The high saturation levels and the consequent decline in demand are compelling vendors in the sales force automation (SFA) market to upgrade their product base. Integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and enterprise analytics is likely to enable vendors to pursue newer avenues. Contending with an oversell of almost 5 percent, vendors have been finding the lack of unclaimed market opportunity rather intimidating. Even top vendors have had to resort to price-cutting measures to gain newer clients and expand sales. While this is likely to prove detrimental to the market in the long run by eroding the return on investment (ROI) from R&D, the absence of other viable alternatives is likely to contribute to the popularization of this trend.

This research evaluates the current and future prospects of the customer resource management (CRM) market for the U.S. pharmaceutical industry in three main segments: SFA applications, CRM BI/analytics tools, and CRM specific services. It reviews the potential for new technologies that are likely to enter the market and evaluates the competitive profiles of leading participants. Additionally, it assesses the principal drivers and restraints influencing the industry, thereby enabling companies to formulate their sales strategies.

Enterprise Analytics Offers Unprecedented Opportunities for Customer Resource Management (CRM)

Enterprise analytics are likely to enable CRM vendors to leverage their success in enterprise logistics software for the pharmaceuticals market. Not only is it cheaper, but it also enables better organization and security of data.

"As the industry attains critical mass enabled by enterprise ERP and logistics systems installations, vendors are beginning to view enterprise analytics as the ‘intelligence’ arm of CRM," notes the analyst. Since enterprise analytics gives a 360-degree view of product and brand sales patterns, it ensures that vendors are able to derive the maximum benefit from any CRM system.

Call Center Markets Likely to Lead CRM Industry

Outsourced call center and support services are estimated to account for almost 60 percent of the market share. Further, with this sector expected to continue as the mainstay of SFA support until 2007, vendors are trying to increase their investments in the area.

"The fall in application and hardware prices is likely to make long-term support services the highest margin ‘premium’ business segment in the CRM market," says the analyst. "Moreover, it is also expected to open up larger opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling."