We Blog CRM

As the social networking craze continues to attract a larger user base, businesses are beginning to catch on. Salesforce.com recently announced a new CRM application tailored for Twitter, an increasingly popular micro-blogging social network site.

 Salesforce’s new application should help facilitate customer service by providing another resource for customers with problems to turn to in order to solve any existing problems with their software or service. By providing companies with real-time updates on any “tweets” associated with their product or company, customer service or help desk agents can provide instant support to quickly remedy any situation that comes up.

The emergence of Twitter as a popular destination for customer support could lead many companies to follow in the footsteps of companies such as Comcast and Dell who have already chosen to adopt Salesforce’s new Twitter CRM application. Other CRM providers could also follow suit in developing their own CRM applications with features similar to Salesforce’s new Twitter application.

This could also become a golden opportunity for Twitter. If traffic to their site continues to grow and customers continue to use Twitter as a resource for their issues, Twitter could eventually build up their own application to sell to companies.

As social networking continues to grow and develop, companies will need to stay in tune with the latest trends in order to provide the best customer service and customer support in today’s rapidly changing society. Staying up to date with the latest trends and resources utilized by their customers could provide companies with an edge on their competitors while falling behind in these trends could lead to a disconnect between the company and its customers, forcing customers to eventually find other companies or solutions.

Although social networking is the current “hot” item in technology, things could change rather quickly. However, it would still be wise for CRM companies to take the popularity of social networking into consideration as they develop their new products. Failure to meet consumer needs could lead to disastrous consequences for companies.

Technorati Tags: , CRM application, CRM Trends, Twitter CRM

As the economy continues to struggle and companies continue to look for ways to cut back on their budgets, SaaS Software has become an increasingly popular option for many struggling companies. As companies look to scale back on expenditures, software providers are providing the options that allow companies to do this. CRM providers are looking to continue this trend as companies such as Oracle expand into the On-Demand CRM software market.

Although CRM Software has been provided in SaaS format, it has not been as prevalent among CRM Software providers as other industries. However, companies such as Salesforce.com have shown that on-demand CRM providers can survive in an intense CRM software market by providing companies with the flexibility and ease of use commonly associated with SaaS Software.

 Oracle has recently jumped on the bandwagon as it takes on Salesforce.com in the On-Demand CRM marketplace. Currently, with a limited number of On-Demand CRM providers, there is definitely room for more providers in the marketplace. The expanding repertoire of companies to include SaaS CRM software will definitely be beneficial for many companies as companies will have more options to select from and find the solution that fits their company best.

Oracle’s new offering looks to add a host of new options to compete with the already popular Salesforce.com CRM offering. With more customization options as well as more flexibility in pricing plans, Oracle hopes it can succeed and establish a strong customer base in the SaaS CRM market.

The future of SaaS CRM Software looks bright for providers and users. As SaaS Software continues to grow in popularity, this opens up an opportunity for On-Demand CRM providers to establish their presence within this new, yet rapidly expanding market. The introduction of more SaaS CRM providers will simultaneously provide companies with more benefits as companies will benefit from the increased competition among CRM Software providers which will increase product quality while drive down price.

As the SaaS CRM Software market continues to grow, companies should expect better and far more innovative options that once could only be dreamt of.

Technorati Tags: On-Demand CRM, Oracle CRM, SaaS CRM, Salesforce.com

If the Blackberry has Microsoft and SAP batting for it then the iPhone has its own two stalwarts. Along with Oracle’s announcement of offering free applications via the iPhone comes another announcement by Salesforce.com in which the SaaS biggie has stated that its customer relationship management (CRM) applications and Force.com platform are available as Salesforce Mobile applications for the iPhone.

Businesses can now access not only Salesforce.com CRM but also custom made and third party applications developed using the Force.com platform. The deal implies a great deal of exposure for Salesforce.com products and it being a SaaS provider, its reach increases manifold via mobile internet. It would be cool to find out the manner in which these businesses select partners as being the right fit for their products and services. Do iPhone users have a soft spot for Salesforce.com products?

Technorati Tags: Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com Inc is going after the independent adviser market with Salesforce for Wealth Management, a customized, adviser-focused version of its popular customer relationship management application.Odds are good that the software will make the short list among advisers who desire a hosted solution.Its existing version of Salesforce can claim 60,000 users who are brokers and advisers from companies such as Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. Another 40,000 operations and support staffers from those firms rely on the software as well.

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The Annual State of the Market report released by the Aberdeen Group has placed Salesforce.com as one of the top vendors. The report evaluates a 100 organizations and ranks them for providing value to the business community. The rankings were arrived at based on information provided by more than 5000 business decision makers.

Salesforce.com has been ranked number eight and it joins Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Sun Microsystems at the top of the list. Salesforce.com has been around for a decade and can rightfully lay claim to being the torchbearer of the SaaS brigade. Marc Benioff, ex-Oracle, started Salesforce.com in 1999.

Technorati Tags: Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com veteran Andy Ross has joined Model Metrics as Director of Corporate Sales. Ross was a senior manager at Salesforce.com and one of the earliest employees of the company. Ross will be responsible for developing the mid market for Model Metrics. Ross has come quite a long way since the early days of establishing SaaS and PaaS at Salesforce.com and even before those days when he was an English teacher at a school in Milwaukee.

Model Metrics works in close partnership with Salesforce.com and it has grown from sales force automation implementations to large-scale products using Salesforce.com technology, business process and change management expertise across both customer relationship management (CRM) and non-CRM related initiatives.

The interest in Salesforce.com is hardly limited to those dealing with CRM or even those merely intrigued by the whole Software as a Service phenomenon at large. The way that Salesforce stock and profits have been moving since 2006, Salesforce attracts quite a share of attention from investors as well.

The excellent investors’ website The Motley Fool posted an excellent analysis on Salesforce.com stock’s recent performance, in the format of a debate. On the “Salesforce.com Bull” side is Tom Taulli, while the multi-culti monikered Rick Aristotle Munarriz takes on the “Salesforce.com Bear.”

Taulli’s premise reckons that Salesforce’s “valuation may be high and its profits comparatively low, but this innovative firm’s growth isn’t likely to die down anytime soon.” Tualli makes particular note of the supposition that “Salesforce.com seems to have learned much from Siebel’s mistakes.”

In fact, Taulli sees Salesforce having a unique advantage in the stock market world, due to its very nature as a SaaS firm. Since Salesforce.com earns revenue from subscriptions, the result is a predictable recurring revenue stream, “a much-coveted asset in Wall Street’s eyes.” Read more

Salesforce.com closed out the week with a handful of announcements and moves.

Biggest kudos go to the on-demand software giant for being named to the 2007 SD Times 100 list of technology influencers. The list of Influencers consists of companies that the SD Times has identified as “having the greatest impact on the software development landscape.” Salesforce joined heavy-hitters like IBM, the Eclipse Foundation, Business Objects, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft (natch), and the ever hustlin’ Google on the list.

“In the last year we have witnessed some amazing milestones for the software development industry,” said Salesforce chairman/CEO Marc Benioff upon announcing the award. “Not only the delivery of Salesforce Platform, the industry’s first platform for building and running on-demand applications, but also the introduction of Apex, the industry’s first on-demand programming language.”

(Indeed, it can be said the Apex probably ensured Salesforce’s place on the list this year.)

Salesforce.com’s citation in the SD Times 100 dropped some surely loved metaphors over at the company, reading: “Disruptive technology as a mission statement. With Salesforce.com in the water, no fish is safe from having its lunch eaten out from under its nose.”

Salesforce puts the SD Times trophy on the mantelpiece with their other recent honors, including inclusion on the Forbes Top Ten Disrupters 2006 (that mission statement again!), the Forbes 25 Tech Newcomers, the Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Award from the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), the Business 2.i Leadership Award, the VARBusiness 60 Top Channel Executives, two ISM Top 15 CRM Software Awards, Wired Magazine’s Wired 40, two CODiE Awards, the 2007 BPT Partners Steppin’ Out Award, Ethisphere Magazine’s list of top ethical companies, and the CRM Magazine Service Elite Awards.

Welcomed to the AppExchange this week was LogiXML (also an SD Times 100 member), which yesterday announced the availability of the Logi Connector Pack, a software package that integrates data generated from web-based applications and sources. The initial release of the Logi Connector Pack supports integration of data from Salesforce applications with the Logi 8 Business Intelligence platform.

Finally the Salesforcers announced that the company’s 2007 annual meeting of stockholders will be held on Thursday, July 12 at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The meeting is to be held at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco. The record date for the meeting was May 22, and only stockholders of record on that date are eligible to attend the meeting.

However, as is traditional at Benioff’s baby, an audio webcast will be available to the public on salesforce.com’s website after the show has run.

Is this being underrated or am i overrating it? Serena Software, Inc., a software company of sole focus on application lifecycle management, today announced the appointment of Rene Bonvanie as senior vice president of worldwide marketing, partner programs and online services.

Bonvanie has jumped ship from Salesforce.com, where he was named AppExchange general manager. Bonvanie said in a statement that he left so soon because "opportunity knocked."

Apparently, he’s been hearing quite a bit of knocking lately, as he came to Salesforce via SAP, a company with which he put in one year as senior vice president of global marketing. Prior to SAP were stints as Business Objects CMO and Veritas Software Corporation senior vice president. And that’s only since 2003, when he left Oracle after a bit of a longer stay.

Bonvanie’s job description is defined in part as “includ[ing] developing business and marketing strategies to consolidate Serena’s position as the leader in ALM and capitalize on future trends in application development, such as Service-Oriented Architecture, web services, and Software-as-a-Service. He will also lead Serena’s efforts to develop partner relationships and go-to-market activities for new products and services.”

So is this really no big deal? Perhaps not. Computer Business Review’s verdict: It’s “really a non-event. It’s hard to see Bonvanie, a chronic job hopper, making any significant difference during his short stint at Salesforce.com, apart from pulling a fat monthly paycheck.”

The folks over at LucidEra announced today that its first solution, LucidEra Forecast-to-Billing, is now available on the salesforce.com AppExchange.

Here comes the gauntlet, replete with the “R” word: “The first on-demand revolution was for CRM and other transactional applications. These solutions were focused on getting the data ‘in.’” said LucidEra co-founder/CEO Ken Rudin. “LucidEra is leading the second major on-demand revolution – the ability to get the data ‘out’ and analyze all the data captured by transactional systems.”

A bit less hyperbolically, LucidEra cleverly includes an analysis user interface that “eliminates any distinction between creating and viewing a report.” Users may directly drag and drop data into a macro for analysis.

LucidEra Forecast-to-Billing is designed for finance and sales operations managers, combining sales data from Salesforce, accounting applications, Excel and the ‘net.