Firms Face Critical Decision on AI-Driven CRM, ISG Says

Half of enterprises will need to modernize CRM by 2026 to reap benefits of AI, new ISG research predicts

New research from leading global technology research and advisory firm Information Services Group (ISG) predicts that half of all enterprises will need to modernize their customer relationship management (CRM) systems by 2026 to take advantage of new AI capabilities.

“Today’s CRM platforms should be intelligent systems that help marketing, sales, service and partner teams achieve enterprise and individual objectives by optimizing customer interactions and driving business growth”

The ISG Buyers Guides™ for Customer Relationship Management, produced by ISG Software Research (formerly Ventana Research), say modern CRM systems have evolved from simple data repositories to complex, AI-driven platforms that help maximize sales effectiveness and achieve revenue and customer service targets.

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These systems improve data management and deliver predictive analytics and insights that enable sales teams to understand and manage sales opportunities and engagement, and customer service teams to resolve customer issues and generate new revenue opportunities.

“CRM ensures that all customer-facing teams have access to up-to-date information, but outdated CRM systems can force teams to employ inefficient workarounds,” said Stephen Hurrell, director of research, Office of Revenue, ISG Software Research. “New data-driven AI technology is necessary to gain market and competitive insights, engage effectively and achieve optimal outcomes. To stay competitive, continuous alignment of CRM systems with business needs is imperative.”

Many enterprise approaches to CRM rely on scattered methods of interacting with customers and consume unnecessary resources, limiting revenue growth. Some providers have delivered add-ons that improve the ability of CRM systems to provide relevant, actionable insights, but the efficacy of these add-ons depends on the quality of the original base data, including customer information and activity records. The ISG report says enterprise CRM users now face a critical decision to reimplement existing systems or shift to a new provider to gain AI-driven capabilities.

Modern CRM systems should support integrated prospect and customer engagement, standardized processes and automated data collection. Newer capabilities, many driven by AI, are designed to improve the quality and speed of responses to customers and prospects. In the field of sales, these capabilities provide new insights into who and when to engage, and in the area of service, they provide more integrated insights into new opportunities that turn service into an additional sales and engagement channel.

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For its 2024 Customer Relationship Management Buyers Guides, ISG evaluated software providers across eight CRM-related software categories – Suite, Platform, Digital Commerce, Marketing, Partners, Sales, Sales Engagement and Service. For each category, ISG produced a separate Buyers Guide. A total of 37 providers were assessed: Adobe, Akinon, Apollo.io, Aviso, BigCommerce, Clari, commercetools, Creatio, Elastic Path, Gong, HCLSoftware, HubSpot, Intershop, Kibo, Mediafly, Microsoft, Monday.com, Netsuite, Oracle, Outreach, People.ai, Revenue Grid, Sage, SalesDirector.ai, Salesforce, Salesloft, Sana, SAP, Shopify, Shopware, Spryker, SugarCRM, VTEX, Xactly, Zendesk, Zoho and ZoomInfo.

ISG Software Research designates the top three software providers as Leaders in each category. For the 2024 study, the leading providers in ranked order are:

CRM Basic: Oracle, Salesforce, Zoho
CRM Platform: Salesforce, Oracle, HubSpot
CRM Marketing: Salesforce, Oracle, HubSpot
CRM Partners: Salesforce, Oracle, HubSpot
CRM Sales: Salesforce, Oracle, HubSpot
CRM Service: Salesforce, Oracle, HubSpot
Digital Commerce: Salesforce, Oracle, Adobe
Sales Engagement: Oracle, Salesforce, Zoho

“Today’s CRM platforms should be intelligent systems that help marketing, sales, service and partner teams achieve enterprise and individual objectives by optimizing customer interactions and driving business growth,” said Mark Smith, partner, ISG Software Research. “Unfortunately, the reality is that enterprises have disconnected and very customized deployments that are not easily advanced into the era of automated and AI capabilities. As a result, they struggle with internal inefficiencies.”

The ISG Buyers Guides for Customer Relationship Management are the distillation of more than a year of market and product research efforts. The research is not sponsored nor influenced by software providers and is conducted solely to help enterprises optimize their business and IT software investments.