development and deployment perspective, according to
Mruthyunjayappa, another challenge is that of the same application working on
multiple devices and platforms. Also, adoption and success of enterprise mCRM
depends on the willingness of individuals who may or may not be comfortable with
using advanced technologies.

As Jaganathan rightly points out, "Firstly, it is important
to understand the difference between technical needs and the desires of users.
Then it's important to make it clear to end users that the mobile device is to
be used in conjunction with CRM applications, and not as a replacement for a PC
or laptop."

An enterprise needs to get users and upper management on
board with the initiative as soon as possible. It is critical to get the IT
department, end users and management on the same page, so that the project
effectively meets business objectives. Integrating a robust CRM system with
mobile devices, which often has limited memory, can be a daunting task. It is
important to determine what data is most important to display and then develop
appropriate screens to view it within the limits of the device. Technical
concerns regarding security, authentication and data input of sensitive or
proprietary information need to be addressed to capture the full potential of
the mCRM market.

Kannan K

kannan@cybermedia.co.in