Intensifying competition and the growing popularity of mobility are the main driving forces for enterprises to expedite investment in customer relationship management (CRM) in Asia.
Nicholas Kontopoulos, the senior director for global marketing at SAP, the developer of business application software, said consumer behaviours moving more towards mobility and the growing popularity of social media are crucial for evaluating the real potential for multichannel customer management.
The thriving middle class is also bumping up the need of enterprises to improve their CRM software to meet increased expectations.
In addition, the Asean Economic Community will push organisations to prepare for single-market potential, Mr Kontopoulos said.
SAP now offers the new SAP 360 customer solution, enabling personalised customer engagement in bringing organisations closer to their customers.
The solution is a bundle of on-premise and on-demand CRM software.
Mr Kontopoulos said the software allows a single view of customers, increases cross-selling opportunities and improves customer service performance.
The company also provides software through cloud-based subscriptions.
Target customers are financial institutes and banks, retail and consumer products, the telecommunications and other high-tech industries, and health care.
"Overall CRM spending in Asia-Pacific is expected to grow by 20-30% this year," said Mr Kontopoulos.
Xaver Rustemeyer,CRM Manager at Jebsen & Jessen (SEA) Pte Ltd, the Singaporean manufacturing, distribution and engineering company, said his firm has implemented CRM software across Southeast Asia for a single view of customers across its eight regional business units.
Jebsen can also increase potential project values by 50% and the number of prospective customers by 40%.
Last year, Mr Rustemeyer said Thailand was the second-biggest country in terms of sales revenue, behind Malaysia.
The company sees good opportunities in Thailand's cable industry due to the government's infrastructure projects, he added.