Leaders in CRM Analytics

I'm a former NCR Teradata employee having run development of a number of their industry specific CRM "starter kits." Teradata is used by some of the biggest, most successful companies around to track their profitability and keep an eye on the bottom line. Wal-Mart was one of the first to recognize the value of figuring out what sold well in different locations and how quickly things sold. Wal-Mart took the concept of JIT (just in time inventory) from manufacturing to retail -- and Teradata was the tool that let them do it.

These days the world works in multi-channels -- retail, wholesale, brick & mortar and click & mortar. So targeting what you want to sell now needs a clear understanding of your own market value proposition. To do this you need to know the market segment that fits your value prop and the customers who populate that segment. Again this is where analytic tools like Teradata can crunch data and turn it into information that not only tells who who buys what -- but what other market segments and propsect profiles fit that target as well.

All this is a preamble to a new study by the Gartner Group on multichannel campaign management. They've determined that the leaders in this market (no surprise here) are Teradata, SAS and Unica. The one surprise is that Siebel (always a wannabe in analytics with a weak offer) is now a contender.

This information is from Gartner's " Magic Quadrant for Multi-Channel Campaign Management, 1Q 07." Gartner uses a box split into four blocks (2 up and 2 down) to graphically give their POV on who is a leader, a contender, slipping behind, etc. Gartner Group is one of the leading high tech analyst companies around these days having bought Datapro, Dataquest and a few others along the way. From Gartner's report:

“Leaders consistently out-perform in overall campaign management performance for basic and advanced campaign management , as well as for integration with e-marketin. . .Leaders have high market visibility, high market penetration, strong market momentum and a strategic vision for growing the campaign management business.”

Some up and comers named in the report include Aprimo, Alterian and Eloqua.

If you are looking at marketing automation (and if you are doing any marketing at all it is crazy not to -- you are just gambling and guessing without analyzing the success of your campaigns) then consider looking at the companies mentioned by Gartner. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has also announced a BI component so if you are on the small side you can still get analytical information without spending a fortune.