Industry-specific customer relationship management (CRM) is a hot space these days. Almost every CRM vendor has an industry CRM strategy. These solutions speed transition to the cloud; they let IT focus on brand differentiation instead of commoditized industry functionality; and they drive better CRM adoption for the front office.
Forrester defines Industry CRM as:
Cloud CRMs that offer user experiences, workflows, data models, intelligence, and regulatory compliance purpose-built for the needs of an industry vertical. They also support packaged adapters to core industry back-office applications.
Companies Move Slowly To Adopt Industry CRM
Despite their benefits, we find that companies are slow to adopt these solutions.
There’s the obvious fact that not all industry CRMs are equally mature, and many vendors offer lightweight or incomplete solutions, with plans to round them out over time. Industry CRM is also often more expensive than its horizontal counterparts and needs specialized resources to install, manage, upgrade, and service.
Even when mature industry CRMs are available, companies worry about the migration cost, and the disruption to the business. What we find is that many companies choose to customize their horizontal CRM, which grinds their ability to innovate and to to consume new product releases to a halt in the long run.
Companies Reach A Tipping Point That Force Them To Adopt Industry CRM
There is always a point that companies reach where they can’t get by with their current horizontal CRM. These pressures may be driven by IT leaders who need to modernize apps, or adopt technologies that are more adaptable to changing business conditions. Or, these pressures may come from business leaders who are on the hook to deliver differentiated experiences, or need to unlock new revenue streams.
You must be aware of how close you are to this tipping point. Our new report, How To Adopt Industry CRM lays out a framework to help you make this decision. Or connect with me via inquiry to explore this topic in more detail.
