CRM performance suffering due to data silos - report

Only a third of marketers in the third party distribution channel have access to financial information in their CRM systems, even though the vast majority believe such data would help them create more effective campaigns.

According to a survey undertaken among 150 professionals of varying roles working for channel partner organisations, as many as 16% do not currently even have a CRM system in place.

But of those that do, a huge 97% employed in a marketing role believed that having information such as invoices and credit details readily available would enable them to generate more targeted marketing campaigns, leading to better lead creation.

John Cheney, chief executive of software-as-a-service provider, Workbooks.com, said: "The recession has made it crucial for businesses to take advantage of every sales and marketing opportunity by ensuring their campaigns are as targeted as possible. It’s clear that marketing directors within the channel realise this, but many sales directors could be missing important opportunities as they are not making effective use of their customer data."

Nonetheless, nearly half of sales directors were aware that having access to such information could help to make their teams more efficient.

Most organisations today tend to hold their customer data in either CRM or accounting system silos. This situation leads to the creation of islands of information, which means that they need to re-enter data twice and do not have a full ‘prospect to cash’ view.