G2 Crowd Releases CRM Vendor Ratings for Summer 2013

CHICAGO, June 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- G2 Crowd, the trusted source for enterprise software reviews, has announced the release of the Grid for CRM.   The Grid helps businesses compare CRM vendors based on objective advice from peers and real-time data rather than on dated, subjective analyst opinions.  

Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics have both earned Leader status on the Grid based on high customer satisfaction ratings and their substantial market share and scale. Salesforce.com received the highest overall CRM rating by earning the highest scale and satisfaction scores. Several vendors have earned Innovator status by achieving high customer satisfaction, but do not yet have the market share and global scale of the Leaders.  The top Innovators include SugarCRM and Workbooks.  

The Grid rates Oracle, SAP, NetSuite, Sage and Zoho as CRM Contenders, meaning that these vendors have significant scale and market share, but currently have below-average user satisfaction ratings.  The Laggards in the Grid have below-average satisfaction ratings and have not yet achieved scale.  

G2 Crowd calculates the satisfaction and scale ratings algorithmically based on big data aggregated in real time from user reviews, online sources, and social networks.  Any product with at least 10 reviews from the G2 Crowd community will be included in real time.  There are no analyst-imposed obstacles to inclusion.

G2 Crowd updates the Grid dynamically as it gathers additional user reviews and social data.  For example, Contenders may become Leaders by increasing customer satisfaction ratings.  Unlike traditional analyst ratings, the Grid updates will be transparent, democratic, and real time.

"The Grid from G2 Crowd provides entirely new insights based on crowdsourced peer reviews that have simply not been available to CRM buyers until now," said Ben Doyle, VP Sales Enablement at Enterasys. "The aggregated opinions of my peers are of the utmost value when evaluating new technology and will help me plan my technology strategy going forward."

G2 Crowd is releasing the Grid to bring enterprise technology ratings into the 21^st century.  

"Traditional analysts rely on a dated research and publishing process similar to what was used by Encyclopedia Britannica," said Godard Abel, CEO of G2 Crowd.  "In consumer sectors such as travel, crowdsourced review sites such as TripAdvisor have already displaced legacy models.  We expect the same to happen in enterprise technology as the new generation of business buyers trust real-time, peer reviews much more than marketing spin and dated expert opinions."

Already, over four thousand G2 Crowd users have signed up to share their opinions. By democratizing the process, G2 Crowd will offer users better and timelier insights, and vendors will be able to see exact areas of their products and services that need improvements to increase customer satisfaction.

The Grid for CRM research report can be purchased at www.g2crowd.com/research.   The report freezes the data at a point in time to show not only which companies are to be trusted, but also which are making the best progress; the Grid will be re-published at least once per quarter. In addition to the detailed data behind the Grid, the report includes profiles for each vendor, and comments from the most helpful and insightful reviews.

About G2 Crowd
G2 Crowd is the trusted site for business software reviews. Enterprise technology buyers, investors, and analysts use the site to compare and select the best software based on peer reviews and synthesized social data. Co-founded by the founder and former executives from SaaS leader BigMachines, G2 Crowd aims to bring authenticity and transparency to the business technology industry. For more information, go to www.g2crowd.com.

SOURCE G2 Crowd