Mobile CRM: Empowering The 24x7 Road Warrior

Companies are facing a new type of challenge regarding sales productivity as they seek to remain competitive and increase market share. Traditional selling pressures such as reducing sales cycles and costs, and maximizing customer retention, have been adequately addressed through the deployment of traditional and oft-improved Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Sales Force Automation (SFA) enablers for PC use. Moving beyond these building blocks, the ability to empower sales forces with tools to work remotely has evolved dramatically since the first wave of smart phones hit the streets. Sales reps have grown adept at basic applications such as email and web browsing, but often still wait for an end-of-day laptop session to access their CRM system, according to Aberdeen research (Mobile Sales Solutions Benchmark Report, August 2006). Still, Best-in-Class organizations generally yield a 60% user adoption rate for mobile CRM, indicating that real value can be linked to a successful deployment of the technology. With more robust real-time access to customer-centric data, will sales reps at top-performing companies yield tangible benefits for themselves and their employer?

In January and February of 2008, Aberdeen surveyed 175 companies to investigate hether the adoption of a new, more robust set of mobile applications is likely to lead ield personnel, and organizations as a whole, oward increased productivity by realizing the full potential of mobile CRM.