Capterra, an online service that connects buyers and sellers of business software, today announced that SugarCRM, the world’s fastest-growing customer relationship management (CRM) company, is the champion of its first ever CRM Madness competition. CRM Madness, an online contest that began on March 14th, pitted 64 of the leading CRM software solutions against one another in a bracket-style tournament.

Users and fans could vote for their favorite CRM once per day throughout the contest, and votes were combined with various company metrics to determine which CRMs would advance through each of the six rounds. The contest was promoted primarily through social media channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to spread the word and encourage voting among the CRMs’ business customers.

SugarCRM acquired 2,420 votes during the tournament, out of a total of 6,910 votes across the entire field. The company defeated competitors IntouchCRM, Sage CRM, Oracle Siebel, SAP, Salesforce.com, and first runner-up, Pegasystems, thanks to its strong company performance metrics and loyal customer voting.

“We are very fortunate to have such a strong, global community of users, partners and developers behind us who believe in the value of our product,” said Nick Halsey, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of corporate development for SugarCRM. “We saw our social media channels go wild during the competition, and we are honored that we have secured the first place spot.”

The CRM Madness contest was developed as a way to educate companies on the wide variety of CRM choices available today. The 64 CRMs represented in the contest were just a small selection from Capterra’s online CRM software directory, which lists more than 350 solutions that buyers can compare to find the right fit for their company.

“We thought an online bracket tournament in tandem with March Madness would be a fun way to showcase all of the CRMs on the market today,” said Capterra CEO, Michael Ortner. “While everyone can probably name the top seeded CRMs off the top of their heads, what we loved about this competition is that it allowed up-and-comers to really showcase their place alongside the industry giants.”

Read more about the CRM Madness competition on Capterra’s blog, as well as SugarCRM’s latest blog, “CRM Madness – The Power of the Sugar Community.”

Source : prweb