Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software offers large organizations with a readymade way of keeping track of different assets, processes and people within it.

Constituting the biggest chunk of the global enterprise software market, the ERP market is governed by Germany's SAP (News - Alert) and U.S.-based Oracle.

IDC, a market research firm, recently stated that it has "slightly downgraded" its expectations for the ERP market in India due to a "continued mindset of caution and tactical investments" among organizations in India.

The firm in 2013 also said the ERP market would be worth Rs 2,000 crore and will grow at an average of about 12.8 percent till 2016.

Customer relationship management (CRM) suites, considered to be the second biggest chunk of enterprise software, will make up for Rs 1,600 crore this year, according to IDC (News - Alert).

Both ERP and CRM have been hit hard by the current uncertainty in economic outlook globally. Also, many smaller companies have begun to take advantage of the network and offer browser-based tools at a fraction of the cost of traditional CRM and ERP software.

In this regard, Salesforce.com (News - Alert) has become the pioneer offering one of the most successful CRM software ever.

Shweta Baidya, senior market analyst, software, IDC, said smaller companies understand that they don't need a huge amount of customization to be done on the software, and are willing to go with largely plain-vanilla offerings -- an area where SaaS (News - Alert) is stronger.

She further added, "They also understand that, as the level of customization increases, the cost as well as complexity goes up.”

Specifically in the small and medium business segment, the SaaS model is going to drive the ERM deployments. The enterprise market in India, as per IDC, is saturating fast and there is increasing focus on lower parts of the organizational pyramid, like the SMB and the need for new delivery models.

In related news, Soffront, a provider of cloud CRM solutions, recently unveiled an enhanced document management module as part of its SMB CRM solution, which offers lead and customer management, e-mail marketing campaign functionality and document management.