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North American Mobile Sales Force Automation (SFA) Market 2011
Frost & Sullivan, June 2011, Pages: 76
The current mobile sales force automation (SFA) market in North America is sizeable, yet at the same time is still finding its way. A consensus has formed that mobile SFA is a desirable capability; however, the market itself remains fragmented -- and feature sets, pricing strategies, and alliances can diverge dramatically among current participants.
Premium mobile applications are growing in popularity in the North American business sector – and handset-based Mobile Sales Force Automation solutions are right in the mix. This is a dynamic category that continues to develop in terms of available products, features and functions, participating stakeholders, and targeted markets. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the North American Mobile Sales Force Automation (SFA) market, and includes a discussion of the differing U.S. versus Canadian adoption experience.
This study focuses on smartphone-based solutions, and examines current market dynamics, analyzes direct customer feedback regarding mobile SFA preferences and plans, provides user and revenue forecasts, and offers a detailed look at the current competitive landscape.
The Mobile SFA sector is being positively driven by a number of high-impact factors, including:
- Recognition on the part of traditional CRM vendors that mobile access can increase both utilization and seats
- Growing involvement by Sales and Marketing departments in the adoption decision
- Clearer ROI benefits
- More powerful networks and mobile devices
- A stronger focus on targeting the SMB sector -- resulting in more user- and price-friendly solutions
At the same time, adoption challenges remain to be reckoned with. These include:
- A perceived lack of business value on the part of some segments
- Concerns regarding the security of corporate data
- A lack of user-friendliness in the product design
- High upfront investment requirements
- Anticipated implementation/deployment difficulties
- Customers are increasingly making their preferences known – and vendors are listening. Along with increased sensitivity around user-friendliness, the popularity of a variety of mobile operating systems, growing interest in tablets, and the financial advantages of SaaS (software as a service) and accompanying per-user/per-month pricing are being incorporated into Mobile SFA offers and plans.
A clear dichotomy exists between two Mobile SFA vendor camps: On one hand, there are the traditional CRM vendors who view mobility as an add-on to an already established product. Then there are the mobile-centric application developers and platform providers that view mobility as the starting point in any Mobile SFA design. While the CRM vendors have the advantage in terms of captive customer bases to sell to, their more mobile-centric competitors may ultimately offer the more optimal product.
Mobile SFA needs will differ by customer, and reflect the unique composition and priorities of the wide variety of sales organizations that are operating in today’s companies. Selected vendors and channels are now widening Mobile SFA efforts beyond the larger, more complex installments – and giving heightened attention to the SMB sector where needs around features, pricing, modularity, and channels can be quite different.
The Mobile SFA user and revenue forecasts in this study reflect an expanding ecosystem and a continued mix of pricing models.
Today’s challenging economy is forcing companies to turn to Mobile SFA as a way of winning competitive advantage. Instead of a top-down purchase process, the drivers behind Mobile SFA adoption are increasingly the sales organizations themselves. Real-time wireless access to customer information promises to improve individual sales rep effectiveness. And real-time visibility into sales performance gives their executives and managers the ability to address issues, resolve problems, and provide support quickly and effectively. While a company’s IT organization remains involved in evaluating Mobile SFA solutions, often it is the individual Sales and Marketing heads who have the money and the motivation to adopt and deploy.
The annual Frost & Sullivan Mobile Enterprise Applications Survey includes smartphone based Mobile SFA as one of three application categories for discussion. The results of the 2011 survey reveal interesting developments in current Mobile SFA user behavior, including:
- High satisfaction with the solution category – across all user segments.
- Widespread plans to expand utilization of Mobile SFA solutions into additional parts of the company or organization.
- Strong champions at the mid-manager levels within a prospective customer company.
- Continued concern about costs.
- Unmistakable preference for some level of pilots/trials before full rollout.
- A desire to handle customization needs in-house.
- A consistent mix of hard- and soft-dollar ROI impacts.
Today’s Mobile SFA stakeholder segments face an array of challenges -- and the resulting strategic and tactical recommendations offered at the end of this study reflect each segment’s unique positioning in the current market.
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