The Best Enterprise CRM Software and Solutions: The 2023 CRM Industry Leader Awards
THE MARKET
Fortune Business Insights valued the global CRM market at $64.4 billion in 2022 and expects it to top out at $71.1 billion this year and $157.5 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual rate of 12 percent.
Fellow research firm Global Industry Analysts valued the market at $72.7 billion last year and projects it to reach $181.9 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual rate of 12.1 percent.
Both research firms point out that large enterprises have long held the maximum share of the CRM market, though they differ on future projections. Fortune Business Insights expects enterprise dominance in CRM adoption to continue, while GIA expects small and midsize businesses to outpace larger enterprises in their adoption of CRM software. GIA projects enterprise adoption to grow by 9.5 percent per year through 2030, compared to SMBs at 15.3 percent.
THE TOP FIVE
Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 has long been among the tops in the field, but its recent activity with artificial intelligence has put it clearly ahead. “Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI and the integration of it into Dynamics 365 in the form of Copilot is at the least a competitive advantage, if not a game changer,” says Geoff Ables, managing partner of C5 Insight. Paul Greenberg, president of the 56 Group, also singles out its AI work. “Now, with the addition of AI/generative AI in a useful way, Microsoft, for now at least, is the most valuable player.”
Oracle has a long history and wide product assortment from which to draw. Its “major strength is its seamless integration of front-office and back-office solutions,” says Jim Dickie, research fellow at Sales Mastery. And while its systems were often considered a little unwieldy, the company has committed to changing that. “Oracle has invested in moving its sales, marketing, and service capabilities to a common platform and a common [user interface], increasing its usability and performance at scale,” says Rebecca Wettemann, founder and CEO of Valoir. “With the fundamental transformation of its user experience, the deep enterprise-grade feature set, a strong cloud capacity, and Oracle’s always-strong data infrastructure, Oracle CX is a star in the firmament,” Greenberg says.
Pegasystems has a long history of innovation, and larger enterprises are finally starting to notice. “Pegasystems does not only provide a strong process-focused CRM suite but a customer engagement solution that plays very well when the needs of the enterprise are complex,” Greenberg says. “They are also among the most visionary with their suite. They are the first to provide a semblance of empathetic AI and now autonomous service with a great process management engine.” Kate Leggett, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, agrees, noting that Pega was one of the first to blend automation, artificial intelligence, process management, and case management in a unified platform “to deliver optimized real-time customer journeys across channels.”
Salesforce hasn’t always made a strong play in the enterprise market, but it fought its way in a few years ago and hasn’t left. The company, Greenberg says, “was almost purpose-built for CRM and remains very deep in providing CRM with all its universal power and nuanced needs at a level unlike any other company.” “Salesforce continues to deliver the most complete enterprise CRM suite in terms of functionality in the industry,” Wettemann says. “Salesforce continues to lead in innovation, especially in AI for sales, marketing, and support.” And Dickie says, “The robustness of their vertical industry-specific offerings offers a competitive differentiation that general-
purpose CRM systems cannot match.”
SAP, like Oracle, draws strength from its ability to tie CRM and ERP systems together. But beyond that, it also “pursues an industry-first approach and positions CRM as part of a greater application modernization effort,” Leggett says. Independent CRM analyst Marshall Lager sees its appeal even more broadly: “SAP is going to make the list of top enterprise CRM suites because you can’t argue with results,” he says. “Look at SAP’s customer list and the breadth of its products.”