Salesforce: (Part 1 of a series) A Complete Business Automation Platform

By: Thomas Jansen

26 February 2016—  If you are still using multiple disparate technical solutions that require moving of data between one application to another (aka “swivel chair” integration), take a look at Salesforce. If you are maintaining the same type of data (e.g. customer, account) in multiple systems and struggling to keep the data in sync, then take a look at Salesforce. If you think that Salesforce is just a cloud-based system for managing “sales” CRM data, it is time to take a closer look at Salesforce. In this multipart blog series, we will be addressing the “what”, the “why,” and the “how” of implementing Salesforce platform solutions.

Salesforce is far more than a CRM (Customer Relationship Management), in spite of their stock symbol (smile). While Salesforce does provide all of the critical system objects to manage your CRM data, it is far more than just a CRM. It is a platform that leverages the benefits of a multi-tenant environment. It is built on a common set of core code managed by Salesforce that allows your organization to manage configuration changes and customizations via meta data while Salesforce manages/maintains the common code.

The Salesforce platform also includes an ecosystem with over 2700 applications developed by independent partner companies that extend the functionality of Salesforce’s core CRM. Since these applications are developed using a common Salesforce programming language and leverage the use of core multi-tenant services, these custom applications can be installed and custom configured in your instance (also known as an “org” in Salesforce speak) of Salesforce allowing your organization to add integrated functionality such as field service team management, professional services automation, payment services, accounting, and much more. These platform apps allow you to manage from one single source of data truth.

Jason Bloomberg wrote in a recent article for Forbes, “[Salesforce] is more than a suite of sales, marketing, and other customer relationship applications, Salesforce provides the underlying infrastructure for a host of third-party apps and services. Nobody has ever built an ecosystem bigger or better than Salesforce has.”

Salesforce and its ecosystem of applications sold through its AppExchange are not limited to targeting any one specific market segment since the scalability of the Salesforce platform services are rapid and easy to deliver regardless of organization size. Conversely, competitors in functional verticals such as accounting and bookkeeping (e.g. Quickbooks, Intacct, Sage) or Human Capital Management (HCM) (e.g. Workday, ADP, Paylocity) have scale but only within their proprietary platforms and within their silo service. This actually limits scalability since their services are not natively integrated with other business critical applications (e.g. sales, marketing, service delivery) without complex, time consuming, costly, and “kludgy” API integrations.

As with any decision to implementation business automation technologies, there is a cost. However, the overall cost of using the Salesforce platform is far less than the old solution model of on premise software. The cost associated with implementing cloud based solutions on the Salesforce platform are represented in the cost to license access to the application(s) and, if not using your internal Salesforce certified administrators and developers, you will pay a third party implementation partner. But when it comes to managing uptime, availability, backups, etc., businesses using Salesforce are not burdened by the effort or cost. This compares to the old model of purchasing the software and hardware to run on premise applications. In addition, this old model typically includes the need to customize the application to your business needs. This means asking the software company for customizations (if you can even convince them to provide customizations). Finally, the old model involves maintaining the software and hardware including managing issues with up time, backups, and disaster recovery. More and more companies of all sizes are moving away from this old model in favor of a platform set of solutions such as Salesforce because the “total cost of ownership” utilizing Salesforce platform solutions is substantially lower than on premise solutions.

In a custom IDC survey of 1,142 cloud-using organizations in 8 countries supporting this study, Salesforce customers said, on average, they have experienced payback from their Salesforce technology investments in 13 months or less. Over four years, aggregate worldwide investments by Salesforce customers in cloud computing should yield 3–5 times the financial benefits compared with costs. (Source: IDC #258001: August 2015).

If you have been wondering whether you are going to pursue or to continue to pursue implementing business automation via the old model, stop for a moment and take a closer look at the power of the Salesforce platform.