23 Jun 2009

CRM 'boosted through open source'

Customer relationship management (CRM) abilities are being boosted by the use of open source applications available over the web, it has been claimed.

The number of businesses embracing this form of data management is a surprising turn up, according to Bo Lykkegaard, program director for European enterprise applications at IDC.

He stated that the complex nature of CRM means that companies are having to tailor this software to meet their needs and it is therefore unexpected to see so many turning to open source.

Mr Lykkegaard added: "We don't know if the guys who said 'yes, we use open source CRM' actually use it as a corporate standard for their sales force or if they just use it in the HR department to deal with internal employees."

He made his comments in response to research carried out by IDC, which showed that nine per cent of respondents to a recent survey claimed that their companies used open source systems to help reduce IT budgets and to increase in-house data management ability.