Evaluating Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce.com and SAP's Social for CRM Application Strategies

16 January 2013 ID:G00234201

Analyst(s): Jenny Sussin, Michael Maoz, Adam Sarner, Ed Thompson

VIEW SUMMARY

Using the criteria in "How to Evaluate a Vendor's Social for CRM Application Strategy," we evaluate the social for CRM application strategies of Microsoft, Oracle, salesforce.com and SAP. IT and business leaders can use this research to evaluate prospective vendors.

Overview

Key Findings

Of the four most prominent CRM application vendors, Oracle and salesforce.com lead the pack in terms of ability to execute on social for CRM strategies.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is lagging behind its competitors in this space, with no formal social for CRM offering.
SAP's investment in R&D, including Social OnDemand, and its partnership with NetBase places it as a contender in the social customer service space, but the vendor lacks a formal social marketing or social sales solution.

Recommendations

If you are not a current CRM customer of Oracle or salesforce.com, continue to evaluate best-of-breed social for CRM solutions. You may end up with an Oracle or salesforce.com product, but full, cross-functional capabilities for sales, marketing and customer service are still eight to 12 months away.
If you are an SAP CRM customer, consider SAP Social OnDemand for a social customer engagement center; however, for the time being, you'll have to look to other tools to fulfill the rest of your social for CRM needs.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers looking for a social for CRM solution will need to look elsewhere for the time being, but it is safe to plan for some social for CRM announcement in 2013.

Analysis

Tables

Table 1.

CRM Megavendors' Acquisitions in the Social for CRM Space

Table 2.

Products Supporting Social for Marketing

Table 3.

Products Supporting Social for Sales

Table 4.

Products Supporting Social for E-Commerce

Table 5.

Product Supporting Social for Customer Service

Table 6.

Microsoft: Social for CRM Application Strategy

Table 7.

Oracle: Social for CRM Application Strategy

Table 8.

Salesforce.com: Social for CRM Application Strategy

Table 9.

SAP: Social for CRM Application Strategy

Figures

Figure 1.

Overall Social for CRM Rating Based on Criteria

Analysis

For the past four years, there have been four prominent players in the CRM application space: Microsoft, Oracle, salesforce.com and SAP. Yet, until the past 12 months, social for CRM has been dominated by specialist vendors, such as Jive, Lithium and Bazaarvoice. This has recently begun to change as the largest four vendors have made several acquisitions (see Table 1) and upped their R&D investments in this area.

**Table 1.** CRM Megavendors' Acquisitions in the Social for CRM Space
Vendor	Company Acquired	Year	Use Case Fulfilled
Microsoft	Yammer	2012	Sales: Enterprise Social Networking for Sales
Oracle	RightNow	2011	Customer Service: Peer-to-Peer Community Support Customer Service: Service Feedback Customer Service: Customer Engagement Center Customer Service: Service Process Analysis
	Vitrue	2012	Marketing: Social Media Engagement Marketing: Social Campaigns
	Collective Intellect	2012	Marketing: Social Media Engagement Marketing: Advanced Social Analytics for Marketing
	Involver	2012	Marketing: Social Campaigns
salesforce.com	CrispyNews	2007	Marketing: Idea Management
	GroupSwim	2009	Sales: Enterprise Social Networking for Sales Customer Service: Enterprise Social Networking for Customer Service
	Radian6	2011	Customer Service: Customer Engagement Center Marketing: Social Media Engagement Marketing: Social Campaigns
	Assistly	2011	Customer Service: Customer Engagement Center
	Buddy Media	2012	Marketing: Social Media Engagement Marketing: Social Campaigns

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

Table of Contents

Until recently, the philosophy among the large CRM vendors has been a lack of concern for the disruption of the sale of their enterprise business applications because their competitors have yet to build a solution which would pose a credible threat. Within the past 18 months, all four of these competitors have begun a race to own the social for CRM space, which currently accounts for 5% of the overall CRM market. While each has some aspect of a homegrown solution, a lot of the functionality comes through strategic partnerships or acquisitions — many are stopgaps, rather than fully integrated solutions at this point in time. We expect more acquisitions and portfolio shifting across the board in 2013. Going back to 2009, the social for CRM businesses and tools that have been acquired are targeted at fulfilling various use cases spanning sales, customer service, marketing and e-commerce (see "Social CRM: Top Use Cases and Benefits for 2012").

Table of Contents

The Evaluation

The following evaluations are based on the criteria laid out in "How to Evaluate a Vendor's Social CRM Application Strategy" (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Overall Social for CRM Rating Based on Criteria

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

Table of Contents

Functional Assessment

Tables 2, 3, 4 and 5 list the social for CRM use cases that the four megavendors support, using the same presentation as in "The Concise Social for CRM Vendor Guide, 2013."

**Table 2.** Products Supporting Social for Marketing
Vendor	Idea Management	Market Research, New Products and Test Launch	Social Media Engagement	Advanced Social Analytics for Marketing	Social Campaigns
Microsoft
Oracle	RightNow Innovation Community Cloud Service	Social Engagement and Monitoring Cloud Service	Social Engagement and Monitoring Cloud Service	Social Engagement and Monitoring Cloud Service	Social Marketing Cloud Service
salesforce.com	IdeaExchange	Marketing Cloud	Marketing Cloud	Marketing Cloud	Marketing Cloud
SAP

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

Table of Contents

**Table 3.** Products Supporting Social for Sales
Vendor	Social Prospecting	Enterprise Social Networking	Advanced Social Analytics for Sales
Microsoft		SharePoint, Yammer
Oracle		Social Network
salesforce.com		Chatter
SAP		Jam

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

Table of Contents

**Table 4.** Products Supporting Social for E-Commerce
Vendor	Product Reviews	Social Shopping	Social Network Commerce
Microsoft
Oracle		ATG Web Commerce
salesforce.com
SAP

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

Table of Contents

**Table 5.** Product Supporting Social for Customer Service
Vendor	Community Peer-to-Peer Support	Customer Engagement Center	Service Process Analysis of Social	Enterprise Social Networking
Microsoft				Yammer
Oracle	RightNow Support Community Cloud Service	RightNow Social Monitor Cloud Service	RightNow Social Monitor Cloud Service	Social Network
salesforce.com	Chatter Answers	Desk.com, Marketing Cloud Social Hub, Service Cloud		Chatter
SAP		Social OnDemand	Social OnDemand	Jam

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

Table of Contents

Gartner relies on client inquiries and vendor-provided references for proof of how these products are actually working and benefiting businesses.

Some of the product offerings from Oracle and SAP are in their early days of deployment and, therefore, do not have many, if any, customer references. These include Oracle Social Engagement and Monitoring Cloud Service, Oracle Social Marketing Cloud Service, Oracle Social Network and SAP Social OnDemand. Microsoft's references have been limited to traditional SharePoint and Yammer users.

Table of Contents

What You Need to Know About Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce.com and SAP's Social for CRM Application Offerings

Microsoft

While Microsoft has been an active player in CRM since 2003, and with the Dynamics product line since 2005, its progression into the social for CRM space has been behind that of its competitors. Following major social for CRM acquisitions by Oracle and salesforce.com, Microsoft officially announced its acquisition of employee-facing social software Yammer (see "Yammer to Give Microsoft Needed Dynamism in Enterprise Social Networking"). The acquisition of Yammer allows CRM records to be added into a Yammer stream for collaboration by employees via an enterprise social network. Some companies use Microsoft SharePoint as a way for employees, particularly salespeople, to share files or contracts. There are third-party add-on products to SharePoint, such as NewsGator, but they still serve only a limited number of social for CRM use cases. Even with SharePoint, the acquisition of Yammer and what we assume will be Dynamics product developments, Microsoft only addresses two of Gartner's recognized social for CRM use cases (see "The Concise Social for CRM Vendor Guide, 2013").

Similarly, SAP has not made any acquisitions in this space, but strategically partners with NetBase to produce a customer service-oriented social for CRM offering. Microsoft has similar partnerships with Moxie Software and Parature, and we expect to hear about additional progress in 2013.

We summarize the current state of Microsoft's social for CRM application strategy strengths and weaknesses in Table 6.

**Table 6.** Microsoft: Social for CRM Application Strategy
	Strengths	Weaknesses
Business Productivity	Sales and Marketing Strategy for Social for CRM Applications: CRM Business Leaders	Social Marketing Application Investment Strategy Social Sales Application Investment Strategy Social Customer Service Application Investment Strategy Social for CRM Architecture Investment Strategy Implementation and Support Strategy for Social for CRM
Customer Experience	None	Marketing and Selling Strategy: Target Market Sales and Marketing Strategy for Social for CRM Applications: CRM Business Leaders Social Marketing Application Investment Strategy Social Sales Application Investment Strategy Social Customer Service Application Investment Strategy Social for CRM Architecture Investment Strategy Implementation and Support Strategy for Social for CRM

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

Oracle

Along with internal research and development, Oracle's undergone a recent string of cloud acquisitions that have simultaneously benefited its newer, emerging social for CRM portfolio, branded Oracle Social Relationship Management (SRM). The vendor has been bullish in its social for CRM strategy, which has consisted of a series of acquisitions, including RightNow's Social Experience (see "Oracle to Acquire RightNow Technologies, Boost Cloud Portfolio"), Vitrue (see "Oracle Agrees to Buy Vitrue to Expand Capabilities in Social CRM"), Collective Intellect (see "Oracle Steps Into Social Analytics With Collective Intellect Deal") and Involver (see "Involver Deal Will Extend Oracle's Social Strategy to Developers"), as well as homegrown technology, such as Oracle Social Network and Oracle Fusion CRM. To realize social for CRM success, Oracle will need to integrate the functionality of these four offerings into its homegrown offerings and core CRM offerings, Siebel and Fusion CRM. If Oracle can do this, it will have competitive advantage: maintaining a single view of the customer from the primary, legacy customer record and the social customer profile.

We summarize the current state of Oracle's social for CRM application strategy strengths and weaknesses in Table 7.

**Table 7.** Oracle: Social for CRM Application Strategy
	Strengths	Weaknesses
Business Productivity	Marketing and Selling Strategy: Target Market Sales and Marketing Strategy for Social for CRM Applications: CRM Business Leaders Social Marketing Application Investment Strategy Deployment Model Strategy for Social for CRM Applications	Investment Strategy for Usability and User Interface for Social for CRM Users
Customer Experience	Sales and Marketing Strategy for Social for CRM Applications: CRM Business Leaders Social Sales Application Investment Strategy Social Customer Service Application Investment Strategy Investment Strategy for Usability and User Interface for Social for CRM Users	Social Marketing Application Investment Strategy

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com was one of the earlier entrants into the social software market following its 2009 acquisition of GroupSwim, which serves as the base for Chatter. Chatter gives salesforce.com the ability to meet the social for CRM use case of social sales collaboration; it was one of the earlier solutions available in this space from broader CRM as well as specialty social for CRM vendors. Other acquisitions, including Radian6 (see "Salesforce.com to Buy Radian6 to Expand its Capabilities in Social CRM"), Assistly (see "Salesforce.com Acquires Assistly to Fill Social CRM Gap for SMBs"), Buddy Media (see "Buddy Media Deal Will Help Salesforce.com Focus Its Marketing Cloud Offerings") and CrispyNews help salesforce.com customers support use cases across marketing and customer service.

Salesforce.com also has homegrown social functionality, with the ability to incorporate popular social media profiles in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud, and to incorporate popular social media streams in Service Cloud. Its Chatter Answers and its recent announcement of Chatter Communities put salesforce.com in the early stages of introducing a new social for CRM use case for its clients: peer-to-peer community support.

Salesforce.com's biggest gap in the social for CRM space is social commerce, where solutions for product reviews are in high demand. Moving forward, we will keep an eye on whether the vendor also looks to get into social shopping or social network commerce.

We summarize the current state of salesforce.com's social for CRM strategy strengths and weaknesses in Table 8.

**Table 8.** Salesforce.com: Social for CRM Application Strategy
	Strengths	Weaknesses
Business Productivity	Marketing and Selling Strategy: Target Market Sales and Marketing Strategy for Social for CRM Applications: CRM Business Leaders Social Marketing Application Investment Strategy Investment Strategy for Usability and User Interface for Social for CRM Users Deployment Model Strategy for Social for CRM Applications Implementation and Support Strategy for Social for CRM	Social Customer Service Application Investment Strategy
Customer Experience	Sales and Marketing Strategy for Social for CRM Applications: CRM Business Leaders Social Sales Application Investment Strategy Social Customer Service Application Investment Strategy Investment Strategy for Usability and User Interface for Social for CRM Users Implementation and Support Strategy for Social for CRM	Social Marketing Application Investment Strategy

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

SAP

SAP has sought to meet its clients' social for CRM needs by focusing on internal research and development, as well as entering into a partnership with social analytics vendor NetBase. NetBase serves as the foundation for SAP's recently announced social customer service offering, called SAP Social OnDemand. With this offering, following social data cleansing and analysis by NetBase, customer service representatives (CSRs) can prioritize, assign and respond to social-media-derived inquiries, complaints and commentary. SAP Jam is SAP's enterprise social networking solution, new to the market in November 2012 and able to integrate with SAP CRM to complement sales and customer service processes for a limited number of social for CRM use cases.

SAP will need to invest more heavily in social marketing if it wants to remain competitive in the social for CRM space. This is where most clients are looking for starter solutions.

We summarize the current state of SAP's social for CRM application strategy strengths and weaknesses in Table 9.

**Table 9.** SAP: Social for CRM Application Strategy
	Strengths	Weaknesses
Business Productivity	Social Customer Service Application Investment Strategy	Social Marketing Application Investment Strategy
Customer Experience	Social Customer Service Application Investment Strategy Investment Strategy for Usability and User Interface for Social for CRM Users	Social Marketing Application Investment Strategy

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

© 2013 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner’s prior written permission. If you are authorized to access this publication, your use of it is subject to the Usage Guidelines for Gartner Services posted on gartner.com. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner’s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see “Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity.”