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The 2013 CRM Market Awards have been announced, and the winners are: Salesforce.com, Salesforce.com, Salesforce.com, and Salesforce.com. That’s right; Salesforce.com took home the top prize in every category it entered this year, including Enterprise CRM, Midmarket CRM, Small Business CRM, and Sales Force Automation.
Read below for further detail on CRM trends and Salesforce.com’s winning ways.
The enterprise CRM market is at an all-time high. This year, Salesforce.com maintained its position at the top for the enterprise CRM suite category, with a high score of 4.5 for company direction. Contributing to its number one ranking were key updates Salesforce.com made to its cloud platforms. These included the addition of social media products Buddy Media and Radian6 to its Marketing Cloud, as well as added social advertising capabilities with Social.com. Salesforce.com has also enhanced its email campaign management and marketing automation by acquiring ExactTarget.
Midmarket companies have spent 2013 focusing on how to improve their sales and earnings, and expand their business footprints. Business research and forecasting service Economic Intelligence Unit says SMBs are looking to technology, and specifically mobile applications and social media tools, to accomplish their goals. More often than not, they pick Salesforce.com, which earned the highest score for company direction in this year’s category, with a 4.1.
According to Steve King, partner at Emergent Research, "Salesforce.com is just plain all-around good," and is "still the most popular choice for midmarket CRM." Salesforce.com continues to strive to meet the demand, this year releasing Salesforce Touch Platform, which allows enterprises to build and deploy native, HTML5, or hybrid apps to any mobile device. Salesforce.com also acquired GoInstant, which offers sales support in an e-commerce transaction.
Small businesses have the advantage over larger companies of being able to build stronger and more personal relationships with customers. Many SMBs are embracing social media as a key part of this and are turning to social CRM for help. Salesforce.com wins this category, earning a 4.5 for company direction and 4.1 for is reputation for customer satisfaction. King calls Salesforce.com “the leading CRM product for small business of all sizes.”
Among the products giving Salesforce.com the edge is its recently introduced Marketing Cloud, which now partners with 20 social analytics providers. Also setting it apart are the previously mentioned launch of Social.com, an application that brings together social listening with CRM, and acquisition of ExactTarget, a cloud-based digital marketing platform.
Sales reps are relying on mobile devices to do business in the field now more than ever. It makes sense then that their preferred smartphones and tablets are part of their decision when choosing a contact management and sales force automation (SFA) solution. As a result, CRM vendors who build SFA tools with mobile capabilities and collaboration features will have the most success.
For the eighth straight year, Salesforce.com wins the SFA category, thanks to its Sales Cloud application, as well as some new additions. Salesforce.com has integrated its Sales Cloud with Work.com, a social performance platform that allows managers to recognize and reward sales success. The previously mentioned Salesforce Touch Platform was also released this year, allowing for deeper mobile app creation with Salesforce.com and third-party developers. Ray Wang, principal analyst and CEO of Constellation Research, says Salesforce.com "has the best vision and has done a great job executing."
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