Drafting A History Of The Integration Of Monitoring & CRM
December 22, 2008
I'm interested in writing a history of text analysis or media monitoring as it has progressed to integration with CRM systems.
My understanding is that in the 90's many text analysis companies provided services to the government and military, because text analysis companies needed a large volume of content to analyze, if you sold such services, you probably sold them to the Government.
When the web got going, it took a few years for companies to start to recognize that there was opportunity with analyzing consumer information online. Again, government clients were early clients. Then in the last few years the PR industry has been an important market, and after that marketing.
Now with the integration of monitoring with workflow and CRM systems, I think we are again seeing a shift with these products. The integration with CRM systems means we are now looking at enterprise tools, a market already largely developed and competitive, with companies like SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce.
As such it will be interesting to see how CRM companies react, will they integrate, develop in-house expertise, or purchase the start ups? In the last few years we've seen traditional media monitoring companies purchase the media monitoring start up's. I think the next wave of acquisitions will come from the CRM sector.
I am on the right track with this sequence of events; curious to hear your thoughts?