I just read this article by Bob Thompson where he is reviewing and commentating on a recent study released by birst.com.
Both the study and the survey are VERY revealing for ALL CRM providers, but especially so for salesforce.com users.
One of the top complaints I run into in the course of my travels about salesforce.com is how difficult it is to get data/information OUT of SFDC and this survey confirms this for SFDC but additionally that this frustration is far more widespread than I had observed.
While I was not too surprised about the survey results from SFDC users (due to what I hear directly from many of their customers), I was surprised by the overall results that cross many of the other SFA products on the market. According to the survey: “They represented a wide range of SFA and CRM systems including Salesforce.com (52%), Microsoft CRM (13%), SAP (12%), Siebel (11%), SugarCRM (6%), and others.”
Personally, I hope that Birst’s survey will serve as a wakeup call for ALL of the CRM vendors in the market!
In the mean time, if you need integrated Analytics within your CRM system, I would suggest you look at ZAP Technology’s product. I got a full walkthrough of their offering at Convergence 2012 in Houston and I was pleasantly impressed.
Robert
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