This IDC study presents the results and analysis of IDC's Exclusive Software Survey on Emerging Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) Countries, 2006. In this study, IDC conducted telephone interviews with 547 IT executives across emerging countries in the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) or APEJ region with the aim of gaining an insight about businesses' current customer relationship management (CRM) application adoption levels. This survey was also designed to find out more about the future investment plans and trends with regard to concerns and considerations organizations have when investing in CRM applications.

"CRM application deployments were fueled by large-scale call center implementations mainly in the telecommunications, banking, and government segments in Malaysia and Vietnam. Additionally, businesses in the telecom and banking industries are investing increasingly in marketing analytics in order to improve their decision-making processes based on customer data. Inhibiting this, however, will be the short supply of skilled CRM professionals who can provide consultation and lead in the technical implementation of the applications. Another factor that may slow down the growth in this segment will be the high degree of price consciousness existing among the customer segment, which will result in longer sales cycles," says Ullrich Loeffler, market analyst, Information Management Solutions Research, IDC Australia and New Zealand.