Western European Customer Relationship Management Applications Market

Which are the top vendors in the Western European market for customer relationship management (CRM) applications by revenue and country? What is IDC's forecast for the CRM applications market over the next five years? The CRM market in Western Europe grew 92% to $1.4 billion in 2000 and is expected to total $3.8 billion by 2005. The United Kingdom is the largest regional market and will continue to be so throughout the forecast period. Some CRM regional markets are expected to experience higher growth rates over the forecast period in Southern Europe, partly due to mobile adoption. Despite the spate of negative news surrounding CRM, the market will continue to grow strongly through 2005 at a total CAGR of 22%. Key Market Trends The extravagant growth of the CRM market in the late 1990's into 2000 has leveled out considerably for a combination of reasons. First, the market began from a small base that inevitably allows for exaggerated growth rates at the start, but eventually builds up momentum and lowers overall growth rates. Secondly, overall software spending slowed considerably by the end of 2000 beginning of 2001 hitting somewhat less directly on the CRM market as negative press and continued end-user confusion prevailed. The strongest growth area in the Western European CRM applications market was marketing automation applications, which grew 136% from 1999 to 2000. Sales automation and customer support and contact center applications, far larger in actual revenue size (about 80% of the total CRM market), saw a slightly lower growth rate. Some of the important trends, which drove the growth in the customer relationship management applications market, were: The extension of B2B ecommerce, provoking greater need to coordinate product and customer information via CRM applications. This in turn leads to a greater realization of the critical role of application integration that in turn supports the extended enterprise. The growing acceptance of integrating supply chain activities including customers. Increased understanding of the necessity of analytic functionality tied into operational CRM applications. Increased understanding of the impact upon the entire organization that a well-planned CRM initiative has, and the need to cross coordinate corporate strategies.
This bulletin Western European Customer Relationship Management Applications Market Forecast & Analysis Summary, 2001-2005 (Bulletin #WLC26H) presents a five-year Western European revenue forecast of the CRM market by region and country deployed and operating environment. It also includes the performance of the overall market in 2000 and a listing of all CRM application vendors tracked by IDC in 2000 by market share. In addition, there is a summary discussion, including the key trends in the Western European CRM market. This report is to be followed by two additional reports on specific CRM markets. There will also be two additional reports published in September that will dig deeper into the Sales and Marketing Automation Applications Market and the Customer Support and Contact Center Applications Market. To purchase this bulletin, contact Katja Schmalen at 069/90502-115 or at kschmalen@idc.com.