Indeed, analytics and its close cousin, business intelligence, will be one of the main reasons for CRM growth, Schmaier said.
Companies will use increasingly sophisticated analytical tools that aren't just able to examine trends, but that also will forecast the future -- such as predicting, well before a quarter closes, whether a company will meet its sales target, Schmaier said. A later phase will take those predictions and adjust company priorities accordingly, thereby triggering a salesperson to push a particular product.
These higher-level features are among the enticements Siebel hopes to use to keep customers buying its software for in-house use.
Another feature is increasing specialisation for specific industries, including automotive, finance, retail, life sciences, and communications and media, Schmaier said. And Siebel is adding other modules to increase value, he said. The first is "loyalty management systems" that try to reward return customers. Another is messaging systems to send advertising messages to customers who bring mobile computing devices into wireless networks such as those at Starbucks.
Siebel is sensitive to pricing pressure, especially with the recessionary economy of recent years and subsequent diminished technology spending. But packaged CRM is still worth it for many customers, Schmaier said, citing another IDC report that found that new CRM systems paid for themselves within a year for half of companies that installed them.
