Paul Greenberg picks SugarCRM as a CRM Watchlist Winner

Every year, Paul Greenberg compiles his Watch List, which collects the companies Paul thinks will have the biggest impact that year. Paul’s criteria include:

1. A breakout product
2. Seizing thought leadership in some related area
3. Market impact
4. The company’s sheer size and continued long term existence guarantees them impact pretty much regardless of who they are and how well they do.
5. A major initiative that will change the way the market works.
6. Continued really good performance year over year with an expectation that they will be seen and recognized for that in 2012
7. Fabulous customer achievements but to the level of setting an industry standard
8. Impact in a particular distinguishable geographic market
9. Faith that they will do something worthy of public recognition (that’s the subjective part).
10. All of the above
11. Other things he didn’t mention

Essentially, Paul has outlined the characteristics of a heavy-hitter or a game-changer in the CRM space (and he’s provided himself with room for a bit of interpretation, too).

Each year, he increases the rigor for selecting the Watchlist; this year he worked to get questionnaire submissions from vendors that would inform his choices, and that questionnaire was not insignificant in size.

Those criteria and that rigor are the reason we at SugarCRM are pleased to report that we’re CRM Watchlist winners (as we were in 2012). It’s not just that Paul likes us as people – Paul likes a lot of people in the CRM industry, and the feeling is largely mutual, but not everyone’s a Watchlist winner. He likes what we’re doing, and he spells out what we need to do in the future.

One of the more incisive observations he makes is that even as SugarCRM takes aim on attracting larger customers, it’s building its messaging around the idea of the user first – or, as Paul phrases it, taking aim on a market of one. “How do you appeal to a company needing thousands of seats when your target is the individual user without being lost in a morass of homogenous faces?” Paul asks.

We have plans for doing this – and our customers are already showing us concrete examples of how helping the individual user get the most from CRM maximizes the value of CRM for the entire organization.

Some of our customers will be sharing those examples at SugarCon in April – and event that will also show how we’re taking the “user-first” concept to new levels in upcoming releases that are more social, more mobile and more powerful in their ability to make front-line users’ jobs easier and more productive.

We couldn’t be more pleased that Paul selected us for the Watchlist – and we’re equally pleased that Paul will deliver the SugarCon keynote address on April 9. He’ll be the first in a long series of important CRM thinkers, analysts and observers who are coming to the show to speak or conduct sessions – a Watchlist of CRM influencers, if you will.

Thanks to Paul for his kind words and his challenge to Sugar for 2013. We’re looking forward to living up to his expectations – and those of our customers – and to making the list again in 2014!