Enterprise packages often come up short

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Many corporations are less than satisfied with their enterprise software packages.

Eighty-two per cent of respondents to a survey by the Direct Marketing Association had implemented customer relationship management (CRM) systems to retain customers, but only 51 per cent said this was being achieved.

Of the 75 per cent who had installed a CRM package to increase sales to existing customers, only 35 per cent said this had been met.

The survey, which targeted CEOs, marketing and IT directors in 800 companies, also found a divergence of opinion within organisations on the success of CRM systems.

Fifty-five per cent of marketing directors said CRM definitely improved customer retention, but only 35 per cent of IT directors agreed.

Mansur Zwart, line of business applications manager at Microsoft New Zealand, which co-sponsored the survey, said CRM packages were being implemented without an internal champion to coordinate efforts, which made it difficult to measure success.

"A lack of a champion also increases incidences of departments working in 'CRM isolation' and not sharing specialist knowledge," he said.

A survey by Fairfax Business Research, which asked 351 chief financial officers in Australia and New Zealand to rate enterprise software suppliers, found Microsoft scored better in several areas than specialist suppliers such as SAP and Oracle.

Microsoft was rated highest for value for money, while Oracle was 11th and German supplier SAP was 14th.

But SunSystems, which supports Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and OneWorld enterprise software, was ranked first for overall user satisfaction, followed by Australian vendor TechnologyOne, and Epicor.