23.06.09
Larger businesses – potentially including call centres - are increasingly using open source customer relationship management (CRM) software in the course of their work duties, it has been suggested.
Bo Lykkegaard, programme director for European enterprise applications at IDC, said the rise in popularity of such technology is "unexpected" given that such solutions are often regarded as too complicated and non-business-specific.
Research conducted by IDC indicates that nine per cent of companies with more than 50 employees are using open source CRM to help generate efficiencies and
improve customer service levels.
The firm claims that the main driver behind open source adoption is the absence of an upfront license payment along with a lower total cost of ownership.
Mr Lykkegaard commented: "We believe that a fair amount of those guys using [open source CRM] also use a commercial product because CRM or a backup application can be used for niche things."
He said it was not clear whether the software was being used as a corporate standard for firms' sales forces or simply to deal with internal employees, but its growing popularity is evident.
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