Why Salesforce has become #1 CRM?

In 2017, International Data Corporation (IDC) in its latest Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker named Salesforce the #1 CRM provider. Notably, it’s the fourth time Salesforce became the indisputable leader on the CRM market. Backed by this fact, we’ve decided to find out why Salesforce is considered the best CRM software and what is so special about this platform.

7 reasons why Salesforce is the market leader

1. Flexibility:
   One of the greatest aspects of the Salesforce platform is its flexibility. Though the platform can cover most of a company’s business needs with its powerful out-of-the-box functionality, one can invest some time in configuration to add new fields or create custom reports. Besides, if you need to tune the system or implement some custom features, you can easily google Salesforce consulting companies and ask for technical support.
2. Scalability:
   Apart from configuration and customization, Salesforce customers are free to use the AppExchange ecosystem. AppExchange reminds a huge library full of applications, add-ons and tools designed to complement your Salesforce platform. Using the AppExchange’s huge repository, you get the following main benefits:
   • No need to customize your Salesforce and build additional functionality from scratch, because you can download a pre-built solution from the AppExchange.
   • No investments in development and maintenance of downloaded apps, because they are often improved and enhanced by their providers.

   No need to worry about security, because every app on the AppExchange goes through a rigorous security review.

3. Strong community:
   With Salesforce, customers get not only a solid CRM platform, but also an access to a 2.3M+ Trailblazers community. Trailblazers are like-minded companies, partners and developers that share experience, expertise and best practices of Salesforce application and management. As for Salesforce, listening to conversations in the community helps the company to build better products and services.
4. Ground-breaking innovation and continuous improvement:
   The platform is also famous for its sustained development and constant upgrades. Salesforce launches new improvements thrice a year which offers new features and also improves old problems.Since Salesforce is attentive to its community, new releases are never major enough to cause anxiety to users.

   The release dates are always announced in advance, and all Salesforce administrators receive notification emails as well as release notes several months ahead of time. Thus, your Salesforce administrator will know in advance what specifically will be changed and how it may affect your setup. Besides, some new features may be optional, so you will have the choice whether to activate them or not.

5. Cloud-based PaaS model:
   Salesforce launched the first cloud-based CRM as well as established the Platform as a Service (PaaS) model with Force.com. At its core, the PaaS model provides all the necessary infrastructure to develop and run applications over the Internet. Besides, this model eliminates the expense and complexity of managing all the hardware and software that you would need for an on-premises CRM solution. With no capital expense involved for the setup, Salesforce charges are based on user licenses. For example, Salesforce’s Sales Cloud has four editions – Lightening Essential, Lightning Professional, Lightning Enterprise and Lightning Unlimited – with prices varying from $25 to $300 of monthly payments per user. Since your requirements may alter over time, you can move up or down to any edition as well as increase or reduce the number of users.
6. Powerful reporting charts and dashboards:
   Salesforce CRM offers powerful reporting tools that help companies to find answers to the burning questions they typically face in their business activities. These questions can be something like:
   • What are my top selling products?
   • Who are my high value prospects?
   • Which marketing campaigns have been the most successful?
   • How satisfied are my customers?

   Companies can discover valuable insights with the following most popular Salesforce dashboards:

   • Lead funnel dashboard
   • Forecast dashboard
   • Sales leaderboard dashboard
   • Competition and win/loss dashboard
   • KPIs and sales activities dashboard
   • Executive daily view dashboard and more

   Besides, Salesforce offers customizable, real-time reporting facility to help a company’s employees measure their own performance as well as find out critical data using charts and graphs. For example, with Salesforce reports, sales reps can see the accounts they haven’t worked on for a while, a pipeline of current opportunities, performed activities, completed tasks, as well as products they have sold this month.

7. Various integration options:
   Since a typical enterprise uses numerous apps that are not designed to work with one another out of the box, integration possibilities can become a major concern for companies choosing a CRM platform. Successfully, Salesforce offers a rich variety of integration options that allow companies to connect their apps to the Force.com platform. In particular, companies can make use of the following:
   • REST API
   • SOAP API
   • Salesforce connect
   • Data loader

   However, each company is likely to have specific integration needs and requirements. That is why we advise to ask a vendors’ support about the best integration patterns and practices used in your particular case.

On the final note

Despite a couple of drawbacks that hinder absolute success, Salesforce continues to expand its market share of the global CRM industry while other CRM vendors cannot compete on the same level. In particular, in 2016 Salesforce grew by 18.1% outpacing and outgrowing other top CRM vendors (Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft). These numbers prove once again why Salesforce was named #1 CRM.