"Digital meets CRM"

Gartner Distinguished Analyst Don Scheibenreif during his inspiring opening keynote.FROM CHRISTOPH OGGENFUSS*The number of visitors to the CRM Summit appears to remain stable at a high level - CRM is therefore clearly a business-critical and strategic topic. With annual growth of around 13%, CRM remains an attractive business segment for software providers and consultants alike.London - always good for surprises"Have you staid with us before?" I am asked by the friendly receptionist at the Lancaster Hotel. I've attended more than 15 Gartner conferences in this hotel...and I'm here at an international CRM conference! This small example makes it clear just how wide the spread is in terms of implementation after twenty years of CRM. At dinner after the first day of the conference, the following headline jumps out at me in the Evening Standard: "London Electric Car Revolution". This reflects the statements made in the first conference keynote on the subject of digital trends.

London will focus on the "smart city" in future. New business models with disruptive explosive powerIn his opening keynote, Don Scheibenreif, Gartner Distinguished Analyst, made it clear that today, basically anyone has the opportunity to create new and innovative business models with disruptive explosive power, such as airbnb or UBER. What distinguishes these founders is that, in addition to their creativity, they are not afraid to fail. This is in contrast to existing companies that carry a "legacy" and may risk part of their previous success with innovations. both UBER and airbnb are demand aggregators that neither own a car nor have a building infrastructure. Both companies elegantly build on infrastructure that has already been invested in and can therefore operate extremely lean and with low fixed costs. How else could UBER be worth over five billion francs after just six years? Keynoter Don Scheibenreif has also emphasized the boost that the Internet of Things will have on the speed of digital transformation. Gartner estimates that by 2020 there will be four times more things communicating with each other than people! Imagine things selling things to other things - a thought that takes some getting used to. What does this mean for marketing, sales and service? The conference has yet to answer this question...The hot topics in 2015The topic of digital and digital marketing has now firmly established itself in this CRM conference. None of Gartner's eight CRM building blocks is not at least slightly affected by digital. In addition, Customer Engagement was clearly the hot topic this year. Ed Thompsen from Gartner goes so far as to say that customer engagement is becoming the only or ultimate differentiating factor. Everything else is becoming blurred between providers and customers. The evergreen topic of multichannel integration was also present because the Gartner analysts found among their customers that the proliferation of channels increases complexity exponentially. This increases the pressure on channel integration because customers are increasingly demanding permeability. Another topic was customer experience and the customer journey, which was illustrated using the example of Disney World. At Disney, the "parking lot experience" at the end of the park visit is extremely important. Why? Because the last impression is an important one and if parents with three screaming children cannot find their car in the gigantic parking lot, this does not contribute to a lasting positive experience. and which customer experience (CX) projects had the most positive customer effect according to the Gartner survey:- Collecting and analyzing customer feedback with subsequent communication to employees and customers- Acting as one organization towards the customer and ensuring multichannel consistency- Ensuring a 360-degree customer view (single view of the customer)

The most effective customer experience project topics (source: Gartner)Once again, the trip to London was worthwhile - the analysts from Gartner are absolutely fit professionally and are close to the global market. And the digital hurricane will also shake up CRM as a topic and thus the initiatives in companies. I'm already looking forward to the news in 2016.