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How Seriously Should You Take Those “Top 10” Lists of CRM Systems, Especially When Microsoft Dynamics CRM Is Left Off?

by David Lee
President & Founder, Vertical Marketing, Inc.,

We see them every day.  The Top 10 CRM systems.  Gartner's Magic Quadrants.  What is the power they hold?  In a word, simplicity.

We are faced with far more information than we can digest.  Even I cannot keep up with it all, and I have no other job than consulting on CRM.  I can only imagine what it must be like for you.  So when we see a list saying that System A is number 1 and System B is number 2, then we tend to simply accept it, even though we know that a simple ranking can never tell the entire story.  It is a simple concept. 


I recently saw an article on ISM's Top 15 rankings of CRM systems.  They listed two categories as follows:


ISM's Top 15 CRM Enterprise Winners
  • Amdocs CRM CES v. 7.5 -- Amdocs Limited
  • Pivotal CRM v. 6.0 -- CDC Software
  • Saratoga CRM 6.6 -- CDC Software
  • C2 CRM v. 8.6 -- Clear C2
  • Consona CRM -- Consona
  • Firstwave CRM v. 3.1 -- Firstwave Technologies
  • Infor CRM Epiphany -- Infor
  • CMS v. 9.0/OnContact CRM V v. 6.1 -- Oncontact Software
  • ExSellence 5.5 -- Optima Technologies
  • PeopleSoft CRM -- Oracle
  • Siebel 8.0 -- Oracle
  • RightNow CRM v.8.2 -- RightNow Technologies
  • Salesforce.com -- Salesforce.com
  • SAP CRM 2007 -- SAP AG
  • growBusiness Solutions -- Software Innovation ASA
  • update 7.0 STRIKE! -- update software AG


ISM's Top 15 CRM SMB Winners

  • Ardexus MODE v. 6.0 -- Ardexus
  • Powertrak ...

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About David Lee
Dr. David Lee is president and founder of Vertical Marketing, Inc., a CRM sales and consulting practice incorporated in 1987 with 5 offices world wide. Through VMI he has been involved in more than 1,000 CRM projects ranging in size from single users to thousands of users.
He has experience in all phases of the CRM life cycle including CRM baseline measurement and ROI analysis, sales process design, RFP development, system selection, system design and configuration, custom programming, Data cleaning and import, system integration, training and train-the-trainer, ongoing support, and rescuing faltering CRM projects.
Dr. Lee holds scores of CRM awards and certifications from customers, vendors and training organizations. He is personally certified on 7 CRM systems with separate certifications for specific modules and versions in many cases. He holds additional certifications and awards for countless third party applications. He is a Certified Sales Process Consultant and Certified Trainer.
Dr. Lee is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Northern Virginia and is working with the staff to develop a CRM course as a part of the MBA program. He is author of Microsoft CRM for Dummies as well as scores of articles and white papers on CRM subjects. He speaks on various CRM topics.
Prior to launching VMI, Dr. Lee held positions as a programmer/analyst, a US Army officer and as VP of Marketing for a Legal Time and Billing software company.
More about David Lee