Salesforce.com touts custom, vertical solutions without the overhead
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 2/1/2005 7:00:00 AM
Salesforce.com believes the latest generation of its CRM suite answers any objections that have been raised about the hosted software business model. The vendor unveiled this new release, dubbed Winter 05, last November.
"The main objection to [the hosted] model is that it doesn't allow you to customize your application or integrate it with other applications," says Adam Gross, director of product marketing, salesforce.com. "Our latest release gives users all of the benefits of a hosted application, and the ability to integrate and customize that application."
A widely recognized leader in the hosted software space, salesforce.com had to address these issues because industry experts were saying the solutions lacked the depth of features contained in traditional CRM systems.
Meta Group VP Andreas Bitterer says salesforce.com's solutions work well for companies that want general CRM functionality, but those seeking industry-specific functionality might be happier with a vendor like Siebel Systems, which has devoted tremendous resources to developing CRM solutions for specific industries.
Gross says salesforce.com Winter 05 has two components that directly address that argument: sforce 5.0, an upgraded integration platform; and customforce, a new customization toolkit.
"sforce employs Web services technology to allow companies to connect salesforce.com applications to other products, such as Oracle financials," Gross explains. "We provide simple code [on the salesforce.com Web site] that tells users how to link salesforce.com with their enterprise applications using the middleware or application programming interfaces that come with those applications."
Gross says customforce "allows customers to create their own vertical industry solutions" while freeing salesforce.com from building multiple versions of its applications.
JLG Industries, McConnellsburg, Pa., a $1 billion-manufacturer of aerial work platforms, has used both sforce and customforce extensively, according to Scott Milligan, JLG's director of sales process development.
With customforce, JLG created a standard process for determining whether it would be profitable to custom-build a product that doesn't match a typical JLG configuration. The process involves pulling pricing and other product-related information from a MAPICS ERP system and placing it on a Web page that calculates the product's potential profitability. The page is then routed to the appropriate parties for approval.
"Developing this was pretty easy," Milligan says, "and the best part is that it doesn't have the overhead that comes with customizations done to client/server systems."
