Best enterprise CRM providers of 2023
Maintaining customer relationships is essential for any enterprise, and many reputable providers can help South African companies manage this aspect of their business.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps businesses build relationships with their customers which, in turn, leads to better customer retention.
Some of the most prominent CRM providers available to South African enterprises include Salesforce, Microsoft, NetSuite, Oracle, and SAP.
The central purpose of CRM tools is to provide businesses with a simple user interface for collecting data that helps companies recognise and communicate with customers efficiently and in a scalable way.
The benefits of CRM software for businesses include:
- Learning about customers — this lets businesses learn why customers buy their products and observe trends in customer purchase histories, allowing them to fulfil client needs;
- Organisation and automation — CRM software can help businesses to become more efficient through the automation of sales, marketing, business analytics, and customer data collection processes; and,
- Optimising customer interactions — CRM software helps businesses streamline complex client interaction processes, resulting in improved customer satisfaction.
CRM is an important enterprise software field, and according to SuperOffice, it is now the biggest software market in the world.
Growth in the CRM industry isn’t slowing down, and its revenue is predicted to exceed $80 billion (R1.4 trillion) by 2025. As a result, providers in the CRM market are competing for billions of dollars in revenue.
With the rise of cloud computing, many CRM providers have launched successful enterprise products, with only 12% of businesses using cloud-based CRM software in 2008. This has since increased to 87%.
Below is an overview of some of the best enterprise CRM software providers available to South African businesses.
Salesforce Customer 360
Salesforce’s Customer 360 CRM is a secure, scalable, and flexible product portfolio that helps businesses support their customers.
The company says Customer 360 incorporates best-in-class marketing, sales, commerce, and service apps and lets users integrate data from any source, analyse it, and take action in real time.
“Einstein, our built-in artificial intelligence, uses this data along with workflows in Slack to completely automate the majority of repeatable business functions,” Salesforce says.
Editorial credit: Tada Images / Shutterstock.com
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM is available to businesses as a cloud offering or as an on-premises installation, and it can be customised using extensions.
The latest software offers several improvements over older versions, including visualisations, dashboards, document management, recurring appointments, goal management, and fetch-based reports.
Existing on-premises Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers can also convert their package to cloud-based.
“If you’re a Microsoft Dynamics on-premises customer, then you’re cloud-ready. Access cutting-edge technology, control costs and complexity, and improve IT productivity by migrating your existing solution to the cloud,” Microsoft says.
Image: Volodymyr Kyrylyuk / Shutterstock.com
Netsuite CRM
Oracle-owned NetSuite describes its CRM software as “the only cloud solution that delivers a real-time, 360-degree view of your customers”.
Other benefits that the software provides include:
- Streamlined lead-to-cash processes;
- Improved sales performance through forecasting and upsell and commission management; and,
- Global sales and services organisation management.
NetSuite says its integrated customer service management solution can help to improve customer satisfaction, attract new customers, and cut service costs.
Oracle CX
Oracle says its advertising and customer experience (CX) software can help businesses maximise advertising performance, automate customer self-service processes, and connect data, processes, and applications on a unified platform.
“Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience (CX) offers a connected suite of applications that goes beyond traditional CRM to help you create, manage, serve, and nurture lasting customer relationships,” the company’s product page reads.
The software suite also provides marketing, sales, and industry solutions applications that help businesses manage these aspects on the same platform.
Editorial credit: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com
SAP CX
SAP says its enterprise-grade customer experience (CX) solutions offer end-to-end insights across the value chain, allowing businesses to connect real-time data and signals to improve loyalty, customer retention, and revenue.
The company offers solutions for e-commerce, customer data, sales, customer service, and marketing. SAP says it helps businesses provide personalised customer experiences to help them win customer loyalty.
“With CRM solutions like connected commerce, marketing, sales, and service data, you can power your CX from demand to supply chain and delivery,” the SAP CX product page reads.
Some of SAP CX’s notable customers include Kodak, Virgin Megastore, and MVV Enamic.
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