A recent briefing with CRM IT services specialist Outbox provided useful insight into changes within the CRM market, specifically the shift from Oracle to Salesforce.com and Microsoft.
When Polish-based Outbox was founded eight years ago by Nicolas Mobbs (formerly with IBM and PwC) and Marcin Malinowski it was focussed on Oracle CRM but as demand declined it expanded and now Salesforce.com and Microsoft implementations make up the bulk of its work, with growth over the last 2-3 years in particular. We know Salesforce.com is taking business from Oracle but the level of Microsoft business is informative too. Both providers handle the front part of the CRM process well, and have invested in digital approaches around social media and mobile and the customer experience concept, while Oracle is still more closely associated with the back end of CRM (e.g. providing tools for salespeople and CRM processes). We think it is one of the reasons Oracle is losing out – although the Eloqua and proposed Responsys acquisition (see here) are designed to address this issue.
Outbox has been operating in the UK a couple of years, targeting FTSE 250 companies and below. 70% of revenue derives from Poland, with the remaining 30% from the UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Total revenue for 2012 was €16.4m, up c2% yoy. In 2013 the UK contributed around €2.6m. It is a small player but Outbox has an interesting proposition because it concentrates on the customer experience and digital marketing aspects of CRM, including social media channels and mobile. This is a smart move that will help differentiate it from the CRM generalists and allow it to tap into new budgets, or budgets reallocated to social, digital and mobile projects and owned by business and marketing department heads. Its challenge will be visibility, particularly against large SI’s like Capgemini, Accenture and TCS who have digital divisions to identify new opportunities and actively go after smaller projects. Its advantage is that while they are struggling to adapt operations and costs to smaller projects, Outbox is already there. With two levels of specialisation – CRM and digital/customer experience – plus cloud expertise, the company has an appealing proposition.