The public sector is waking up to the fact it must get smarter about customer relationship management (CRM) as it attempts to deliver on promises of joined-up and transformational government.
And the need to act quickly and on tight budgets may play straight into the hands of hosted, on-demand CRM vendors.
Panellists at a roundtable discussion on transformational government held in London agreed technology can help to deliver greater efficiencies. Angela Waite, president of Socitm and head of ICT at Canterbury City Council, said technology and smarter organisation of contact centres is essential as she is always "being asked to deliver more for less".
By automating contact centres to deal with common enquiries and by sharing knowledge and configuring systems to provide relevant real-time information for operators, the public sector can achieve those savings in the mid-term.
However, attendees at the event admitted such efficiencies are often also synonymous with job cuts and the diminishing of human interaction - and added that is a balance which the public sector must be far more cautious in striking than the profits-driven private sector.
RightNow Technologies, which hosted the event, claims it saved its 45 public sector customers a combined total of £3m over the past year with its hosted services offering.
That claim comes despite suggestions from analyst house Gartner and some traditional CRM players speaking at a recent Gartner CRM Summit, that the public sector may be loathe to take the hosted route because of concerns about sensitive public data being held outside the organisation.
Tom Castley, head of public sector at RightNow, which counts the Department for Transport and Transport for London among the customers of its hosted service, told silicon.com the security claim is a misnomer.
Castley said: "We comply with all data protection legislation."
Didier Guibal, VP of international operations at RightNow, said 25 per cent of his company's business is now conducted in the public sector.
Alan Fryer, an independent programme manager for CRM projects and consultant to Carrick District Council, suggested sharp practice by some traditional box-shifting software vendors which results in costly 'shelfware' could also be a factor in the switch towards hosted services.
Zach Nelson, CEO of on-demand CRM vendor NetSuite, also told silicon.com a large number of his customers operate in the public sector.
Nelson admitted healthcare might be one area where keeping matters in-house carries a perception of greater security but he said his company is making major in-roads into school systems and other public sector areas where budget, total cost of ownership and time of implementation are major considerations.
Autor: Will Sturgeon
Quelle: Silicon, 24.03.2006
