CRM - October 2008 - (Page SF2) 2 October 2008 CRM magazine Best Practices Series: Salesforce.com’s AppExchange – Leveraging your commitment to on-demand CRM For those of you who may not be familiar with Salesforce.com’s AppExchange marketplace, it’s an eminently easy-to-navigate on-demand delivery platform allowing Salesforce.com users to research, evaluate, and purchase applications from third-party independent software vendors (ISVs). These ISVs have built their applications specifically to integrate with the Salesforce.com platform. Currently, there are more than 800 applications available in the AppExchange marketplace, from more than 450 vendors. For subscribers to the Salesforce.com platform, imagine the enormous benefits of being able to search the AppExchange for niche solutions in no fewer than 16 categories— customer-focused sales and service applications, solutions targeted at specific industry segments such as financial services or real estate, even non customer-facing functions such as human resources. Many of these categories are further broken down into subcategories, which encourages comparisonshopping and makes apples-to-apples decisionmaking much, much easier. Aside from the sheer number and diversity of choices offered in the AppExchange, its organization and presentation has to be responsible for much of its success. The AppExchange marketplace is optimized for ease of use when researching possible solutions with common-sense navigation, similarly constructed data sheets, product evaluations, and demo offerings. The marketplace also offers a usergenerated evaluation system—similar to the Amazon.com experience, with ratings by stars and user feedback on the applications themselves. Salesforce.com has done a tremendous job pulling together partnerships that add value to its platform and increase its power to impact end-user productivity in so many areas. Even more impressive, the company has provided the users of this virtual marketplace with the Web 2.0 feedback mechanisms that incite customers to go beyond marketing copy— and empower them to communicate with each other. The AppExchange platform also allows current customers to develop their own in-house applications on top of Salesforce.com’s hosted platform. As the most successful provider of hosted solutions to date, the AppExchange has undoubtedly been responsible for much of Salesforce.com’s success since the company first introduced the marketplace in late 2005. The availability of so many quality point solutions in so many areas overcomes many of the arguments against adopting the basic Salesforce.com platform. Rather than limit its users to a handful of proprietary solutions, Salesforce.com has created an environment that encourages ISVs to build countless offerings for its platform, thereby ensuring that current and future Salesforce.com subscribers stay locked in, and that customers don’t opt to migrate to a competitor down the road. The key to this type of model is making sure that end users have access to the widest possible number of solutions, and that there’s enough financial motivation for third-party vendors to keep developing for the marketplace. In this sponsored supplement to CRM magazine, we are showcasing 11 exciting AppExchange solutions from areas such as analytics, contract management, voice automation, marketing automation, mobile technology, and social media. As part of your quest to build the best possible processes and tools for your Salesforce.com investment, we encourage you to continue your research on destinationCRM.com, the Web sites of these individual solution providers, and within the Salesforce.com AppExchange marketplace itself. Bob Fernekees Vice President/Group Publisher CRM Media, a division of Information Today, Inc. http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Amazon.com http://www.destinationCRM.com http://www.Salesforce.com http://www.Salesforce.com
Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - October 2008 CRM - October 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Sprinting Toward Disaster? SAP Retains Market-Share Lead in CRM A Week of Strong Customer Service CRM on Twitter Build a Good Event and They Will Come Required Reading There's No Place Like Home The New Breed of CRM Consultant The Price is Right...You Hope How Much Marketing is Too Much? The Sweet Smell of High-Quality Service The Next Act! For An Acquisition Some Stories Never Get Old CRM Eases the Pressure For WIKA Instruments Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View CRM - October 2008 CRM - October 2008 - CRM - October 2008 (Page Cover1) CRM - October 2008 - CRM - October 2008 (Page Cover2) CRM - October 2008 - Contents (Page 3) CRM - October 2008 - Contents (Page 4) CRM - October 2008 - Contents (Page 5) CRM - October 2008 - Front Office (Page 6) CRM - October 2008 - Front Office (Page 7) CRM - October 2008 - Feedback (Page 8) CRM - October 2008 - Feedback (Page 9) CRM - October 2008 - Reality Check (Page 10) CRM - October 2008 - Reality Check (Page 11) CRM - October 2008 - Customer Centricity (Page 12) CRM - October 2008 - Customer Centricity (Page 13) CRM - October 2008 - The Tipping Point (Page 14) CRM - October 2008 - The Tipping Point (Page 15) CRM - October 2008 - Sprinting Toward Disaster? (Page 16) CRM - October 2008 - SAP Retains Market-Share Lead in CRM (Page 17) CRM - October 2008 - SAP Retains Market-Share Lead in CRM (Page 18) CRM - October 2008 - CRM on Twitter (Page 19) CRM - October 2008 - Build a Good Event and They Will Come (Page 20) CRM - October 2008 - Required Reading (Page 21) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page 22) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page 23) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page 24) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page 25) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page 26) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF1) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF2) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF3) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF4) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF5) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF6) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF7) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF8) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF9) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF10) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF11) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF12) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF13) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF14) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF15) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF16) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF17) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF18) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF19) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page SF20) CRM - October 2008 - There's No Place Like Home (Page 27) CRM - October 2008 - The New Breed of CRM Consultant (Page 28) CRM - October 2008 - The New Breed of CRM Consultant (Page 29) CRM - October 2008 - The New Breed of CRM Consultant (Page 30) CRM - October 2008 - The New Breed of CRM Consultant (Page 31) CRM - October 2008 - The New Breed of CRM Consultant (Page 32) CRM - October 2008 - The Price is Right...You Hope (Page 33) CRM - October 2008 - The Price is Right...You Hope (Page 34) CRM - October 2008 - The Price is Right...You Hope (Page 35) CRM - October 2008 - The Price is Right...You Hope (Page 36) CRM - October 2008 - The Price is Right...You Hope (Page 37) CRM - October 2008 - How Much Marketing is Too Much? (Page 38) CRM - October 2008 - How Much Marketing is Too Much? (Page 39) CRM - October 2008 - How Much Marketing is Too Much? (Page 40) CRM - October 2008 - How Much Marketing is Too Much? (Page 41) CRM - October 2008 - How Much Marketing is Too Much? (Page 42) CRM - October 2008 - The Next Act! For An Acquisition (Page 43) CRM - October 2008 - Some Stories Never Get Old (Page 44) CRM - October 2008 - CRM Eases the Pressure For WIKA Instruments (Page 45) CRM - October 2008 - Secret of My Success (Page 46) CRM - October 2008 - Re:Tooling (Page 47) CRM - October 2008 - Scouting Report (Page 48) CRM - October 2008 - Scouting Report (Page 49) CRM - October 2008 - Pint of View (Page 50) CRM - October 2008 - Pint of View (Page Cover3) CRM - October 2008 - Pint of View (Page Cover4)
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