Salesforce for Small and Medium Business

Salesforce is the most popular cloud platform. It is widely accepted among small and medium sized businesses because of following benefits

• Pay as you Go model: Initially when you are starting business, it is not possible to invest in building a separate business management system. In Salesforce, initial invest is very less. You need to pay for user licenses. You can very well purchase small number of licenses and share among users. Later depending upon growth of business you can purchase more licenses without making any changes in platform
• Powerful CRM tool: Salesforce has built in CRM tool. It is very powerful and versatile. It offers full lead and opportunity management system. Once you have purchased licenses, you can directly start using sales app without any added features. But it is better to consult a Sales Consultant certified person in Salesforce as he can optimize Salesforce features for your business
• Different Subscription Models: Salesforce offers different editions with different prices. Also while purchasing depending on the product that is purchased (Sales cloud, service cloud, force.com platform etc) also price varies. Check the prices of Sales cloud editions as of today in below picture

• Superfast server and database : Salesforce has servers across continents. Salesforce servers will never go down as these are well maintained. Also as the database is also tightly integrated with the platform, all the applications running in the platform will be very fast. If you are starting up a company and you are bought the latest hardware and developed excellent java based web app, then also your app speed is will not be comparable
• Enterprise level Security : Salesforce adopts enterprise level security, which startup companies cannot even imagine. As in salesforce, same hardware is shared by many clients, it is maintained with top security. Administrator can impose IP wise or location wise and time wise restrictions(You can restrict users from using the web app outside office hours) in accessing the application if required.
• Easy and fast implementation: It is very easy to develop an application in Salesforce. Even users who are not familiar with any programming language can develop applications in Salesforce using the click and configure interface of Salesforce. But if you know the Salesforce programming language (APEX), applications involving complex logic and integration with other systems also can be implemented easily. As Salesforce offers such easy to build app options, you can develop a web based Salesforce applications with speed that cannot be obtained in any other systems.
• Frequent updates in platform : Salesforce platform offers, frequent updates in their platform. Yearly there are three updates in the platform with new features and fixes to any bugs. So the platform is always updated. So your applications also will be updates along with platform updates. So always your application stays with latest updates.
• Long List of Built in Features : Salesforce comes with a lot of preloaded features, which can be easily activated at no cost. It offers lots of business features like reporting, dashboards, multi currency management, timezone management etc.
• App Exchange : Salesforce has started an app exchange. It is a single repository of web apps. Everyone can find apps suiting their requirements in App exchange. There is a lot of free apps also. If you are finding a free app suiting your requirement, it is very easy, you can just install and start using it. You are allowed to make changes in the app also to suit your requirements in case of unmanaged app packages. Also there are paid apps. You can select from those also, if any of the apps is suiting your requirements.
• Availability of Developers : There is lots of certified Salesforce developers across world. Salesforce allows user to customize apps from UI side using Visualforce pages(It is similar to HTML with added features and security restrictions). If any app logic needs to be written, it can be done using apex programming language in Salesforce. Salesforce development can be done from anywhere in the world using just one web browser, so there is a lot of scope for freelance developers also.

I am a freelance Salesforce certified developer. I have completed Salesforce certified Developer(DEV401), Salesforce certified administrator(ADM201) and Sales Cloud Consultant certifications in Salesforce. In case you need any help in Salesforce customization or advises, leave a comment

Main reason for popularity of Salesforce are the small initial investment and low app development cost. See the cost wise benefits of using Salesforce.com

• Initial cost is very less. As you follow pay as you use model, you need to pay monthly only. But if you want to implement another web based cheap solution, your option is to develop a php-MySQL application. But it also will take consider time of implementation
• Initial one month trial period offers good chance to try effectiveness of application
• Any time expandability, by purchasing more user licenses.
• Less liabilities. As you are buying user licenses in Pay as you Go model, at any time you can stop and move to another platform, if any other better platform is coming. Even if you are suddenly stopping business suddenly one day, you will not loose any investments as you have paid for only those you are using. If you have stopped using Salesforce, there will not be any additional expenses

Most of the mediums sized companies are reluctant to move to new innovative software solutions like Salesforce, because of the investment they already made in conventional systems (MySQL- PHP or Java based web app). Even if you already have a system in place, Salesforce offers excellent integration capability with any type of system, using its APIs or web services.

So if you are a fresh starter looking for a software solution for your company, before jumping into any other solutions read more about the capabilities of Salesforce. Here you can build an app which is fast and secure than any other type of solution also Salesforce apps will never go down(Thanks to Salesforce servers those will never go down. Excellently managed servers across continents)

If you are planning to switch from conventional software system, then also Salesforce is the best solution. It offers a lot of additional capabilities for integration and authentication with existing systems and add on features like Single Sign On (SSO).