December 19, 2012

Where Are You? What Are You Doing?

I am referring to Five Problems Will Thwart Salesforce.com's Rise in On-Demand CRM by Bob Thompson, Founder, CRMGuru.com, written on November 8, 2005. I'm quoting him at length.


Problem No. 1: Confusing SFA with CRM

... Salesforce.com's heritage leads it to see CRM as primarily a sales problem.

The first time I met with Benioff, he told me he wanted to build a sales automation tool that he would like and actually use. ... he made that the guiding force for the salesforce.com solution, which does indeed do a great job automating sales processes, according to a recent CRMGuru industry study.

... But there's more to CRM technology than SFA and more to CRM than technology.


Questions Raised


1. Was he right? Did Salesforce.com get it wrong?
2. Was Salesforce.com right in concentrating all its guns on a specific function and in deciding to expand only after its initial success?
3. Is it impossibily tough to grow one's company from SFA to CRM? Organically? By acquisitions as Salesforce.com has done since then?














Even More Questions Raised


4. The first product will be SFA or CRM or ERP. Is that techno or business decision?
5. Say, you all agree it will be SFA. Will your SFA look exactly like early Salefforce.com? Again, is that techno or business decision?
6. Syatems analysis ... is that techno or business decision?

I sound dumb in asking such questions. Maybe I am.

What about those who don't even ask such dumb questions?

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