Interview: Marcus Potts, Managing Director EMEA, Maximizer Software

The turmoil and consolidation among CRM vendors is not over yet, reckons Marcus Potts, Managing Director EMEA, Maximizer Software, "There will be continued consolidation," he argues. "We’re playing in space that has not traditionally been one in which Siebel played, although as they continue to try and come down into the mid-market they may have more of an impact."

"The big players are likely to continue to merge. I think that CRM per se is continuing to broaden in terms of the applications as people and vendors continue to try to get a new slant on the market. These days CRM can be classed as anything from call centres to traditional sales and marketing customer services. I think that's where we'll see some continuing consolidation. It always happens when companies in the enterprise space come down to the mid market and the SOHO (small office/home office) market.

"The other trend that we see is that of end to end integration. It may be that we’ll see some vendors who have traditionally been pure CRM vendors taking more steps into the back office space. That will again expand the definitions."

Potts sees the current CRM landscape as being particularly exciting. "It’s been an interesting market for a long time anyway," he argues. "Look around at where the Oracles and Siebels and Microsofts are standing. We have Sage entering the market aggressively. It all only goes to show that the market is continually growing in line with expectations. Our own market share continues to grow and we fully expect that to continue. As the mid market grows, then we will expect to take more of that."

But surely competition will become tougher in the mid market sector as the natural hunting ground for the new breed of on demand applications vendors. "On demand is not unstoppable," insists Potts. "Many of the analysts argue that it's only going to represent between 10 and 18 per cent of the market. There's been a lot of interest generated by the likes of Salesforce.com and Siebel CRM OnDemand, but I think that on premises solutions will continue to form the majority of installations in the near future.

"We have an enormous user base and a huge pedigree. Our expertise lies in the mid-market. We do get involved in the enterprise as we integrate into other systems. The challenge for us is to keep ourselves on the radar screen of companies. We have the likes of Salesforce.com and Microsoft round about us.

"But we are one of the few remaining independent CRM vendors and that's how we continue to stay. We have to continue to maintain and enhance our brand. The big acquisitions make lots of noise and get lots of attention, but our pedigree in the market is very powerful. In the current climate, a safe pair of hands is good thing to be."

www.max.co.uk

By Stuart Lauchlan

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