CRM Adoption Rates in Europe are not as High as Analyst Report

December 13, 2005; 09:02 AM

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, and SÉVRES, FRANCE – 13 December 2005 – Leading UK-based list, data and direct marketing consultancy RSA Direct and worldwide direct and targeted marketing company Harte-Hanks announced the findings of the latest research from the Harte-Hanks Computer Intelligence Technology DatabaseTM (CITDB) which examines the European customer relationship management (CRM) marketplace on a nation-by-nation basis.

According to RSA Direct and Harte-Hanks, the research offers a different perspective to a recent analyst report which predicts less than 5% growth annually across Western Europe.  Based on more than 7,000 monthly in-depth telephone interviews with IT[information technology] decision makers, this research presents actual variances between each country based on reported spending plans, rather than an estimate on a region.

Harte-Hanks identified that the average growth in terms of number of business site implementations is 1.3%, and that only parts of Scandinavia and Benelux show growth of anywhere near the 5% mark, with the remainder falling significantly below.

The research highlights low, medium and high growth rates by country, measured by the size of the installed base of CRM systems, compares year-end 2005 to year-end 2004, and are as follows:

        Low:                                 Medium:                         High:
        Austria         -3.1                Spain         0.3                Norway        2.8
        Poland         -2.2                Hungary        0.3                Finland        3.0
        France        -0.9                Sweden        0.4                Belgium        3.7
        Slovakia         -0.3                Czech        0.5                Luxembourg  4.9
        Switzerland    0.2                Portugal         0.5                Netherlands  5.0
                                UK        0.6                        
                                Italy        0.9                        
                                Denmark        1.3                        
                                Germany         2.1                        
                                Ireland        2.6                        

Source: Harte-Hanks CI Technology Database,TM 2005.  All figures are percentage growth 2005, compared to 2004.

Richard Gibson, Commercial Director, RSA Direct, said,
“The market whilst not growing as rapidly as in previous years still presents both and opportunity and a challenge for marketers. The opportunity is for marketers selling CRM solutions or related services to target their product against the installed product, the challenge is ensuring that when prospecting marketers select the relevant prospect data source and target appropriately.”

Didier Andrieu, Managing Director, Market Intelligence-Europe, Harte-Hanks, said,
“Whilst investments of companies in CRM systems and services may be maturing, relationship marketing itself shows growth. The process of leveraging and perfecting CRM implementations continues in business locations in most countries, with the Benelux nations serving as CRM’s strongest growth area [in Europe] this year.”

About RSA Direct:
-        RSA Direct is a leading UK-based list and data consultancy business founded in 2003 by Rosemary Smith.
-        RSA Direct is a new kind of list and data company focusing on strategic data selection advice, data management and sales and direct marketing consulting.
-        RSA Direct works with leading companies within B2C, B2B both in UK markets and internationally.
-        It is one of the fastest growing companies within its sector.

About Harte-Hanks:
-        Harte-Hanks conducts more than 7,000 in-depth telephone interviews within Europe per month with IT decision makers, within the largest sites across Europe with significant IT [information technology] expenditures to update CITDB continuously. It measures the contact change within an organization so that license holders and marketers using CITDB ensure that their contacts within leading IT buying sites are accurate and up to date.
-        Harte-Hanks works exclusively with RSA Direct for re-sale of CI Technology Database in the UK.  The European headquarters for Harte-Hanks operations supporting the CI Technology Database are headquartered in Sevres, France.
-        Harte-Hanks, Inc., San Antonio, USA (NYSE:HHS), is a worldwide, direct and targeted marketing company that provides direct marketing services and shopper advertising opportunities to a wide range of local, regional, national and international consumer and business-to-business marketers.  
___________________________
ABOUT HARTE-HANKS

Harte-Hanks, Inc., San Antonio, TX, is a worldwide, direct and targeted marketing company that provides direct marketing services and shopper advertising opportunities to a wide range of local, regional, national and international consumer and business-to-business marketers.  Harte-Hanks Direct Marketing improves the return on its clients’ marketing investment with a range of services organized around five solution points:  Construct and update the database – Access the data – Analyze the data – Apply the knowledge – Execute the programs.  Visit the Harte-Hanks Web site at http://www.harte-hanks.com or call (800) 456-9748.

Harte-Hanks, the Harte-Hanks logo, the Trillium Software System and Allink are registered trademarks of Harte-Hanks, Inc.