With confidence in cloud solutions increasing substantially, of those surveyed, 60% are using a cloud CRM system, compared to 53% this time last year. 71% of those surveyed also stated that they are now more confident in cloud CRM systems than they were last year.
Mobile use also increased in this year’s survey with 90% from a sample of 840 respondents saying that they use a tablet or smartphone device for business. With 31% claiming that they used their smartphone or tablet for at least 11 hours a week for business purposes.
John Paterson, CEO of Really Simple Systems comments, "It's great to see that confidence in cloud systems continues to grow, and becoming the default choice for the majority. The parallel growth of smartphone usage creates a virtuous circle, people are now used to real-time email and alerts on their phones so expect the same from a CRM system."
In terms of social marketing, 76% of those surveyed do use social marketing which is a 9% increase on last year’s survey, with LinkedIn still being the most popular, followed by Twitter and Facebook which is the same as last year’s survey. There was also a 33% increase from last year in those that stated they can measure a positive ROI against social media marketing.
Paterson comments, "As everyone expected, social media marketing continues to grow and it’s good to see some hard data behind this, particularly in the numbers who can now show a positive ROI".
The survey also confirmed that there was a 52% increase in those using cloud accounting systems, which is a huge contrast to last year’s survey; but the survey also showed that organisations are still wary of using HR services in the cloud, with only 9% of those surveyed taking up this option.
Paterson concludes, “It is very refreshing to see that this year’s survey has continued to show the increasing confidence and use of cloud services within businesses. It is a positive outcome for the cloud sector and for the businesses that are reaping the rewards of moving their in-house solutions to the cloud.”