What is Salesforce CRM?

There was a question that I came across several times on the Internet.

“What is Salesforce CRM? How will I benefit using it?

What’s so amazing is that not so many people have heard of Salesforce or do not know exactly what they do. However this multibillion dollar company “gave birth to” Salesforce CRM which is considered to be one of the best CRM available which understands the core meaning of CR (Customer Relationship) and M (Management).

The company was founded in 1999 by a former Oracle executive and has grown to now supporting more than 1 million subscribers. Now salesforce CRM is becoming more and more popular and it`s is gaining customers faster than its competitors and is currently the CRM leader, but it is expected to face stiff competition from Oracle, SAP and Microsoft.
The product they have made is phenomenal and is worth talking about. It is not a software (as they call it) application but an easy to use interface where people of an organization can log in via internet and maintain information and data. It is the best CRM vendor in the market as it is on demand (on cloud) which is easy to use, not much of IT knowledge required, inexpensive, and pay as you use.

There are a few reasons why you should know this company and their product:

1. Salesforce Practically Invented SaaS and Cloud Computing
SaaS stands for Software as a Service. Many of us think that Amazon made cloud computing extremely attractive through their EC2 environments and S3 storage, but Salesforce was there the whole time. In fact at the beginning of this century Amazon and Salesforce were the only two companies to really come out as huge giants that revolutionize everything we do. Google and Facebook weren’t around yet .

2. Salesforce is a Major Player in The CRM Market
Researchers predict that Salesforce will own almost one quarter of global market share by the end of the year. Yes, that means that they will own a quarter of this market with such stiff competition as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. This is also incredible considering in 2006 they only owned 7%.

3. The Power of the Ecosystem
Salesforce has built an amazing ecosystem around their product. This is because they have built an AppExchange marketplace, similar to Apple’s app marketplace, to make it extremely easy for third parties to build onto their platform. We have seen how valuable an ecosystem has been for iPhones/iPads, Android phones/tablets and Facebook. It is no less valuable for Salesforce.

What is more, external developers can strengthen the product. You can never hire enough engineers to build every feature that your customers want, so open up your platform to let people build upon it and share (or sell) their customized applications.

Salesforce CRM offers numerous advantages to its users. Here is the short list of them:
Low Risk
Salesforce is low in cost, and, therefore, it is a low-risk management and organizational tool. Not only are the services on-demand–meaning customers only pay for what they want–but also there is no need for any hardware or software installation, because everything runs on cloud servers.
Improve Organization
Maintaining a Salesforce database helps your company digitize and organize its sales records. This act alone leads to many other benefits. For example, tracking current records accurately helps your company to up-sell to existing customers, cross-sell to other clients more effectively and, even, find new clients.
Better Customer Service
Salesforce allows for the customization of profiles for individual customers. This means that every client has its own record, as opposed to grouping clients together. Having quick, organized access to individual customer records naturally translates to better knowledge about an individual client’s needs and a greater ability to provide solutions for those needs.

Salesforce CRM is a perspective business tool that can help you to succeed in your business. However you should always be aware that CRM software of any sort is not a magic cure for poor customer relations or inadequate sales follow-up. CRM software must be supported by an overall corporate strategy to improve customer communications and relationships.

What do you know about Salesforce CRM and how did it help you in the business?