Software Advice: 2013 Top CRM Buyer Trends

Earlier this month Software Advice, an analyst and software recommendation site, published the 2013 CRM BuyerView Study.  The audience included more than 5000 respondents primarily from small businesses with 20-100 employees.  The entire report is here and notable highlights include:

• Of companies who indicated a deployment model preference, 96% requested a cloud-based solution
• Seventy five percent of integrated suite buyers requested sales force automation
• Seventy six percent of best-of-breed buyers requested sales force automation
• Nearly 90% of buyers requested contact management, note-taking capabilities and/or reporting and analytics

In many ways, the results suggest that the needs of small businesses mirror the needs of large businesses and enterprise organizations - everyone wants to gain efficiency through automation and get a good grasp on business economics through CRM analytics and reporting.  For those of you in small businesses that are still managing key customer and business information through email or a spreadsheet, hopefully these survey results will give you the the knowledge and incentive you need to try a CRM.