SalesForce,com and Force,com as Hits in Market Place - Case Study Example

SalesForce.com and Force.com Name Institution Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 SalesForce.com and Force.com 3 Introduction 3 SalesForce.com and Force.com, a hit in market place 3 Comparison and contrast 5 Challenges 6 Businesses using Salesforce.com and force.com 7 Conclusion 9 References 10 Wainewright, P. (2006). Salesforce.com faces up to integration challenge. 10 < http://www.zdnet.com/blog/saas/salesforce-com-faces-up-to-integration-challenge/145> 10 SalesForce.com and Force.com Introduction Enterprise application software provides business oriented tools for business enterprises such as online shopping and payments. According to Kumar & Reinartz (2011), businesses gain a higher advantage of Customer Relationships Management when they employ cloud computing. Cloud strategy eliminates physical and organizational constraints that firm experience before its implementation. All business needs enterprises application software for business operations and efficient management of its clients. Saleforce.com Inc., a San Francisco enterprise software company provides the business CRM product and is growing into social enterprise product too. Force.com is a platform as service introduced by SalesForce.com which is used in constructing multitenant presentations. SalesForce.com and Force.com are well known as applications in cloud computing and CRM usage. They have similarities, differences and challenges facing their expansion. SalesForce.com and Force.com, a hit in market place SalesForce.com and Force.com are hits in the market place for a number of reasons. They offer a variety of business tools that enhance business operations and increase the ease of transactions. Salesforce.com provides a CRM solution including services cloud, collaboration cloud, sales cloud and data cloud. The sales cloud allows customers to access sales from any location through the internet via mobile phones and computers. This enhances CRM and improves reliability. Sales representatives are able to access their client’s information profiles and history of accounts via Sales cloud chatter. Therefore, they have been able to control their marketing operations, expenditure and routines through one application but across several channels (Salesforce.com Product Review, 2010). Sales force CRM has provided an integrating component where customers are able to perform analysis, apply documents and market automation.. New applications can be installed and improved through this and also provides a perfect on-demand application sharing service. The experience and professionalism offered by force.com PaaS has improved the third-party clearing and integration of companies’ toolkits effective (Kabe, 2012). The application enables Independent software vendors to create applications more easily since it provides both the essential designs and setup of the application. This leaves them with only the features and functions to worry about. Installation of the component is also easy and increases sales and customer utility. Marketing efforts and revenue is also boosted. They have provided a flexible usage. The applications have provided a base for different elements working together in congruence while delivering services via the internet. This has offered a platform for sharing and information management and adjustable solutions for CRM for a range of business needs. On-demand application provided by force.com has influenced the increased number of users. Businesses are able to use sales force with other partner solutions to maximize output. These applications have also facilitated data collaboration. Sale force has provided easy access to information and enabled sales department easy study of sales data. This has facilitated businesses’ sales departments’ efficient management of sales and their work force. Database for force.com stores ISV’s data model and plans and manages it for a future business use. Such data include formula language like excel, contact information like emails and URLs. The application has provided data that on demand presentations utilize. Mobile solutions provided by the applications increase profitability and ease in data accessibility. This requires less training and is easy to install. Implementation of the applications has enabled businesses to efficiently provide for its customers while cutting on its expenditures. Force .com is embraced by a number of best companies in the industries such as Belkin in the technology industry, ADT in security services industry and AVON in the retail industry. Comparison and contrast Since force.com is a component of the sales force solution, the two constitute some similarities. Both sales force.com and force.com aid in business cloud computing and Customer Relationships Management. They are also used to together for effectiveness. Sales force application is a website application constituted in a Software as a service model or on demand software. It is a model in which associated data and the software are accommodated in a central place. Sales force solution provides platforms for which customers design their own services. Force.com is the platform as service model that the application provides for business usage. Sales force.com through its on demand platform provide customers a base for creating new and dominant applications more easily and faster in order to met the needs of their businesses. There is however some differences between sales force.com and force.com. Force.com is the platform where sales force.com was created. Technically, the two are substitutable. They are both applicable in marketing procedures to improve sales of a business enterprise. Sales force solutions are created from codebase and organization which is provided by force.com. Most organizations however base on force.com since sales force CRM solution is expanding and accommodating more aspects. They also differ from each other in terms of their functions. Force.com edition and sales force.com standard edition differ. The functions of enterprise, professional and other forms of standard sales force.com vary with functions of force.com. Force.com is provided in order to lay a base on which customers create their own applications (Appleman, 2012). This function of force.com has provided platforms for bigger companies which rarely use sales force solutions for customer relationships management. Challenges SalesForce.com and force.com have faced challenges in the effort to expand. Integration with connected software is among the main challenges that sales force.com has faced (Wainewright, 2006). Many enterprises were unable to incorporate on-demand applications into their operations thus affecting the success of the application in businesses. It however made efforts to resolve the integration problem by enrolling high-achiever sales force. This was an effort not to apply the usual techniques where professionals were hired to solve the problems. The vice president of global integration services, Warner Cindy also enrolled in the company at that time. A study showed that 28% of clients incorporated the solutions with other applications while some had to purchase extra middleware to facilitate its implementation (Nucleus, 2005). According to a research conducted by Nucleus (2005), sales force .com increased the returns on investments for companies. However, many organizations were considering other alternatives for more value other than reduced costs. The study indicated a 38% customer switching ability after they attained high ROI. Results indicated that, clients considered them as commodity products but not strategic products that influenced the way of conducting business. There are also environmental challenges for sales force and force.com. As consumers increase their responses on products, manufacturing also increases and the R&D systems are boosted. The applications need to cover a wider range of market base and need to be frequently updated. This might pose a challenge to some businesses. Businesses using Salesforce.com and force.com Salesforce.com has not been limited to any specific kind of business. Different enterprises in different industries have implemented and used it. Google is among the well known businesses that have utilized the application, with 24 Hour fitness and Alltel. The dream force cloud computing event involved all aspects of the sales force CRM functions including Force.com and AppExchange businesses, operators and regions. All sizes of businesses ranging from small, large, startups and those implementing long-term sales force CRM and force.com also attended the event (Laudon, 2010). There are a number of factors that are taken into account in deciding whether to use SalesForce.com or Force.com for a business. First businesses consider the intensity of security risks impacted by online business transactions given that the authority of the business is given to different groups. This is however insignificant compared to the advantages obtained from the applications. Another factor to consider is the current partner applications in the business. Businesses have considered the compatibility of their existing applications with sales force and force.com. This has to favor the integration of the applications. Resources available in the organization are also to be considered and whether they are suitable enough (Colomo-Palacios et. al, 2012). Companies can run their entire businesses using SalesForce.com or Force.com. Being a service business software, salesforce.com is easily downloaded hand used by any business to solve the situations in the business. It creates business own homepage through which the operations will be run after logging in. tab provided in the homepage include contacts, home, accounts, getting started, leads, dashboards, opportunities, products, reports, content and work spaces. Here, the user is able to access what they need in operating the business. The user is also able to modify default settings by whacking some tabs or adding more. The tabs also contain own contents that facilitate management for example recent items of activities, tasks, search engine and calendar in the home tab. There are also different tables of data for top employee ideas in the dashboard. This increases efficiency and productivity in management of the business. If the firm decides to use sales force.com and force.com in the long run, it accrues some feasibility. Sales force.com ensures innovation among the clients. The applications always update the software in its background. Businesses modify some features in the long-run and make them unique and suitable for their operations. They eradicate difficulty and extra costs of managing numerous hardware and software in the business. Other than increasing rates of returns in investment, they eliminate the need for specialists, supervisors and periodic licensing fees. Conclusion Sales force .com and force.com are convenient applications for any business. Tough they are a component of another; they have some differences too in functionality and operations. The advantages of these applications outweigh the disadvantages. They can be used by any business enterprise in any industry to manage business operations. In the long-run, the enterprises attain efficiency, productiveness and high returns. References Kumar, V., & Reinartz, W. (2011). Customer Relationship Management: Concept, Strategy, and Tools. Berlin: Springer Berlin. Kabe, S. (2012). Force.com developer certification handbook (DEV401): A comprehensive handbook to guide Force.com developers through important fundamentals and prepare them for the DEV401 exam. Birmingham, U.K: Packt Enterprise. Appleman, D. (2012). Advanced Apex Programming for Salesforce. Com and Force. Com. Desaware Publishing, Wainewright, P. (2006). Salesforce.com faces up to integration challenge. < http://www.zdnet.com/blog/saas/salesforce-com-faces-up-to-integration-challenge/145> Nucleus research. (2005). Nucleus Research finds Salesforce.com challenged with functionality for enterprise-wide deployments. < http://nucleusresearch.com/news/press-releases/nucleus-research-finds-salesforce-dot-com-challenged-with-functionality-for-enterprise-wide-deployments/> "Salesforce.com Product Review." (2010). On Demand Customer Relationship Management Software. . Laudon, K.C., & Laudon, J.P. (2010). Management Information Systems Managing the Digital Firm. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall,Print. CRM -Salesforce.com. (2010). "Dreamforce 09 : The Cloud Computing Event of the Year – salesforce.com."  CRM-salesforce.com. . Colomo-Palacios, R., Varajao, J., & Soto-Acosta, P. (2012). Customer relationship management and the social and semantic web: Enabling cliens conexus. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference. Read More