What’s Changed: 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM and Customer Experience Implementation Services

Source: Gartner

The editors at Solutions Review highlight what’s changed in the 2020 iteration of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM and Customer Experience Implementation Services and provide an analysis of the new report.

Analyst house Gartner, Inc. recently released the 2020 version of its Magic Quadrant for CRM and Customer Experience Implementation Services. Gartner defines the CRM and customer experience (CX) implementation service market as project-based services to help clients develop a CX strategy and transform a customer relationship with adept consulting expertise. In this market design, providers build, integrate, and deploy process change and technology solutions that improve interactions between organizations and their customers.

This year’s report indicates that market growth has increased between 10% and 37% among major providers. Customers now demand that organizations preserve the continuity of user experience across devices, time, and space. Customers want to seamlessly interact with enterprises across multiple devices and channels in a multistep sequence that can last over an extended period of time. Additionally, organizations need to adhere to new privacy constraints and build customers’ trust regarding how their data is used.

What’s Changed: 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM and Customer Experience Implementation Services

In this Magic Quadrant, Gartner evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of 16 providers that it considers the most significant in the marketplace and provides readers with a graph plotting the vendors based on their ability to execute and their completeness of vision. The graph is divided into four quadrants: niche players, challengers, visionaries, and leaders. At Solutions Review, we’ve read the report, available here, and pulled out the key takeaways.

Gartner adjusts its evaluation and inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants as markets evolve. As a result, Tech Mahindra and Virtusa have been dropped from this year’s report.

Deloitte sits at the top of this year’s Leaders quadrant. This vendor has one of the broadest sets of capabilities, from business strategy consulting to design and digital marketing agency skills. Customers praise the flexibility and reliability of Deloitte’s resources and its ability to develop approaches and implement solutions in response to specific desired business outcomes. Accenture supports global and multinational accounts due to its scale and global breadth of capabilities. Customers praise its depth and breadth of technology and platform expertise. Accenture is one of the largest partners for all major CRM technology providers.

IBM iX supports clients in a participative and engaging style during proofs of concept and implementation activities. It offers a full range of capabilities including business consulting and strategy, design thinking, and CRM/CX-specific technology. Customers felt that staff were highly qualified and motivated and had a client focus and positive work attitude. Capgemini has maintained strength in customer service and digital commerce. Customers praise its highly collaborative and responsive nature when working through issues. Capgemini was also rated above average in its ability to translate CX objectives and vision into solutions.

PwC offers CRM technology and solutions, as well as industry and services expertise. It also provides data architecture and migration and actively invests in acquiring and improving talent management and digital skills capabilities. Customers praise this vendor as being a collaborative, trustful, and engaged partner. Reply has been praised for its commitment, flexibility, availability during implementations. Particularly focused on B2C industries, this vendor offers strong capabilities in commerce, multichannel digital sales, and mobile enablement.

Publicis Sapient offers a holistic approach to services, leveraging a combination of business acumen, technology expertise, and creative competencies. Customers have praised the effective teams, partnerships, and flexibility that this vendor brings to its projects. Other references cited higher-than-average ratings for its knowledge in CRM data BearingPoarchitecture and migrations and its thought leadership in CX strategies.

HCL Technologies sits at the top of the Challengers quadrant, frequently utilizing design thinking, architecture know-how, and technology integration to design and architect CRM solutions. Customers have highly praised its project execution, commitment to execution, and partnership attitude. Cognizant has deep technology skills in architecture, customer analytics, digital design, integration, and major CRM software applications. It continues to build CX strategy, design and consulting capabilities through targeted acquisitions.

Wipro has deep technology and integration capabilities and is particularly effective with complex customer service, marketing, and sales initiatives. Customers have praised this vendor’s flexibility and responsibility, leading to overall successful project delivery. Others cite strong design thinking in the UI/UX area. TCS has extensive capabilities in technology architecture, design, and implementation. References give it high scores in industry expertise and business acumen, while others commented on the effective collaboration of internal teams and business areas.

NTT DATA has an ongoing acquisition strategy for smaller consulting and implementation firms and is investing in Salesforce expertise in high-growth markets. Customers rate the vendor well on thought leadership in CRM technology and solutions, data analytics, geographic capability, and implementation methodology. Others praise it for being adaptable, flexible, and client-focused.

BearingPoint leads the Visionaries quadrant. This vendor has considerable business consulting and technology skills to develop CX strategies that are pragmatic and effective. It is strongest in supporting clients through operational changes that require the combination of business consulting and technology. EY approaches CRM and CX services as part of a broader business transformation work, leveraging business and industry consulting, along with CRM and CX expertise and technology. Customers praise this vendor in strategic and transformational planning, as well as business process understanding.

Salesforce holds its own as a Niche Player and received the highest client reference scores among its peers in business acumen and thought leadership in CRM technology and solutions within its product base. Its Success Cloud solution primarily focuses on working with Salesforce application partner technologies and has maintained a consistent methodology and vendor ecosystem. Infosys has core strengths in technology design, integration, and implementation. With extensive CRM technology skills for the platforms supported, this vendor will be adept with sales and customer service CRM implementations.