Organizations are leveraging CRM technologies as a major part of their digital initiatives to enhance the customer experience, according to Gartner.
Gartner said that demand for modern technology customer relationships is driving refreshed or expanded integration and usage of all areas of CRM software. The outlook continues to be positive for CRM as buyers focus on technologies that enable more-targeted customer interactions in multichannel environments.
"CRM is one technology area that will definitely get funding as digital business is crucial to remaining competitive," said Joanne Correia, research VP at Gartner. "Hot areas for CRM investment include mobility, social media and technologies, Web analytics and e-commerce."
Gartner expects CRM market growth to stay moderate in 2014, following three strong years of investment. CRM software revenue is forecast to reach $23.9 billion in 2014, with cloud revenue accounting for 49%. SaaS- or cloud-based CRM deployments currently represent more than 40% of all CRM deployments, and look set to reach 50% during 2015.
"Unsurprisingly, high-tech, banking, insurance, securities, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, consumer goods, IT manufacturing and IT services vertical industries will continue to be the largest spenders on CRM as they have the widest use of different types of CRM applications and technologies," said Ed Thompson, VP at Gartner. “All these industries are also increasing investment in emerging economies, further driving spend."