The survey, conducted by London-based researcher Datamonitor and sponsored by enterprise software vendor PeopleSoft Corp. showed that nearly one-third of the 200 respondents said CRM was the most prominent area for investment in 2002.

Application integration was seen by 22 percent of those asked as a key investment area. Enterprise Service Automation, Enterprise Resource Management, Supplier Relationship Management were seen as less important.

The United Kingdom leads the geographical pack with 29 percent of respondents saying they plan to implement a CRM solution. Spain was second with 33 percent, followed by Scandinavia with 40 percent, Italy 38 percent, France 29 percent, and Germany 16 percent.

The telecommunications and consumer good industries lead the areas of largest CRM growth. The healthcare and automotive sectors followed.

"The survey revealed the ability to increase customer loyalty and the potential for real ROI are seen as the main drivers behind investing in CRM, while the concern for integrating existing technologies more deeply into internal operations is the main driver behind the investment in application integration," says Martin Atherton, an analyst at Datamonitor.

In line with this, market researcher Cahners In-Stat Group projects that total CRM software application revenues will increase from $9.4 billion worldwide by the end of 2001, to approximately $30.6 billion in 2005.

The United States is expected to reach roughly $8 billion in operational CRM revenues by 2005, accounting for roughly 44 percent of all operational CRM revenues worldwide. Operational solutions are defined as those that automate and manage processes associated with customer interactions of sales, marketing, service through either phone or Web.

Europe and Asia Pacific represent the next huge growth opportunity for CRM vendors. With e-business development continuing to expand globally and the concept of CRM growing in popularity, operational CRM revenues are expected to reach roughly $3.6 billion in Europe, and approximately $2.7 billion in Asia Pacific by 2005, according to In-Stat.