August 31, 2023
By the Editors , CRM magazine

The Best CRM Software and Solutions: The 2023 CRM Industry Leader Awards

The pandemic and its dislocations are (knock on wood) mostly behind us, but another source of disruption, artificial intelligence, seems poised to change the way we live and work. AI is not new, of course; no technology topic has been dissected more in recent years. But when ChatGPT shook up the tech world late last year, everyone’s predictions and timelines for AI’s impact were likewise scrambled.

Generative AI’s boundless potential is one of many factors our industry experts weighed in choosing our Industry Leader awards for 2023. As in recent years, our analysts followed a simple formula: If they had to recommend a CRM solution—whether an enterprise suite, a customer data platform, contact center analytics, or any of the 11 categories featured here—to a client, which would they choose, and why? The analysts gave us their top five picks in each category, and the results show a thriving industry that’s grown accustomed to big change happening seemingly overnight, whether it’s technological change, societal change, or both happening at once. As always, you’ll see a lot of familiar faces but also a few new ones. Read on for our Industry Leaders for 2023.

But before we get to the Leaders, a shout-out to our experts. As always, we would not be able to compile our annual awards issue without the ongoing support of the CRM industry’s vast community of analysts and consultants. This year’s panel included the following:

Geoff Ables,managing partner of C5 Insight;
Max Ball,principal analyst at Forrester Research;
Jim Dickie,a research fellow at Sales Mastery;
Donna Fluss,president of DMG Consulting;
Paul Greenberg ,president of The 56 Group;
Marshall Lager,an independent CRM analyst;
Brent Leary,cofounder and partner of CRM Essentials;
Kate Leggett,vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research;
Christina McAllister,a senior analyst at Forrester Research;
Laurie McCabe,partner of the SMB Group;
Sheila McGee-Smith,founder and principal analyst of McGee-Smith Analytics;
Dan Miller,founder and lead analyst of Opus Research;
John Ragsdale,vice president and research director at the Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA);
Ray Wang,founder and chairman of Constellation Research; and
Rebecca Wettemann,founder and CEO of Valoir.