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GrapeCity to focus on CRM segment
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 31 December 2003, 20:30 IST
NEW DELHI: As the overall IT market is moving towards greater level of maturity, Japan based GrapeCity is planning to focus on providing CRM solutions within the Indian sub-continent. The company is already working closely with Microsoft and Canada based Pivotal Corporation towards implementing CRM and other business solutions in the region.
"We believe that CRM is one such area where there would be a lot of demand and we want to position ourselves as one of the leading solution providers when it comes to CRM. We work very closely with Microsoft in the area of providing business solutions. In the coming months we will be focusing more towards this area," informed GrapeCity chief marketing officer, Monte Rosen.
For the past three or four years, CRM has become a popular catchphrase in the industry. Embedded in one form or another, CRM has been around for some time, the current interest in CRM is fueled by coupling of new technologies that enable companies to better execute ideas related to achieving excellence in managing customer relationships.
One more reason driving this interest is the shift in the balance of power to customers. Increasingly, wide access to information on various products, services and price points is leveling the playing field. Better-informed customers are more aware of alternatives available to them. This leads to increase in customer expectations and their sophistication.
According to GrapeCity president Daniel Fanger, "the intense competition for customers, as well as the widespread realization that customer retention and loyalty is just as important as customer acquisition, demands the need for strong customer relationships as the gravitational pull toward customer loyalty".
"Over the years CRM has evolved and as Indian market is moving towards a different level of maturity, more and more companies are likely to go in for CRM applications," Fanger added. At present, GrapeCity has its India center based at Nehru Place and there are 120 software professionals employed with the company. While moving to a newly built facility in Noida, it plans to double this figure by the end of 2005.
"We are quite bullish about our India plans and this is why we are moving to this facility now. As we move forward we would be hiring professionals in areas like CRM and to compliment our support team handling different products of the company," he added.
Having set up its development center in China more than 15 years ago, GrapeCity is one of the early believers in the Chinese market. At a time when most Indian companies are trying to tap the Chinese market, GrapeCity being based in Japan has come almost the opposite way. "Yes a lot of Indian IT companies are trying to tap the Chinese market and further venture into areas like Japan, so it feels quite exciting to actually come the other way round. For us, India provides a good opportunity to expand our base and get quality people to work with. We will be expanding our operations as we move forward," Fanger explained.