This study examines the Western European market for CRM applications by vertical market. The study segments the 2007 license and maintenance revenues of the Western European CRM applications market by 11 vertical segments in the region overall and for the five largest verticals (in five European countries). Finally, the study provides essential guidance on key strategic priorities for CRM vendors.

Financial services, utilities, and healthcare/education were the fastest-growing verticals in the CRM market in 2007. Discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, and retail/wholesale were the slowest growing.

"CRM performed very well in Western Europe in 2007 with an overall growth rate in excess of 10%. This was partly due to an encouraging economic climate, which has changed since then in Western Europe and elsewhere," said Bo Lykkegaard, research director, European Enterprise Applications at IDC. "But other factors, which IDC believes are driven by technology maturity and innovation, also played a critical role in fueling growth. A simplified user experience made applications more adoptable and productive for end users and required less training to use. Software as a service offerings were faster and less costly to implement, in particular for companies with a scattered user base. Service-oriented architectures and standard-based middleware made configuration and integration of CRM applications less costly to implement and maintain. And pre-integration with or even inclusion of industry-specific applications in areas such as billing, demand planning, service provisioning, claims management, and case management lowered the costs and risks of integration. These factors fueled adoption of packaged CRM applications outside the traditional CRM scenarios in B2B sales or B2C marketing and customer service. The new generation of CRM takes a broader view on the external constituents that all industries have, whether these are customers, channel partners, retailers, citizens, patients, or students."

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