The hosted sales force automation software company previewed
the Nov. 15 release of Winter '05 Tuesday at its Dreamforce user
seminar in San Francisco. Winter '05 marks the 17th
Salesforce.com sales force management release in the company's
five-and-a-half-year history. Along with sales automation
improvements and enhancements to the recently released
Supportforce.com and the Sforce integration tool, Salesforce.com
has created a sales CRM customization application. Hosted CRM
Management has historically faced criticism that its
applications are difficult for customers to customize.
Predictably named Customforce.com, the tool allows users to
extend Salesforce.com's marketing automation applications beyond
sales, marketing and service into other business areas without
programming. The new CRM services tool is aimed squarely at the
enterprise market where Salesforce.com has made inroads in the
past year, according to Sheryl Kingstone, CRM course manager at
the Boston-based Yankee Group. Small and medium-sized businesses
can still use the tool, but tend to need guidance in workshops
and classes in understanding processes and strategy.
"As Salesforce.com is targeting a lot more of the larger
enterprises, they have to give them the tools they're used to
using," Kingstone said. "As they go upstream and understand more
about process, companies build it themselves anyway."
Customforce.com will be available to Salesforce.com customers at
no additional charge. Customers can modify user interfaces,
workflows, tabs and fields to their liking, as well as extend
Salesforce.com functionality with the appropriate workshop and
class training into other business processes like human
resources and engineering.
Reducing the number of applications by extending Salesforce.com
to other processes was an attractive idea for Marty Howard,
senior vice president and chief information officer of Patient
Care in West Orange, N.J.
"CustomForce.com will allow us to further customize without
adding applications --fewer products, fewer vendors and less
integration," he said. "My philosophy on software is that it all
pretty much does the same thing. It accepts data, applies rules
to that data, stores that data in a database and uses tools to
retrieve the data in some specific format. If I can customize
Salesforce.com to do accounting, HR management or workflow, I
will."
Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff told attendees at Dreamforce
that the new tool gives companies the application they need, not
one mandated by a software vendor.
However, the application still has a long way to go before it
challenges its competitor RightNow Technologies Inc., in
Bozeman, Mont., in hosted customer service functionality,
Kingstone said.
Last month, RightNow announced it is moving into the marketing
automation and sales force automation market with a full sales
CRM offering.
In the next couple of months, Salesforce.com will launch
CRMsuccess.com, a Web site that will feature best practices,
advice on implementations, course and seminars, and a personal
account review where Salesforce.com will tell customers where to
improve their CRM initiative.
Source: Barney Beal
link
Related: Salesforce.com CRM
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