SALESFORCE.COM
SAAS-ALL INDUSTRY-INNOVATION
INTRODUCTION
Salesforce.com is a undoubtedly the strongest in the software as a service CRM industry. In CRM selling opportunities, Salesforce.com leads with sales force automation (SFA) and a suite of supporting tools.
Salesforce.com approaches the web-based CRM industry significantly different than any other software as a service competitor. The company’s main idea is “No Software”, a tag line illustration for the SaaS industry.
The SFA was Salesforce.com’s first product listing to the software as a service market. The company’s product management appears much more focused on adding additional software systems as opposed to advancing current products or adding weight to the CRM software modules. With no specific target market, the Company strives to serve all types and sizes of organizations.
FEATURES AND ADVANTAGES
Salesforce.com offers its service in different packages:
• Team Edition. 10 user work group limit. Limited functionality.•
• Group Edition: for 5 user license.•
• Professional Edition. Reduced functionality compared to Enterprise.•
• Enterprise Edition. •
• Unlimited Edition. Provides customers four more value added services .Unlimited permits an unlimited number of Salesforce generated applications on the AppExchange (Enterprise edition users can run a maximum of 10 AppExchange applications), increases storage per user to 120MB, provides access to Salesforce sandbox for testing, includes AppExchange mobile (via the Sendia acquisition) and training of Salesforce applications; and platinum support which includes an assigned support representative. •
• Platform Edition. This version gives users the ability to install and customize downloaded applications from AppExchange without the CRM. Software developers get access to Salesforce.com’s Multi-tenancy infrastructure and visual point-and-click tools with which to build their applications for a fee. Also included, the Apex Web Services API, analytics and the Apex code language. The users will use the underlying Salesforce.com hosting platform with the shared common data model, security architecture, interface, version tracking, and meta-data-based application development model provided by Salesforce.com’s .
MODULES
• Sales force Automation
• Partner Relationship Management
• Marketing Automation
• Customer Service and Support
• Content Management
• Innovation Management
• Real Time and Historical Analytics
• Desk Top and Mobile CRM
• Data Model Customization
• User Interface Customization
• Enterprise Administration
MARKET REVIEW
Salesforce.com’s skyrocketing growth is remarkably impressive. The company has succeeded in creating an enviable brand, a profitable business and shareholder returns. However, in many ways, Salesforce.com’s strategy places the company at crossroads.
The migration away from a Customer Relationship Management software solution toward a product platform or “SaaS operating system” as well as an emphasis on tools and third- party solutions may contribute to the ‘jack of all, master of none’ notion that makes its more traditional software as service CRM competitors significant upside.
Main competitors :
• Entellium and NetSuite at the low end
• RightNow and Aplicor in the high point .
However, Salesforce.com has its own weaknesses .Some of them may be delineated as :
• Lack of flexibility. While this solution does offer several customization tools, the fact is that Salesforce.com supports over half- million users using the same solution and varying too far from that solution is not a viable option.
• Lack of functionality. The company seems to use a tools approach (e.g. build it yourself with the Apex development language) to compensate for missing functionality that exists in competitor solutions such as Oracle on Demand and Aplicor.
• Systems downtime. Recurring system downtime and service interruptions over the last two years have been a major sore spot for many customers.
