A decade ago, Salesforce was a small, disruptive player in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) space. What set them apart from their competition was that they were a Software as a service or SaaS. It was important to Marc Benioff (founder, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce) that this application be “clicks not code.” A solution that did not require infrastructure management and reduced the technical expertise that was typically required of companies to configure and set up CRM solutions.
Today Salesforce accounts for over 18% of all global spend for CRM software vs around 12% for SAP, 9% for Oracle and 6% for Microsoft. With offerings that include a sales cloud, service cloud, marketing cloud, the Force platform and several other services, they’ve moved well beyond the realm of just a CRM tool. It’s now being used for HR solutions, recruiting, project management, agile management, vendor management and much, much, more.
It’s hard to believe that organizations leave a lot of these new options untapped. Many companies are still using Salesforce to just run their sales, marketing or customer service centers, which is kind of like purchasing a membership to a country club. It’s REALLY expensive if you only used the club to play tennis, but it’s a great value if you utilize all of the club’s facilities such as golf, tennis, the pool and its other amenities. Likewise, if you’re paying for Salesforce licenses but only running your sales team in Salesforce then you’re not receiving your full return on investment (ROI). By carefully leveraging the variety of licenses that Salesforce offers, you can create a high-value, company-wide business management solution that, when developed correctly, easily integrates into other key systems like your ERP or back-end finance system.
If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to review the costs of consuming and maintaining several different licenses that could potentially be absorbed by Salesforce. Ask questions like: how is your data quality? What does adoption look like? How efficient is your licensing plan? Etc. Take the time to analyze your current situation and consider developing a consolidation and architecture plan that maximizes the potential of Salesforce as well as your other corporate sub-systems. And remember, just because the implementation consultants have left, it doesn’t mean that the project is complete. On the contrary, it needs to be proactively managed because your Salesforce journey is really just beginning.
Snowflake Summit 2025 Announcements
Snowflake Summit 2025’s latest announcements made it clear: the path to genuine AI-driven impact hinges on frictionless access to data, the ability to act on it with clarity, and absolute confidence in its protection. Learn more about how they're making that happen for customers in this article.
How ChatPRD Helps Build Better Stories (and a Stronger Team)
When user stories are vague, it slows down delivery, trust, and momentum. This article by Senior Product Strategy Consultant Traci Metzger shows how she used a lightweight, AI-guided system (ChatPRD) to write clearer, developer-ready requirements that actually accelerated execution.
QA in the Age of AI: The Rise of AI-Powered Quality Intelligence
As organizations push code to production faster, respond rapidly to new customer needs and build adaptive systems, the expectations on quality have changed. It's no longer enough to simply catch bugs at the end of the cycle. We’re entering an era where quality engineering must evolve into quality intelligence and organizations adopting quality intelligence practices are reporting measurable gains across key delivery metrics. Learn more in this article by Principal Engineer Jarius Hayes.
Operational Efficiency in the AI Era: What Matters and What Works
Ever wonder how leading teams are cutting costs without cutting corners? Hint: it starts with AI. In this article by Principal Delivery Manager Kabir Chugh, learn how AI is powering smarter ops, faster deployments, and measurable savings across industries.