CRM: What's hot, what's not, what's next?

With Gartner forecasting that CRM will be a $36 billion market by 2017, eclipsing even the ERP market, investment in customer relationship management tools continues to accelerate. 

This graphic from Forbes demonstrates the meteoric rise of the CRM market. 

Clearly, organisations are prepared to invest ever greater sums in a bid to develop stronger, long-term relationships with their customers. 

But while investing in 'CRM' seems like a clear step in the right direction for those brands keen to become more customer-centric, the reality is that CRM solutions are swathed in complexity. One CRM system can differ dramatically from another, and all manner of new functionality and integrations, and bells and whistles have been added in recent years. 

In part, this is what has made CRM so appealing - its willingness to evolve to accommodate the changing needs of the business as they in turn adapt to accommodate the ever-changing customer. 

But it also makes the path to purchase that much more tricky. 

With this in mind, MyCustomer caught with SugarCRM CEO Larry Augustin at the recent Gartner Customer Strategies & Technologies Summit, hoping to shed some light on the mercurial CRM sector. 

Questions:

00.10: How has CRM evolved in the last 15 years?

02.37: Are CRM initiatives delivering better returns to businesses now than the levels reported in the past?

04.31: With so many different players in the market offering so many different functions, is it harder to buy the right CRM system now?

05.30: How with the Internet of Things and CRM dovetail?

07.31: How is CRM evolving to help businesses cope with vast quantities of data?

08.47: What does the future hold for CRM?