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Analysing the analysis: Gartner’s 2015 CRM market share report

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Top line findings

  • Worldwide customer relationship management (CRM) software totaled $26.3B in 2015, up 12.3% from $23.4B in 2014.
  • SaaS revenue grew 27% year over year, more than double overall CRM market growth in 2015.
  • Asia/Pacific grew the fastest of all regions globally, increasing 9% 2015, closely followed by greater China with 18.4% growth.

These and many other insights into the current state of the global CRM market are from Gartner’s Market Share Analysis: Customer Relationship Management Software, Worldwide, 2015 (PDF, client access) published earlier this month.  The top five CRM vendors accounted for 45% of the total market in 2015. Salesforce dominated in 2015, with a 21.1% annual growth rate and absolute growth of over $902M in CRM revenue, more than the next ten providers combined.

Gartner found that Salesforce leads in revenue in the sales and customer service and support (CSS) segments of CRM, and is now third in revenue in the marketing segment. Gartner doesn’t address how analytics are fundamentally redefining CRM today, which is an area nearly every C-level and revenue team leader I’ve spoken with this year is prioritising for investment. The following graphic and table compare 2015 worldwide CRM market shares.

CRM Market Share 2015

table 1

Adobe, Microsoft, and Salesforce are growing faster than the market

Adobe grew the fastest between 2014 and 2015, increasing worldwide sales 26.9%. Salesforce continues to grow well above the worldwide CRM market average, increasing sales 21.1%. Microsoft increased sales 20% in the last year.  The worldwide CRM market grew 12.3% between 2014 and 2015.

Spending by vendor 2015

Analytics, machine learning, and artifical intelligence are the future of CRM

Advanced analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will revolutionize CRM in the next three years. Look to the five market leaders in 2015 to invest heavily in these areas with the goal of building patent portfolios and increasing the amount of intellectual property they own. Cloud-based analytics platforms offer the scale, speed of deployment, agility, and ability to rapidly prototype analytics workflows that support the next generation of CRM workflows. My recent post on SelectHub, Selecting The Best Cloud Analytics Platform: Trends To Watch In 2016, provides insights into how companies with investments in CRM systems are making decisions on cloud platforms today.

Based on insights gained from discussions with senior management teams, I’ve put together an Intelligent Cloud Maturity Model that underscores why scalability of a cloud-based analytics platform is a must-have for any company.

cloud-maturity-model

Sources:  Gartner Says Customer Relationship Management Software Market Grew 12.3 Percent