Marketing Resource Management: 2003 Magic Quadrant

Transcription

1 Markets, C. Marcus Research Note 18 February 2003 Marketing Resource Management: 2003 Magic Quadrant Interest in, and awareness of, MRM are on the rise, as bestof-breed applications begin to mature and larger marketing automation and enterprise application vendors enter this market. Core Topic Customer Relationship Management: Business Strategies, Technologies and Applications for Marketing Key Issue How can the marketing function better focus on value creation by leveraging technology in its operations? Strategic Planning Assumptions By 2007, enterprise application suite vendors will command more than 70 percent of new marketing resource management application license revenue (0.7 probability). By 2007, there will be three or fewer viable best-of-breed marketing resource management vendors remaining, because of acquisitions, consolidation and attrition (0.8 probability). Marketing resource management (MRM) entails processes and capabilities that enhance an enterprise's ability to orchestrate and optimize the use of marketing resources. MRM applications improve an enterprise's ability to plan, coordinate execution and measure the impact of marketing efforts. With some 450 deployments of MRM applications among Global 1000 enterprises, there is early but substantial evidence of benefits that include improved efficiency and effectiveness, lowered costs, and enhanced competitive position, all of which were cited by a majority of MRM reference clients. Enterprises that manage substantial marketing resources involving complex marketing activities and geographically dispersed internal and external participants should consider prepackaged MRM applications as a reasonable alternative to in-house or custom development. The 2003 MRM Magic Quadrant is shown in Figure 1. Gartner Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

2 Challengers Figure 1 MRM: 2003 Magic Quadrant Leaders Ability to Execute Oracle BrandWizard Technologies PeopleSoft SAP Niche Players Citat AssetLink Then... Arasys Technologies (formerly CS Tech) Aprimo SmartPath Unica Elateral Veridiem As of February 2003 Visionaries Source: Gartner Research Completeness of Vision Aprimo Achieves the MRM Magic Quadrant Leadership Position Who Should Consider a Leader: Enterprises looking for a vendor with proven MRM functionality, capabilities and experience with large or complex implementations should consider a leader. Aprimo becomes the first vendor to reach leadership status in the MRM Magic Quadrant based on the breadth and maturity of its MRM offering. Aprimo references cited ease of use and integrated functionality that adds consistency to key marketing processes, ensuring that marketing programs and investments support organizational goals and improve visibility of marketing activities. During the past year, Aprimo has continued to expand its MRM-related client and revenue base and has forged key alliances to expand geographic reach and implementation capabilities. Aprimo's largest MRM deployments include Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard and Autodesk. SAP Joins Oracle as MRM Challengers Poised to Capture MRM Market Share Who Should Consider a Challenger: Enterprises looking to deploy MRM should consider a challenger if they are willing to sacrifice depth of functionality relative to best-of-breed point 18 February

3 solutions in exchange for tight integration with deployed enterprise applications and superior vendor viability. Oracle was the first enterprise application suite vendor to introduce an MRM offering, although its initial approach was mostly focused on its available marketing applications, with some level of integration at a database and user interface level. In the past year, Oracle has begun moving beyond packaging of an MRM offering with a more concerted product development and integration effort based on a better grasp of MRM business requirements. Oracle does have a few clients that have deployed MRM-related functionality, but it has yet to make a notable MRM market impact. SAP breaks into the MRM Magic Quadrant as a challenger based on its related functionality and the relatively large number of clients that use mysap for marketing purposes. SAP provides planning, workflow and content management capabilities that facilitate multiuser and external collaboration on marketing programs. Although, to date, most SAP MRM-related deployments have focused almost exclusively on directmarketing activities, the ability to use it for broader marketing initiatives is generally available, as demonstrated by one of SAP's clients that has more broadly deployed MRM-related functionality. Visionaries Attract Attention as Enterprises Look to the Future of MRM Who Should Consider a Visionary: Enterprises that are interested in leveraging underlying technology, progressive architecture and integration capabilities or a powerful vision for leveraging analytics around marketing resource optimization should consider visionaries, recognizing that such vendors present higher viability risks. Elateral offers a strong vision as to the level of integration among MRM functional components that leading marketing organizations will strive for in the future. Although it offers a broad range of integrated MRM functionality, the emphasis is on the customization, management and distribution of marketing communications (particularly for and through distribution channels). Despite management turnover, Elateral continues to forge ahead with integration between its MRM application and other marketing and sales automation tools, as well as enhancing analytic capabilities. Its clients include Microsoft, Volvo and Cisco Systems. SmartPath entered the MRM space with a strong value proposition initially focused on the agency side. Its product 18 February

4 offering and market efforts have evolved to focus on the requirements of marketing-intensive brand companies. SmartPath is built on an innovative distributed application architecture that makes it easy to tailor the product and even allows partners to manage their own users and customize extended-enterprise workflow. SmartPath provides solid breadth and depth of MRM functionality that enables enterprises to manage the complete marketing workflow, including planning, budgeting, design, print specifications, purchase of materials, mailing lists and media. Among SmartPath's clients are GlaxoSmithKline, Kohler and National Geographic. Unica entered the MRM space last year with Affinium Plan, emphasizing planning, budgeting and executional coordination of marketing activities. Although initial references cite some performance issues and administration complexities, Unica is likely to overcome such deficiencies and over time can be expected to deliver an MRM offering that leverages its analytic automation capabilities. Unica's initial MRM clients include Best Buy, Fleet and Intuit. Veridiem is a unique entry in the MRM space, with its focus on the data-gathering and preparation processes, along with advanced analytics to drive marketing effectiveness. The company gets high marks from its early clients for its vision and consultative capabilities in addressing complex marketing data obstacles. Its vision for the development, deployment and use of optimization models and marketer-driven simulation will probably set the standard for future MRM analytic requirements. Among Veridiem's clients are Porsche (North America), AutoNation and Kraft. Some Established and New Niche Vendors Also Benefit From Increased Interest Who Should Consider a Niche Player: Consider niche vendors if you are looking for MRM-related point solutions that have proven capable of addressing specific business issues but lack proven deployments of other MRM functionality components, or if you do not mind (or even prefer) vendors that are exclusively focused on a particular geography. Arasys Technologies (formerly CS Tech) is focused on offline fulfillment and delivery capabilities associated with MRM. Although its Web-based product tightly integrates and automates complex marketing collateral supply and delivery across large direct and indirect distribution channels, it does not support online collateral management, lacks breadth of MRM functionality and depends on a mostly proprietary architecture (it currently 18 February

5 supports only IBM's Informix database). Arasys' initial clients include Rockwell Automation, Allstate and Jackson National Life. AssetLink has distinguished itself as an MRM-related point solution for automating marketing activities related to product packaging design, brand identity management and guided creative development. Reference clients cite its strengths as an intuitive user interface, ease of configuration and integration with SAP R/3, while the system's concurrent user scalability is mentioned as a weakness. AssetLink clients include Godiva, McCann-Erickson and Syngenta (Novartis Crop Protection division). BrandWizard Technologies remains focused on brand identity, packaging and guided creative development point solutions. Although BrandWizard's approach relies more on customization than prepackaged functionality, the company gets high marks from its clients for its ability to meet agreed-on deadlines and budgets, as well as the overall quality and scalability of its solutions. Among BrandWizard's largest MRM-related deployments are General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Dell Computer. Citat is the most experienced MRM vendor in Europe and continues to expand its MRM offerings and capabilities. The acquisition of Adrian and strategic relationship with Aprimo allow Citat to offer a broad range of MRM product and services from a prepackaged entry-level application to a highly customized enterprise offering. Overall, Citat's MRM product offerings get high marks from clients in terms of ease of use, workflow and content creation, as well as administration, although some references do cite a strong desire for improved content search capabilities. Citat's largest MRM deployments include Ericsson, Skanska and Telia. PeopleSoft enters the MRM Magic Quadrant as a niche vendor, because it provides MRM-related functionality, such as planning, budgeting, workflow and approvals, with emphasis centered on direct and interactive marketing activities. PeopleSoft lacks substantial MRM deployments, both in terms of broad use of functionality across marketing activities and the overall number of users. PeopleSoft's reference MRM-related deployments include Thomson Financial, OpenTV and the Gemological Institute of America. Then... (actual name) emerged from a creative agency's response to Dell's requirements and evolved into a set of MRMrelated products and services that mostly focuses on executional coordination of brand asset and marketing collateral management, procurement and print-on-demand distribution. 18 February

6 Among its initial clients are Dell, Advanced Micro Devices and Volume Design. Likely MRM Magic Quadrant Candidates The most-likely candidates for a future MRM Magic Quadrant include marketing automation vendor MarketSoft as well as customer relationship management (CRM) suite vendors E.piphany and Siebel Systems. MarketSoft already launched its DemandMore Programs application last year (with Fidelity Investments as its first client) but lacked sufficient reference accounts to be considered for the current MRM Magic Quadrant. E.piphany has good awareness and credibility within the marketing function but remains mostly focused on validating its position as a CRM suite, focusing on sales and service functionality and customer-centric CRM processes, rather than internally focused processes such as those around MRM. Siebel continues to expand its marketing-related functionality and is keen on addressing operational requirements associated with MRM. To date, digital asset management vendors such as Artesia Technologies, Documentum and MediaBin have approached the MRM space from an asset-centric perspective. Although this approach aligns well with users responsible for the collection and management of marketing content, it is less well-suited for marketing users, who tend to have a strong project and program orientation. Digital asset management vendors lack sufficient MRM-related functionality to qualify for this MRM Magic Quadrant. However, if they leverage their best-of-breed digital asset management capabilities and build out or acquire and integrate required MRM functionality and related intellectual capital, they could again enter the MRM arena. Recommended Reading and Related Research "MRM 2003 Magic Quadrant Criteria" "Market Update: Marketing Resource Management" "Marketing Resource Management: 1H02 Magic Quadrant" "Marketing Resource Management: Key Components" "Marketing Resource Management: The Big Picture" Large enterprise application vendors are likely to succeed in selling MRM applications into their established client bases. Nevertheless, a few best-of-breed MRM vendors will survive and even thrive based on their ability to deliver a more flexible architecture, ease of integration and deployment, and a rich set of valuable functionality, including advanced marketing-specific knowledge management and resource optimization analytics. Bottom Line: The marketing resource management (MRM) space continues to grow and attract attention from vendors and enterprises that seek to automate marketing planning, execution and measurement. MRM vendor selection should be based on the ability to meet the enterprise's current and emerging requirements for modernizing the marketing function, keeping in mind that there will be considerable evolution in the MRM vendor space in the next 12 to 18 months. In the long run, the main 18 February

7 MRM challenge for enterprises is to find a suitable balance between 1) a drive toward standardization of marketing processes and application ease of use to ensure end-user adoption and 2) supporting the flexibility needed to meet the diverse end-user requirements that drive ongoing use. 18 February