Crm Lead Management Analysis

Crm Lead Management Analysis

Market Definition/Description

Lead management integrates business process and technology to close the loop between marketing and direct or indirect sales channels, and to drive higher-value opportunities through improved demand creation, execution and opportunity management. Lead management processes include unqualified contacts and opportunities from various sources, such as Web registration pages and campaigns, direct mail campaigns, email marketing, multichannel campaigns, database marketing and third-party leased lists, social CRM and social networking sites, and tradeshows. The output of lead management processes — qualified, scored, nurtured, augmented and prioritized selling opportunities — are handed off to direct, indirect or e-commerce sales channels for action and closure. For the purpose of this Magic Quadrant, the term "product" will refer to licensed, on-premises applications or software as a service (SaaS), cloud-based application services. CRM lead management can be used in B2B, business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) and business-to-consumer (B2C) CRM processes.

General CRM Tools Benchmark

 

Strengths & Cautions

CallidusCloud

CallidusCloud is a Niche Player and a new addition to this Magic Quadrant. The vendor extends its sales performance management and sales effectiveness capabilities with lead management capabilities from the LeadFormix acquisition completed in 2012.

Strengths

Sales focus: CallidusCloud's products focus on sales force automation (SFA), including incentive compensation management, sales performance, configure price quote, and lead management. The vendor acquired LeadFormix, a marketing automation vendor, in 2012, providing lead management capabilities that can be used and deployed directly by a sales team. The solution can be extended with the CallidusCloud sales enablement solution that helps lead nurturing with content aligned to the customer buying cycle.

Time to productivity: LeadFormix provides a relatively short time to productivity for marketing and sales users. The product can extract data and insight from Data.com, LinkedIn, Rapleaf and other sites to aggregate data and extend the insight of a prospect for sales users. LeadFormix can also be used to aid in identifying anonymous visitors and providing visibility to sales users and management on the volume and score of leads currently in process. LeadFormix is integrated with salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and NetSuite.

Revenue growth: CallidusCloud has made several acquisitions, including LeadFormix, and generated $95 million in revenue in 2012. Gartner estimates that approximately 80% of the vendor's total revenue is in North America. Key verticals include software and business services.

Cautions

Basic functionality: CallidusCloud's ecosystem includes approximately 50 agencies, consulting companies and service providers; users that require third-party resources for developing lead management applications or customization should evaluate their requirements in this area before investing in CallidusCloud or LeadFormix.

Integration and product road map: LeadFormix is a relatively recent acquisition for the vendor, so, integration between LeadFormix and CallidusCloud is ongoing. Users should evaluate functionality such as centralized administration, development tools and user interface and understand the CallidusCloud product road map for ongoing integration and future functionality development.

Viability: Although CallidusCloud has made several acquisitions and generated $95 million in revenue, the company showed a loss of $27 million in 2012. Gartner estimates that less than 10% of revenue comes from the LeadFormix product; prospective customers should ask for technology road map details regarding CallidusCloud and LeadFormix.

ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a Visionary and appears in the CRM lead management Magic Quadrant for the first time. The vendor generated $292 million in revenue in FY12, posted 41% growth year over year, completed an initial public offering (IPO) and completed the acquisition of Pardot in 2012.

Strengths

Marketing vision, execution and technology: The vendor has articulated a vision for marketing automation and lead management and has shown its ability to execute on plan. ExactTarget acquired Pardot in 2012 to provide B2B lead management functionality and to move beyond its email marketing core. Pardot has native integration with salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, NetSuite and SugarCRM, and with WordPress for content management. Pardot lead management can be augmented with ExactTarget's email marketing; ExactTarget has more than 600 clients using its native Google AdWords Connector product; integrates with and appends data from multiple social sites; has integrated analytics and key performance indicators (KPIs); and the Interactive Marketing Hub provides a single management dashboard across multiple ExactTarget applications, including email, mobile, social and data management.

Financial and organizational strength: ExactTarget claims more than 6,000 customers globally, has direct sales and support representation in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Asia/Pacific region, and has developed a strong senior management team. The vendor's investment in R&D was $54 million in 2012; however, it showed a loss of $21 million in 2012 and $35 million in 2011.

Agency, service provider partnerships and support: The vendor has partnerships with multiple technology providers, digital marketing agencies, consulting companies and service provider organizations globally. These partnerships expand ExactTarget's sales and support reach, and provide an important part of the marketing automation ecosystem. Reference customers gave high grades to Pardot's support and service.

Cautions

Breadth of lead management functionality: ExactTarget's lead management functionality, based on Pardot, lacks deep analytics and reporting capabilities; references cited the need for a separate database for complete end-to-end reporting and analytics. Pardot lags the functionality provided by some lead management vendors, such as the ability to support multiple, global lead management applications centrally, or to provide adjacent functionality, such as campaign management, within Pardot; integration with Adobe CQ5 is available through partners, but is not standard. The Pardot product is not yet fully integrated with all ExactTarget applications, such as the Interactive Marketing Hub, and a majority of ExactTarget's technology, partnerships, and sales/support focus is on its core email and digital marketing products.

Competition and B2B positioning: ExactTarget's vision to provide an integrated marketing automation platform puts it into direct competition with several large vendors, including Adobe, IBM, Oracle, salesforce.com and Teradata. ExactTarget will have to broaden its marketing and sales messaging to compete more effectively in this segment, particularly in B2B, which accounts for a large majority of lead management technology and service investment.

Enterprise reach: Pardot was designed for and sold to meet the needs of small and midsize organizations. While reference customers gave positive feedback on the quality of Pardot products and service, ExactTarget will need to continue investing in expanding the capability and scalability of Pardot's lead management offering to be able to compete with enterprise-scale lead management solutions already on the market.

IBM

IBM is a Challenger in this Magic Quadrant; with scale, global presence and a broad product portfolio. The vendor is most appropriate for complex, enterprise lead management initiatives. IBM has raised its visibility with chief marketing officers (CMOs) through the delivery of thought leadership and research in marketing. The vendor was a Leader in the 2012 Magic Quadrant for CRM Multichannel Campaign Management (MCCM) and the 2012 and 2013 Magic Quadrant for Marketing Resource Management (MRM).

Strengths

Viability, growth and global presence: IBM is a global company with $104 billion in revenue in FY12. It continues to expand its presence and its technology assets in CRM and marketing; Gartner estimates growth of the Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) division since 2011 to be approximately 20% per year.

Product portfolio: IBM continues to expand its product portfolio through organic development and acquisition. The EMM group has several marketing technologies: Unica provides lead management capabilities, while other products (such as Coremetrics, Tealeaf and Cognos) add incremental functionality for Web analytics or reporting. In 2012, IBM announced IBM Marketing Center, a SaaS solution that leverages Coremetrics and provides central support for email and digital campaigns, site personalization, tracking, and management. In 2012, IBM also delivered on tighter integration between Coremetrics and IBM Campaign, essential for providing insight to lead management applications that increasingly rely on digital channels. Consider IBM EMM for lead management when integration with other IBM assets is required, or when additional marketing functionality (such as MRM, integrated marketing management [IMM] or MCCM) is anticipated.

Breadth and scalability: Last year's Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management reported on new functionality provided in Unica 8.6. The latest version of this product, now marketed as IBM Enterprise Marketing Management v.9.0, was released in January 2013. EMM v.9.0 can leverage modules (including IBM Campaign, IBM Leads, IBM Digital Analytics and IBM PredictiveInsight) to provide a complete lead management solution. The vendor won several large accounts in 2011 and 2012, particularly in financial services, insurance, technology and communications. Reference customers frequently cited IBM's scale and prior presence in the account as reasons for selecting the vendor for B2B and B2B2C lead management initiatives.

Cautions

Competition: Marketing automation has become a focus for several enterprise technology vendors, and IBM will need to continue to execute and innovate to remain competitive in this marketplace. Smaller, focused vendors continue to have an edge with accounts that require a best-of-breed lead management solution, and that do not require adjacent MRM, IMM or MCCM functionality; other vendors focused on digital marketing also represent a threat as a growing share of the marketing budget is directed toward digital-only initiatives.

Complexity and branding: IBM's broad range of products and services can support complex lead management applications, but may require investment in several individual software applications for a complete solution; prospective customers should identify all required applications and integration points required to meet their business requirements, and compare this investment to the bundled alternative solutions available from the Leaders in this Magic Quadrant. Gartner client inquires show that the rebranding of some product lines, such as the use of EMM in place of Unica, has created confusion.

Mix of on-premises and SaaS: Given IBM's hybrid deployment model, some products, such as IBM Marketing Center, are available only as SaaS solutions, while a majority of IBM's lead management and marketing automation products are licensed and deployed on-premises. Clients should be clear on which technologies and deployment models will be required to fulfill all of their organizations' lead management requirements, and how integrations between SaaS and licensed applications will be developed and supported.

Marketo

Marketo, a Leader in the 2013 and 2012 Magic Quadrants for CRM Lead Management, generated $58.4 million in revenue, showed strong revenue and customer growth, and expanded its sales and partner organization in North America, Europe and the Asia/Pacific region.

Strengths

Sales productivity: Tight integration with salesforce.com, an easy learning curve for marketing professionals and short time to productivity make Marketo popular with sales teams and marketing management. Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics enables forecasting of future revenue based on current lead volume/quality; Marketo Sales Insight provides lead visibility to sales users in native salesforce.com or Microsoft Dynamics CRM user interfaces.

Recognition and agility: The vendor has marketed itself very aggressively, secured $100 million in venture capital and gained several awards, including salesforce.com's AppExchange Customer Choice Award for marketing. Marketo continues to deliver on product functionality, such as expanding its marketing analytics capability, LaunchPoint for partner applications, integration with Facebook and social applications, and revenue modeling. Marketo filed for an IPO in early 2013.

Customer Growth: Marketo has an impressive set of customer logos, including more than 2,000 customers in technology and media, business services, and manufacturing, with an approximately 50/50 split for new Marketo customers between large enterprises and SMBs.

Cautions

Salesforce.com: Marketo is dependent on salesforce.com, with more than 80% (a Gartner estimate) of its customers using salesforce.com. Marketo has partnerships with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SAP and other technology partners, but could be exposed if salesforce.com expands its own lead management capabilities.

Growth challenges: Marketo has executed against its sales growth plans, but reference customers reported that support has lagged. Professional services staff with early levels of Marketo product experience and a lack of trained partners in some regions, especially in Europe and the Asia/Pacific region, need attention. Prospective users should evaluate service and support resources in their regions, although Marketo claims that 140 partners have been certified worldwide. The growth trajectory and venture capital investment, as well as Marketo's IPO filing, indicate that a transaction — either an IPO or an acquisition by a larger vendor — may be in Marketo's future. Customers should consider the potential impact of an IPO or merger and acquisition (M&A) transaction on their organizations.

Enterprise Reach: About half of Marketo's customers are SMBs. The vendor continues to build its enterprise customer base, but large organizations should assess their product needs, particularly around adjacent marketing application segments in which Marketo does not participate, and identify Marketo and partner resource availability against the scope of their requirements.

Microsoft

Microsoft is a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant, based on its integrated, but basic, lead management capabilities that are part of Dynamics CRM. Microsoft acquired MarketingPilot in 2012, which helped to extend its capabilities for lead management, IMM and MRM. Clients with Dynamics CRM deployments, but that have more robust lead management requirements, should evaluate the best-of-breed technologies that integrate with Dynamics CRM.

Strengths

Integrated functionality: For companies that have basic lead management requirements and have standardized on Dynamics CRM, Microsoft's offering provides a solution that does not require a second vendor, additional software investment, or integration between two separate CRM and lead management products. Dynamics CRM is appropriate for companies that do not have complex lead management requirements, or that are in the early stages of developing a lead management strategy. Companies with lead management requirements that extend beyond Dynamics CRM's functionality should evaluate MarketingPilot's capabilities in MRM, campaign management, lead management, and advertising/media planning and promotion.

Deployment choice: Dynamics CRM can be implemented on-premises or, via Dynamics CRM Online, as a SaaS multitenant solution. This makes Dynamics CRM one of the few CRM applications that offers a choice of deployment types and provides an integrated lead management capability. Dynamics CRM and Dynamics CRM Online also share a common data model. Several best-of-breed lead management applications integrate with Dynamics CRM, so that a company that has standardized on Dynamics CRM can move to a best-of-breed alternative while keeping its CRM investment and processes largely intact.

Ecosystem and interoperability: Microsoft has developed a broad and global ecosystem of technology and service partners that can be leveraged as part of a Dynamics CRM lead management deployment. Dynamics CRM provides interoperability with other Microsoft products, such as SharePoint, SQL Server, Azure and Office. Microsoft Dynamics CRM was a Leader in the 2012 Magic Quadrant for SFA.

Cautions

Basic functionality: Microsoft has not articulated a vision for digital marketing as part of a lead management solution, and has not invested in building thought leadership in marketing automation or adjacent marketing areas. While other vendors have aggressively built a vision and technology base to address this segment, Microsoft continues to offer only basic lead management functionality.

Reliance on solution providers: Most lead management applications, even basic ones, will require integration or custom development with other applications or data repositories. Microsoft has not focused its own professional services or expertise in marketing or lead management, so clients that require additional expertise and services for lead management should plan on finding a Microsoft partner with both Dynamics CRM and marketing expertise. The vendor has not developed or packaged either horizontal templates for standard lead management processes or industry-specific lead management templates, although Microsoft partners do have expertise in this area.

Integration: The MarketingPilot acquisition was completed late in 2012, so integration of its capabilities into Dynamics CRM is still in process. Customers should ask Microsoft for additional insight on technology road map plans for MarketingPilot, and should evaluate those capabilities against functionality available from lead management vendors featured in this Magic Quadrant.

Neolane

Neolane is a Visionary in this Magic Quadrant, based on the vendor's growth and its ability to span both lead management and campaign management capabilities. Neolane reported $58 million in revenue for FY12, representing 40% revenue growth, and has developed a customer base of more than 400 customers in media, entertainment, retail, life sciences, financial services, telecom, high tech and consumer products in 20 countries.

Strengths

Growth and viability: Neolane supports lead management and campaign management capabilities, and was a Visionary in the 2012 Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management and a Visionary in the 2012 Magic Quadrant for CRM MCCM. The vendor has developed technology or consulting partnerships with several digital agencies and consulting companies, and it secured a $27 million financing round in early 2012. Gartner estimates that Neolane's revenue is divided approximately equally between North America and Europe.

Flexibility and innovation: The vendor is able to span B2B, B2B2C and B2C usage models and support both lead management and campaign management applications. Neolane v.6.1 provides extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) data management capabilities, enhanced marketing analytics, and distributed marketing capabilities for supporting multiple geographic regions or brands on a single Neolane instance. Neolane uses the same code base for on-premises and SaaS implementations, and can integrate with multiple CRM systems simultaneously.

Digital marketing: Neolane has added social marketing features such as social sign-on and user profile capture capabilities, and provides the ability to generate content and offers through Facebook. The vendor has added additional analytics reporting capabilities for B2B users, has added additional channels (such as in-app offer management and push notification) and can support lead management applications delivered across multiple geographic areas, with support for multiple countries, currencies, languages and brands.

Cautions

Complexity: Neolane is flexible enough to support multiple business models, but reference users reported that flexibility also brings some product complexity. Organizations with more narrow and specific B2B lead management requirements should compare Neolane with the Leaders in this Magic Quadrant.

Analytics, ETL and reporting: Last year, reference customers noted that the analytics, reporting, KPIs and data management functionality of Neolane was only average. The latest Neolane v.6.1 provides enhancements in these areas but prospective users should confirm their analytics and reporting requirements against Neolane's standard functionality, as well as speak with current users that have implemented v.6.1.

SaaS offering: Neolane supports both on-premises and hosted product offerings from the same single-tenant code base. A majority of Neolane users opts for on-premises implementations; users that require a SaaS offering should evaluate the vendor's single-tenant architecture and confirm its ability to scale this model to larger numbers of customers and transaction volumes.

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Oracle (Eloqua)

Oracle (Eloqua) is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant and also in the 2012 Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management. The vendor acquired Eloqua in February 2013; the product is now known as Oracle Marketing Cloud Service (Oracle Eloqua). Eloqua reported $95.8 million in revenue in 2012 and 34% growth from the prior year. Major industry segments include high tech, financial services and manufacturing.

Strengths

Product functionality: Oracle Eloqua scored high marks for product functionality, customer satisfaction, and a growing ecosystem of marketing service providers (MSPs) and partners. Experienced marketers prefer Eloqua for its ability to support multichannel lead management processes, strong lead scoring, integration with salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and HTML5 support for mobile devices.

Financial position and execution: Oracle Eloqua has maintained strong growth and sales execution in the face of strong competitors and rapid technology changes in the market. Gartner expects that the Oracle acquisition will expand Eloqua's sales and support resources, and broaden its geographic presence.

Innovation: Oracle Eloqua has delivered on innovation, including HTML5 campaign user interface; its first industry solution for financial services, the Eloqua AppCloud marketplace for technology partner applications; bundling of the salesforce.com Chatter product for internal social collaboration; and the Eloqua Discover for Salesforce.com tool.

Cautions

Oracle transition: The Oracle acquisition has raised concerns among some Eloqua customers regarding product road map and integration plans, as well as ongoing support for integration with salesforce.com technologies: Gartner estimates that more than 60% of Eloqua's customers are integrated with salesforce.com. Users and prospective users should plan for some short-term disruption and change, and ask Oracle for guidance on the technology road map, support and future integration plans with other Oracle CRM applications.

Implementation considerations: In some use cases, Oracle Eloqua has a longer time to productivity than some other lead management offerings, although this should be balanced against the needs of the larger, global customers that Oracle Eloqua typically supports.

Focused functionality: Oracle Eloqua's focus is on lead management; organizations that require additional marketing automation functionality (such as MRM and campaign management) should consider the vendors featured in this Magic Quadrant that provide broader marketing automation offerings.

Oracle (Eloqua)

Oracle (Eloqua) is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant and also in the 2012 Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management. The vendor acquired Eloqua in February 2013; the product is now known as Oracle Marketing Cloud Service (Oracle Eloqua). Eloqua reported $95.8 million in revenue in 2012 and 34% growth from the prior year. Major industry segments include high tech, financial services and manufacturing.

Strengths

Product functionality: Oracle Eloqua scored high marks for product functionality, customer satisfaction, and a growing ecosystem of marketing service providers (MSPs) and partners. Experienced marketers prefer Eloqua for its ability to support multichannel lead management processes, strong lead scoring, integration with salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and HTML5 support for mobile devices.

Financial position and execution: Oracle Eloqua has maintained strong growth and sales execution in the face of strong competitors and rapid technology changes in the market. Gartner expects that the Oracle acquisition will expand Eloqua's sales and support resources, and broaden its geographic presence.

Innovation: Oracle Eloqua has delivered on innovation, including HTML5 campaign user interface; its first industry solution for financial services, the Eloqua AppCloud marketplace for technology partner applications; bundling of the salesforce.com Chatter product for internal social collaboration; and the Eloqua Discover for Salesforce.com tool.

Cautions

Oracle transition: The Oracle acquisition has raised concerns among some Eloqua customers regarding product road map and integration plans, as well as ongoing support for integration with salesforce.com technologies: Gartner estimates that more than 60% of Eloqua's customers are integrated with salesforce.com. Users and prospective users should plan for some short-term disruption and change, and ask Oracle for guidance on the technology road map, support and future integration plans with other Oracle CRM applications.

Implementation considerations: In some use cases, Oracle Eloqua has a longer time to productivity than some other lead management offerings, although this should be balanced against the needs of the larger, global customers that Oracle Eloqua typically supports.

Focused functionality: Oracle Eloqua's focus is on lead management; organizations that require additional marketing automation functionality (such as MRM and campaign management) should consider the vendors featured in this Magic Quadrant that provide broader marketing automation offerings.

Oracle (Siebel)

Oracle (Siebel) is a Niche Player in CRM lead management. The Siebel Enterprise Marketing product is dependent on Siebel CRM, and is appropriate only for companies that currently have, or plan to implement, Siebel CRM. Siebel Enterprise Marketing is a mature product and is actively sold where integrated marketing, sales and customer support functionality on a common technology platform are requirements, and where a SaaS architecture is not appropriate.

Strengths

Broad Siebel functionality: Siebel Enterprise Marketing provides lead management for B2C and B2B applications, integrates with other Siebel assets (such as Siebel Analytics and Siebel Sales), and enables analytics and reporting throughout the marketing and selling cycle.

Product breadth: Siebel Enterprise Marketing can enable adjacent marketing functionality, including campaign management and MRM, for organizations that require broader marketing functionality. Siebel Campaign Management integrates with Siebel Sales, and enables the handoff and tracking of qualified leads to direct and indirect sales channels. Siebel Email Marketing and Oracle Marketing Analytics provide additional functionality for email marketing and marketing/sales analytics.

Technology partners and service providers: The product has a broad and global set of technology and service provider partnerships.

Cautions

Dependency on Siebel CRM: Siebel Enterprise Marketing is appropriate only for companies that currently have, or plan to implement, Siebel CRM.

Complex solutions: Complex lead management requirements will usually require the implementation of other Oracle applications to augment functionality. Clients evaluating Siebel Enterprise Marketing should understand the technology dependencies and costs associated with meeting their business requirements.

Product road map clarity: Gartner client inquiries indicate confusion concerning out-of-the-box integration and the technology road maps for Oracle's multiple CRM applications, including Siebel Enterprise Marketing and lead management. Organizations considering integration of Siebel Enterprise Marketing with Oracle applications such as Oracle Service Cloud Service (formerly RightNow), Oracle Commerce, Oracle CRM On Demand and Oracle Sales Cloud Service (formerly Oracle Fusion Sales) should confirm the product road map, availability and license costs directly with Oracle. Prospective customers should also understand the vendor's technology road map for future enhancements to Siebel Enterprise Marketing, and in comparison to plans for the recently acquired Eloqua product.

salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant. Its out-of-the-box lead management capability supports basic lead management, but does not represent the best-of-breed capability provided by other vendors in this segment — many of which are Salesforce App Exchange partners. However, salesforce.com has become one of the largest vendors of CRM applications; it has built up one of the broadest ecosystems of marketing automation partners, and provides technologies (such as Chatter and Data.com) that augment salesforce.com's lead management capabilities as well as AppExchange partner offerings.

Strengths

Market presence and ecosystem: Salesforce.com is the fastest-growing CRM vendor, with 2012 revenue of more than $2 billion. It has one of the largest ecosystems of marketing and lead management technology and consulting partners in the industry, including several best-of-breed lead management vendors featured in this Magic Quadrant. Several of its products, including Data.com, Chatter, Radian6 and Buddy Media, can be used to augment lead management and marketing applications.

Building blocks: Sales Cloud, Chatter, Data.com and Marketing Cloud (Buddy Media and Radian6) applications and other native salesforce.com (i.e., non-AppExchange partner applications) technologies can be used to build lead management applications in lieu of licensing a lead management application. While this approach isn't appropriate for every business with lead management requirements, it does enable a company with basic lead management requirements to build a lead management application without involving another vendor.

Innovation: Salesforce.com continues to build out its infrastructure of sales and marketing capabilities through organic development and acquisition. Tools such as Chatter or Data.com provide important incremental functionality to partners' applications and to the vendor's own Marketing Cloud application.

Cautions

Not best of breed: As a Niche Player vendor, salesforce.com provides lead management capability, but does not compete with the Leaders in this Magic Quadrant with its out-of-the-box lead management functionality.

Marketing infrastructure: Marketing Cloud provides infrastructure capabilities that can exist alongside or augment marketing applications, but it does not provide lead management, campaign management or MRM application functionality out of the box. Customers evaluating Marketing Cloud functionality should be aware that the functionality can be used to build or augment a lead management application, but does not provide a turnkey lead management solution.

AppExchange partners: Salesforce.com's AppExchange lead management partners provide salesforce.com users with a wide range of choices, but also present the vendor's native lead management capability with serious competition. The acquisitions of some partners, such as Eloqua (acquired by Oracle), Pardot (acquired by ExactTarget) and MarketingPilot (acquired by Microsoft), have caused some level of disruption to the partner ecosystem.

SAP

SAP is a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant, and its lead management offering is appropriate for companies that have implemented SAP CRM and SAP CRM Marketing. SAP technologies in adjacent areas, such as advanced analytics, Hana and MRM, extend the vendor's capabilities beyond lead management and make it most suitable for SAP users with broader and more complex marketing requirements in addition to lead management. SAP was a Leader in the 2013 Magic Quadrant for MRM.

Strengths

Increased marketing focus: SAP has increased its focus on marketing significantly during the past year, with SAP CRM 7.0 providing the most recent marketing and lead management functionality. Gartner estimates that as much as 50% of SAP CRM deals now include SAP CRM Marketing, and that growth of SAP CRM Marketing licenses exceeded 20% in 2012. Adjacent SAP technology and services (including Hana, advanced analytics and segmentation, MRM capabilities, and Rapid Deployment Solutions) strengthen SAP's marketing capabilities. SAP has also articulated a vision for SaaS marketing capabilities that will support social media analytics, predictive analytics and a Hana-based marketing management platform to manage lead management, campaign management and multiple channels, such as social, mobile, email campaigns, analytics and data segmentation, and integration of external data sources.

Analytics and segmentation: SAP lead management can provide deep integration with customer information, data, reporting and business rules kept in SAP CRM or other SAP applications. SAP Hana applies data management and analysis to customer information to support complex segmentation, especially with large volumes of customer data. The product road map includes more-advanced predictive and visualization capabilities, enabling real-time segmentation and complex lead management, campaign management and MRM capabilities. SAP was a Leader in the 2013 Magic Quadrant for MRM.

Ecosystem and services: SAP service and technology partners, including Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, IBM, PwC and others, extend the vendor's marketing reach. Deep experience, its installed base, and solutions for manufacturing, high tech, life sciences and financial services help drive industry-specific lead management applications. The Rapid Deployment Solutions available for SAP CRM support accelerated implementation and reduce time to productivity.

Cautions

SAP CRM dependency: SAP's lead management is an integrated set of functionality within SAP CRM and SAP CRM Marketing, and is appropriate only for companies that have implemented or plan to implement SAP CRM. Dependency on SAP CRM limits SAP's ability to expand to non-SAP customers; reference customers note that SAP tends to lag behind smaller and more nimble competitors in terms of integration of social channels, mobile and digital marketing assets.

Solution complexity: Reference users comment on the complexity and time required to develop and deploy lead management applications, as compared with Leaders' time to productivity of less than four weeks. SAP's lead management capability functions best for large organizations that use SAP and have requirements for broad campaign management and MRM capabilities. The recently introduced SAP 360 Customer product, based on the Business ByDesign SaaS platform, provides basic lead management capabilities appropriate for the midmarket or enterprises with simpler requirements, but the road map and integration with the core SAP CRM product should be evaluated by companies considering this option.

Cloud: SAP CRM Marketing is a licensed application that is predominantly implemented on-premises, adding additional complexity and time to productivity, compared with SaaS solutions on the market. While SAP CRM Marketing can be hosted by SAP or a partner, challenges with the upfront financial investment and application installation overhead remain a challenge for companies with short time-to-market requirements.

Silverpop

Silverpop is a Niche Player and a new entrant in this year's Magic Quadrant. Gartner estimates that the vendor grew approximately 15% during 2012 and generated about $80 million in revenue that year from about 1,800 customers. A majority of Silverpop's revenue is based in North America.

Strengths

Agility: Silverpop provides SaaS email marketing and lead management for companies in retail, high tech, financial services and business services. Reference customers gave positive feedback on the vendor's responsiveness to market changes and the integration of new features into the product set, as well as on postsales support.

Functionality: The vendor has evolved from email marketing to include lead management functionality; although email marketing continues to account for a majority of its revenue, Gartner estimates that approximately 30% of new customers deploy Silverpop to support lead management applications. The product supports functionality including campaign management, Web tracking, dynamic content delivery, lead scoring and integration with major vendors' technology, such as Adobe, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, NetSuite and salesforce.com. Silverpop has made several acquisitions, including Vtrenz in 2007, to strengthen its capabilities in lead management.

Value: Silverpop customers report that they chose Silverpop based on the relatively low cost of the solution, the short time to productivity and the ease of use of the product. The typical customer is a midmarket organization or department within a larger company.

Cautions

Viability: Privately held, Silverpop was founded in 1999 and attracted several rounds of venture capital and private equity early on, estimated at approximately $70 million. Potential customers should evaluate the vendor's ongoing R&D investment in its core lead management capability.

Scale: Silverpop is challenged to maintain both visibility and feature/function parity with other companies in the sector. The email-centric feature set fulfills the criteria for this Magic Quadrant, and will appeal to midmarket organizations and departments within larger organizations that manage their own lead generation activities.

Mind share: Marketing automation is growing rapidly and has spawned several aggressive and vocal competitors. Silverpop will have to execute on its product strategy while continuing to ramp up its own marketing outreach, especially in the competitive midmarket sector.

Teradata

Teradata is a Challenger in this year's Magic Quadrant, based on its broad lead management and data management capabilities. The vendor generated more than $2.6 billion in revenue in 2012, reported more than 300 new customers, and grew revenue from its marketing applications between 10% and 20% from the prior year (a Gartner estimate). Teradata was a Leader in the 2013 Magic Quadrant for MRM, the 2012 Magic Quadrant for IMM and the 2012 Magic Quadrant for CRM MCCM.

Strengths

Breadth of product: Teradata's lead management functionality is provided by Aprimo Marketing Studio 8.8 and Aprimo Marketing Studio On Demand. Teradata also provides other applications to support campaign management, IMM, data warehousing and analytics in B2B, B2B2C and B2C business applications. Aprimo Marketing Studio has integration with salesforce.com, Oracle Siebel and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and with Adobe SiteCatalyst for Web analytics.

Viability and product road map: The vendor completed its acquisition of eCircle for digital marketing, and is continuing to integrate this functionality as part of its lead management capability and as the core of new functionality called Digital Messaging Center. Teradata released integration of its Teradata Relationship Manager and Teradata Real Time Inbound Manager products with Digital Messaging Center earlier this year. The vendor has also articulated a vision for integrating its MRM, campaign management, IMM and email that will underpin predictive analytics capabilities for lead management. Teradata has partnerships with service providers such as Accenture, Capgemini and Deloitte, and supports a broad range of enterprise customers in financial services, insurance, technology and business services.

Enterprise presence: Teradata is well-suited for large organizations with lead management requirements, but that also have adjacent complex marketing automation and data management requirements, need to support both B2B and B2C interactions, and/or that currently have other Teradata products in place.

Cautions

Complexity: Teradata has a strong product portfolio for large companies with marketing requirements that span campaign management, marketing analytics and IMM; however, the breadth of its technology may represent too large a financial and technology investment for B2B organizations with more-focused lead management requirements. Teradata's primary strength is in B2C and campaign management interactions where the ability to manage large volumes of data across multiple consumer-facing channels is critical; enterprise companies with complex data management requirements that extend beyond lead management should evaluate Teradata against other vendors with complex marketing automation portfolios.

Separate development and code bases: The Teradata and Aprimo platforms are built in separate development environments (Teradata is Java-based, Aprimo is Microsoft-based), although data management and workflow functionality has been integrated across both platforms. Furthermore, Aprimo is available as either a licensed, on-premises solution (Aprimo Marketing Studio) or a multitenant SaaS service (Aprimo Marketing Studio On Demand), each with its own code base. The eCircle acquisition further complicates the product set and can prove challenging for customers looking for a single integrated and consistent development, administration and user interface environment. The product road map, development plans and vision articulated by Teradata address these issues, but Gartner has made similar observations in Magic Quadrants published in 2012, indicating that Teradata continues to grapple with integration challenges.

Go to market: The integration of Aprimo and other acquired technologies or companies continues, but users comment on the need to manage multiple administrative tools, user interfaces and development environments. Teradata's complete solution set includes data warehousing, MRM, IMM and campaign management, as well as lead management. Companies with limited resources and budget, or that require a lead management solution with a shorter time to productivity, should evaluate Leaders and Visionaries in this Magic Quadrant to compare their financial, technical and time resource requirements.

Vendors Added or Dropped

Added

CallidusCloud, ExactTarget and Silverpop have been added to this year's Magic Quadrant.

Dropped

Two Oracle products that support lead management — Oracle CRM On Demand Marketing and Oracle Fusion Marketing — did not meet the inclusion criteria and are not included in this Magic Quadrant (see "How to Understand the Criteria for the 2013 Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management").

Other vendors with lead management capabilities that did not meet the Inclusion Criteria include Act-On Software, HubSpot and Responsys.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

To be included in the Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management, a vendor must meet all the technical capabilities listed below (in the Inclusion Criteria: Technology section and in the Inclusion Criteria: Market Presence and Company Viability section) as standard or optional components of its CRM lead management product.

Inclusion Criteria: Technology

All inclusion criteria functionality must be available as a standard or an optional part of the application as provided by the vendor. Inclusion criteria functionality cannot depend on applications or functionality provided by partners, or on custom development or services (e.g., custom application development provided by the vendor's professional service organization or a system integrator):

·         Multichannel Lead Management: This is the ability to provide lead management functionality for inbound and outbound marketing initiatives. This includes, at a minimum, lead collection, analytics, augmentation, scoring, process management and nurturing across at least three lead generation and lead management channels in a single campaign. Examples of lead generation channels include websites and microsites, e-commerce sites, search sites, customer service and support applications (e.g., call and contact centers), email marketing, mobile, text and mobile marketing, social networking or social CRM applications, tradeshows, seminars or events (in person and virtual), direct mail marketing, and third-party database/lists.

·         Lead Aggregation/Lead Database: This is the ability to collect, store, execute on, import/export, analyze and report on leads. Lead input capabilities need to support online, real-time/near-time processes and offline, batch input of data. The vendor does not need to provide a database, but a data model and the ability to collect/source data that will be stored in the database are required. Also required is the ability to collect, store, analyze and segment unqualified leads from campaign management applications, digital marketing applications, Web and e-commerce sites, and database and data management applications, and the ability to feed those unqualified leads into the lead management application. Required as well is the ability to collect and build demographic and behavioral history in the lead management database for individual unqualified leads as they mature through the lead management application.

·         Analytics, KPIs and Business Intelligence (BI): This is the ability to leverage integration tools (APIs, XML, etc.) to transfer data among applications, including source applications (e.g., third-party data providers, referral systems and websites) and execution applications (e.g., SFA, contact center and email) to use in closed-loop marketing analyses. Also required is the ability to generate operational and strategic KPIs sufficient to monitor and guide revenue generation. Required as well is the ability to provide a preconfigured set of reports, management dashboards, metrics and KPIs as integral parts of the packaged application. Also required is the ability to monitor, access and report on data stored in either the lead management application or in SFA/customer support and service applications to provide closed-loop marketing analytics. Vendors must provide a visual or graphical representation of the data and metrics in a format appropriate for marketing, sales and executive users. Vendors also must provide professional services and consulting that guide user organizations in the use of analytics, KPIs and BI as they relate to continuous marketing improvement and lead management maturity.

·         Lead Augmentation: This is the ability to append missing or additional information to the lead from external, third-party sources (e.g., missing email fields), and to integrate and store this information in the lead management database and associate it with the appropriate lead or customer information. Also required is the ability to eliminate incomplete, redundant or duplicate lead information based on criteria set by the end-user organization. Required as well is the ability to augment or nurture a lead with additional collateral or value-added content, such as documents or PDFs, spreadsheets, videos, or Web-based content, to increase the lead score and the probability to close.

·         Lead Scoring/Qualification: This is the ability to create multiple lead qualification and scoring processes, based on criteria such as a campaign, product type or customer segment, estimated customer value, opportunity value, and seasonal criteria. Vendors must be able to execute multiple lead qualification and scoring processes simultaneously, and to dynamically route the leads that meet the qualification or scoring criteria to the next appropriate lead management process part of lead process management.

·         Lead Process Management: This is the ability to create lead management workflows or business process management rules using a graphical workflow or business process tool or a nongraphical scripting tool to create a lead management application that dynamically routes leads through the lead scoring, qualification, augmentation and distribution processes based on execution criteria (e.g., geography, estimated value and status of prior process steps). Also required is the ability to dynamically pass leads to a sales execution system (e.g., SFA, partner relationship management [PRM], call/contact center application or e-commerce) on the basis of user-defined routing, scoring or qualification rules. Required as well is the ability to execute multiple lead management processes and workflows simultaneously within a single instance of the product.

·         Lead Nurturing: This is the ability to manage and control the lead life cycle from collection to conversion, including, at a minimum, maintenance (building relationships for a longer-term selling cycle), execution (selling to clients at an appropriate later time) and removal (the removal of dead-end leads from the database so that they are no longer nurtured or pursued). Also required is the ability to provide content management systems directly or via partners that support the development, storage and usage of content management as it is used to support lead-nurturing activities.

·         Integration, APIs and Templates: This is the ability to integrate with third-party applications (e.g., SFA, PRM, call/contact center applications and legacy applications) using published and supported APIs or integration interfaces. Also required is the ability to integrate with social sites, such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Vendor products must be able to integrate with major CRM, SFA, e-commerce, customer support, social, virtual event, marketing data, and customer management applications or services. Packaged lead management templates must be available for line-of-business applications, or for automation of cross-industry (horizontal) lead management functionality.

Inclusion Criteria: Market Presence and Company Viability

The inclusion criteria for market presence and company viability includes:

§  Vendor revenue from the lead management product (a combination of product or service licenses, annual maintenance, and professional services provided by the vendor) must have been a minimum of $20 million during the past four quarters. If a vendor is privately held and chooses not to disclose revenue information, then it can provide the total number of installed customers, growth rates in 2011 and 2012, total number of customers acquired in 2011 and 2012, and average deal size. (Gartner may estimate revenue for vendors that choose not to submit financial and revenue information.)

§  The lead management product must be delivered as a stand-alone lead management technology, as lead management functionality integrated and sold as part of a CRM or SFA application, or as lead management functionality integrated with MCCM, IMM, digital marketing, email marketing or MRM applications. Functionality can be provided through licensed software, or as a hosted or SaaS offering.

§  The lead management product must provide the capabilities defined in the Inclusion Criteria: Technology section.

§  The lead management product must have been available for license in the market for a minimum of one year, and must currently be installed and providing lead management functionality (B2B, B2C or B2B2C) to enterprise and midenterprise customers (midenterprise is defined as having a minimum revenue of more than $250 million per year). The vendor must have a minimum of 20 production implementations worldwide across at least three industries (e.g., high tech, financial services and manufacturing), with at least 12 net new customers that have implemented the vendor's lead management technology in the prior 12 months.

§  The vendor must have a direct sales and customer support presence in at least two of these three regions: North America and Latin America, EMEA, and the Asia/Pacific region.

§  The vendor must have developed an ecosystem of partners that provides consulting, technology or services that extend the value of the lead management product. Examples of these partnerships include service providers, MSPs, third-party application developers, digital agencies, add-on applications or service providers, strategy or process consulting providers, or partners (value-added resellers [VARs], distributors, OEMs and technology providers).

Evaluation Criteria

Ability to Execute

Product/Service: These are licensed or SaaS applications offered by the vendor that provide lead management functionality and integration with adjacent applications, data or services. This includes the current product capabilities, feature sets, technology base, architecture and integration capabilities.

Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization): This is the viability of the organization's overall financial strength, the financial and practical success of the business unit or company, and the likelihood of the business unit or company to continue selling, supporting and investing in the product, and to advance the state of the art in the company's product portfolio.

Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor's sales and pricing includes all presales and sales activities. It also includes responsiveness to customer or prospect RFIs, RFI/RFP activities, and presales technical support. It includes the vendor's ability to marshal and coordinate required third-party resources, such as system integration or technology partnerships during presales and sales activities. This criterion addresses the vendor's execution during contract negotiations, RFPs or quote responses, and pricing and negotiation activities, and the overall effectiveness of the direct and indirect sales and sales management organization. This criterion also addresses cost and pricing competitiveness as they relate to competitors with comparable capabilities, including the published list price of the vendor's product (licensed or SaaS) and any optional modules needed to meet the minimum product requirements as defined above, as well as annual maintenance fees, if any, and any required services, training, implementation fees, customization or related services.

Market Responsiveness and Track Record: This is the vendor's ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor's history of responsiveness, and its strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographic regions outside the headquarters region, directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries, as appropriate for the geography and market.

Customer Experience: This is the availability and viability of internal customer service and support capabilities, including support resources, systems, policies and global scope; external resources, including partnerships with global system integrators, consulting organizations and technology partnerships; and related internal or external resources, such as third-party tools or consulting methodologies, customer-led social networking initiatives, and the availability of user groups and SLAs.

Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria	Weighting
Product/Service	High
Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization)	Standard
Sales Execution/Pricing	Standard
Market Responsiveness and Track Record	High
Marketing Execution	No Rating
Customer Experience	High
Operations	No Rating

Source: Gartner (April 2013)

Completeness of Vision

Market Understanding: This is the vendor's ability to understand buyers' needs, and to translate these needs into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen to and understand buyers' wants and needs, and can shape or enhance them with their added vision.

Sales Strategy: This is the vendor's ability to articulate and demonstrate the development of a sales strategy that leverages direct and/or indirect sales, marketing, customer support and service, or communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base. System integration, technology, application, strategy consulting and distribution partnerships are integral parts of the sales strategy.

Offering (Product Strategy): This is the vendor's strategy for product development and delivery that emphasizes market differentiation, functionality, methodology, time to market, competitive activity, technology and industry advances, and other relevant criteria as they impact the customer experience and map to current and future requirements. The product strategy includes the vendor's business model (for example, the soundness and logic of the vendor's underlying business proposition); its vertical or industry strategy that will direct resources, skills and investments to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, users or vertical industry groups; and its global strategy that will impact its ability to meet the needs of a global customer base.

Innovation: This is the investment of financial, management or technology resources, expertise, or capital in areas such as product development, sales and support infrastructures, third-party and partner relationships, or mergers and acquisitions, and that is intended to expand the scope, capabilities or global presence of the vendor and its products for its customers.

Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria	Weighting
Market Understanding	High
Marketing Strategy	No Rating
Sales Strategy	Standard
Offering (Product) Strategy	High
Business Model	No Rating
Vertical/Industry Strategy	No Rating
Innovation	Standard
Geographic Strategy	No Rating

Source: Gartner (April 2013)

Quadrant Descriptions

Leaders

Leaders in the CRM lead management market provide market-leading functionality that supports B2B, B2B2C and B2C lead management processes across multiple channels, and supports both outbound and inbound marketing processes. The vendors demonstrate market awareness and nimbleness by their ability to develop and deploy support for new market and user requirements; examples include the development of industry-specific templates for lead management, or the ability to interface with public social channels that are specific to a target audience. The vendors have developed an ecosystem of technology partners and provide deep integration with key applications such as SFA, Web analytics or content management solutions; they are able to provide in-depth professional services and consulting through both their own services organization and through the development of partnerships with leading solution providers, MSPs or consulting organizations; and have demonstrated their ability to sell and support enterprise-scale customers and deployments on a global basis. Leaders are able to show viability through revenue growth, organizational growth, financial stability, and either profitability or the ability to attract outside investment. Leaders sell successfully in more than a single vertical industry, and customers show high levels of satisfaction and success with their implementations.

Challengers

Challengers in CRM lead management offer breadth of functionality, but lack the depth of functionality of the Leaders. Challengers often provide lead management functionality that is dependent on another product from the same vendor. Lead management capability is not best-of-breed, but Challengers provide market presence and adjacent technologies (such as MRM, CRM or Web analytics) that are valuable to buyers that require a single vendor platform to fulfill multiple functional requirements; a key value proposition is integration with currently implemented technology or infrastructure. Challengers are often slower to react to changes in the market and lag behind the Leaders, and are often dependent on selling to existing clients.

Visionaries

Visionaries have a strong vision for a set of technologies that includes lead management, but they do not yet provide best-of-breed lead management that is both broad and functionally deep. Visionaries may be looking to capitalize on market momentum by emphasizing their role as part of the ecosystem as they invest in internal R&D or M&A activity to increase their market presence and potentially move to either a Challenger or Leader position. Visionaries are thought leaders and innovators that have not yet gained broad market penetration and adoption. Visionaries can also come from an adjacent market sector and are looking to expand their total addressable market by moving into lead management. Visionaries may have strong technology vision and road map, but lack the Ability to Execute demonstrated by Leaders.

Niche Players

Niche Players provide a basic set of lead management features to a narrow segment of the potential market. Their markets are often defined by vertical industry expertise, or by selling into their installed base as an add-on technology. They meet Magic Quadrant criteria, and may attempt to extend their functionality and win customers through a dependence on professional service engagements. Niche Players may be limited in geographic reach, partner relationships or scalability of their solution. These vendors are appealing to customers with limited budgets or constrained technology resources, or that do not require the depth of functionality provided by Leaders or Challengers. Niche Players often lack vision, or are unable to deliver on a vision they try to articulate.

Context

Several vendors provide technology that can be used to support both lead management and campaign management activities. Other vendors provide narrowly focused products that concentrate on best-of-breed lead management and are able to react quickly to changes in the market, such as the requirement to incorporate social channels.

Marketing automation processes, including lead management, campaign management, MRM, and social for CRM, all have an interdependence at some level on common functionality (for example, analytics), meaning that some technology offerings can be adapted to support some or all of these marketing automation capabilities. Similarly, CRM vendors can all provide some level of lead management capability, but this approach generally does not match the best-of-breed features and functionality provided by Leaders. Vendors that support lead management as part of an integrated marketing automation suite can also manage MCCM, MRM and IMM processes; large organizations may benefit from this broader set of functionality, while organizations with more specific or narrow requirements may find this approach overly complex and expensive.

Marketing and sales organizations looking to invest in lead management should understand their requirements in the context of features and functions, but also in terms of their ability to invest financial resources, technical and marketing resources, and their required time to productivity.

Market Overview

Gartner estimates that investments in CRM marketing automation applications and services, which includes lead management, grew by more than 20% in 2011 and 2012, and will account for more than $4.2 billion by 2016 — representing the largest growth of any CRM segment. Investment in lead management is expected to continue during the next several years as organizations continue to focus on increasing enterprise growth, attracting and retaining new customers, and maximizing productivity of the sales organization. Investment in lead management is also being underpinned by the overall growth and success of the CRM markets and by investment in digital marketing: CRM lead management impacts revenue by leveraging investments in SFA, digital marketing, social and established marketing channels. Recent M&A and IPO activities underscore market interest in this sector.

CRM lead management is evolving from a technology that was implemented predominantly by B2B and B2B2C organizations, and is now becoming more prevalent in consumer-facing, B2C organizations. Similarly, B2B marketers are adopting technologies and channels formerly associated primarily with consumer-facing activities, such as social, and integrating those into B2B lead management processes. Nexus of Forces technologies, particularly information (big data) and cloud, have had a major impact on the speed with which lead management applications can be deployed. Social and mobile, while having some impact, are secondary for the primarily B2B users that rely on more-established marketing channels, including email, Web landing pages, seminars and education sessions, presales call centers, and, in some industries, physical print and in-person trade events. The integration of digital marketing technology and processes has also had a major impact on lead management, providing B2B marketing professionals with a broader set of tools and functionality, but also creating additional complexity and integration points for existing lead management processes.

The distinct lines between B2B and B2C continue to exist, but are becoming more blurred. Three primary characteristics define CRM lead management:

A focus on business and marketing processes

A focus on products or services that represent a sizable investment on the part of the business or the consumer (also known as "considered purchases")

A handoff of the qualified lead to a direct salesperson, an indirect sales team (for example, a VAR or distributor), an inside sales team or an automated channel, such as an e-commerce site

Source: gartner.com