Salesforce.com Coverage

	Is Salesforce Worth the Price Premium?
	Salesforce is the market share leader. That has earned the company a significant price premium when compared to direct competitors such as Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle CX and SAP CRM. Whether that price premium pays dividends or just results in higher total cost of ownership (TCO) depends on how you use it. This article explains when the price premium makes sense, and when it doesn't.
	Salesforce versus Microsoft Dynamics CRM
	While Oracle and SAP have viable CRM products for their ERP install bases, their CRM market share is in decline. It's clear the chase for the top CRM software position has reached a two horse race. Salesforce is the market leader and Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the challenger. Here's the head to head match up and expert analysis that compares the top two CRM software systems.
	The Salesforce Renewal Dilemma
	For many Salesforce customers the CRM software renewal comes with a surprise. They are told they need to upgrade to the next CRM pricing tier, or their initial CRM purchase was some type of sweetheart deal that is now expired. The price escalations often range from 15 to 50 percent. Unless they previously negotiated price caps what choice do they have? Fortunately, they do have options. Here they are.
	Salesforce Purchase Negotiation Strategy
	Salesforce is a mature and savvy sales company. Trying to outsmart them, or worse trying to bluff them, to get a better CRM software deal is a fool's errand. A better approach is to adopt a CRM negotiation strategy built on mutual value creation and competitive market dynamics. Shifting from tactical bargaining to strategic negotiation gets the best deal because it is what's warranted based on the situation.
	Salesforce Purchase Negotiation Best Practices
	Salesforce software purchase negotiations are aided with proven and repeatable best practices. Salesforce is the CRM market share leader and effectively uses its position and brand to command a price premium and favored CRM purchase agreements. These Salesforce CRM negotiation best practices design a more level playing field.
	Salesforce CRM Renewal Tips
	Customer growth and maturity as well as changes to Salesforce product editions and SKUs create opportunities for product and pricing improvements at renewal. Successful Salesforce renewal negotiations identify exactly what CRM software is needed, assess product options or combinations to achieve measurable goals and evaluate creative alternatives to maximize value.
	Removing Shelfware from your Salesforce Renewal
	Almost all companies have some shelfware. That's software that has been procured but not used. Identifying unused and underutilized CRM software creates a significant Salesforce renewal savings opportunity. This post shows how to identify unused CRM software components and specify exactly what should be included in the Salesforce renewal contract.
	Dreamforce Central Station
	Dreamforce is the biggest CRM industry event and the CRM industry leader's annual articulation of industry change and company vision. This year promises a continuation of keynotes from celebrity business leaders, innovation and product roadmaps from Salesforce.com, over 1,000 expert-led user sessions, an expo of over 350 cloud CRM providers and an unmatched networking opportunity.
	Microsoft + Salesforce.com = BFF?
	Microsoft and Salesforce.com announced their "global, strategic partnership" today. But when you peel away the marketing speak, and compare how these two CRM titans differ not just in products but in presentation, and further recognize the biggest news comes in what wasn't said, you can really see how the CRM software competitive landscape is changing.
	Salesforce.com Shakes Up Marketing Automation—Acquires ExactTarget
	Salesforce.com shook up both the CRM software industry and the closely affiliated marketing automation software industry today. While many including myself have been predicting for some time that Salesforce would acquire a marketing automation vendor, I’m not aware of anybody that thought it would be ExactTarget. Instead, most pundits expected it would be Marketo.
	Salesforce Social Marketing Pushes Ahead
	Continuing its defacto Blue Ocean strategy, Salesforce announced important new social marketing capabilities at Cloudforce, New York last week. The information put some meat on the bones since initially offered at Dreamforce, and further pushed the company's strategic intent with both the Marketing Cloud and enabling the social enterprise.
	Dreamforce Post Game Analysis
	Dreamforce 2012 focused on social business and CMO’s, but also inadvertently demonstrated the shrinking distance between innovation and commoditization. A lack of notable product announcements made this tenth Dreamforce different than prior conferences. Here we look at and how this event will influence the foreseeable future for Salesforce.com and the competitive landscape.
	An Insiders Guide to a Successful Dreamforce
	Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce is a spectacular event, but can quickly become overwhelming if not planned for in advance. Here is your insiders guide to a successful Dreamforce conference, along with 10 tips to get the most out of your Dreamforce experience, and in turn, get the information and learning to increase your CRM software investment payback.
	Salesforce.com Named in Top CRM Systems in Southeast Asia
	Salesforce.com manages an Asia Pacific regional headquarters in Singapore and makes its CRM software available in English and Thai for customers in Southeast Asia. Salesforce.com has been steadily acquiring local partners and customers throughout the Asia Pacific region—and has been named in the Top 10 CRM Systems of Southeast Asia.
	Oracle Gunning for Salesforce.com?
	When analysts predict the winning cloud CRM vendors—and their predictions stand in contrast—each gets the chance to promote his position. Here Denis Pombriant challenges Trip Chowdry's analysis that Oracle will overtake Salesforce.com and find itself in the position to swoop in and buy the cloud poster child for 50 to 60 percent of the current Salesforce.com price.
	Benioff Dissed from Oracle OpenWorld
	Fewer than 24 hours before his keynote, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff gets dissed from Oracle OpenWorld without explanation. Analyst Denis Pombriant analyzes the fiasco, and assesses whether this dust up can be seen as a reaction by Oracle to several years of Benioff sniping about cloud computing or Oracle's lack thereof.
	An Initial Look at Radian6
	Radian6 Web monitoring, and its integration to Salesforce.com clouds, offers a strong and synergistic combination. But not all customer experiences are positive or deliver payback. To make the most of this social CRM solution, buyers are advised to evaluate the tool within the context of specific business objectives and pursuant to actual business use cases.
	Salesforce.com CRM Review
	Salesforce.com is the pioneer for the SaaS CRM movement. With its substantial size, it no longer leads the industry in terms of revenue growth, however, in absolute terms of SaaS CRM revenues, customer acquisitions and user subscriptions the company is the clear market share leader. In this Salesforce.com CRM review we examine strengths and weaknesses of the industry leader.
	Salesforce Dreamforce '11 Review
	There were plenty of Dreamforce highlights, including new product introductions and the always comical jabs at Oracle, but not withstanding the product announcements and entertainment, the overarching Salesforce.com theme remains social, and the social enterprise is the strategy and message that the company will carry into the coming years to evangelize and differentiate.
	Data.com Seeks to Squash the #1 Source of CRM Failure
	According to Gartner, bad data is the number 1 cause of CRM software failure. Announced at Dreamforce '11, data.com seeks to remedy bad data with an integrated hygiene process for Contacts data (using the previously acquired JigSaw) and company data (using an integration with Dun & Bradstreet). The service also delivers real-time alerts using Chatter.
	Living on Cloud 3: Salesforce.com's Service Cloud Morphs Support with Social
	Salesforce.com made its first billion dollars in the SFA software market. Now the cloud leader looks to make the next billion in the service and call center CRM market. Service Cloud 3 (SC3) is far more than a call center software upgrade; It's an innovative release that morphs traditional case management with social media for synergistic customer support and satisfaction.
	The Rise of Online CRM App Stores
	Cloud CRM vendors look prophetic at the moment, showing up just ahead of the rise of cloud computing and the demand for everything as a service. Several have even launched their own online app stores tapping yet another wildly popular trend. While Salesforce is indeed leading the pack on third party app marketplaces, other CRM vendors are trying to close the gap.
	Salesforce.com Named In Top 10 CRM Systems in India
	Salesforce was highlighted in the Top 10 CRM Software Systems in India special report. The company grew its customer base in India by 42%, outpacing the company's growth in the Asia Pacific region for its fiscal year ended January 31, 2010. "India is the fastest growing cloud computing market in the Asia Pacific region," said Sanchit Vir Gogia, Research Manager for Springboard Research.

Salesforce.com Market Briefs

• Facebook Scales with Salesforce.com
  Following the evaluation of whether to upgrade its internal CRM system, social network giant Facebook elected to take their CRM systems to the cloud with Salesforce.com's Sales Cloud 2. Facebook has implemented the on-demand CRM solution across its sales operation teams along with its developer relations. The system integrates with six legacy systems. Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook said: "Facebook and salesforce share a common vision for helping people connect and share information more efficiently. Salesforce.com's cloud model was the perfect fit for us - with our current growth trajectory and future sales goals, we needed a product that will scale with our growing business."

• Salesforce.com's Service Cloud
  Salesforce.com's Service Cloud has become the business strategy to keep the SaaS company's growth alive. As sales force automation (SFA) has peaked, the cloud company is aggressively pursuing customer support to continue their SaaS market share leading position. The recent Service Cloud release includes new key features such as Salesforce Knowledge, Salesforce Answers and Salesforce for Twitter. Salesforce Knowledge is a Google-accessible knowledge base that can be customized by company and empowers service agents to access information quickly. Salesforce Answers allows companies to create a custom website to post questions and encourage a dialogue with the community. Information can then be queried and filtered into the Service Cloud's knowledge base. A new Twitter tab on the Service Cloud dashboard permits service agents to "Search Twitter for Service Issues", view the social stream in real time, identify conversations related to the company or its products, create a case in Service Cloud, assign or escalate the case for resolution, and then update the Twitter conversation with progress or when resolved.