Salesforce.com transformation

There are any number of ways that an organization can transform its service. Identify 4-5 ways that your focal service organization could do so. Select 1 and provide a detailed description of why you think the organization should transform the service in the manner you suggest. Is this a competitive necessity for sustainability or an opportunity to gain market share, etc. What would be the 2-3 most significant barriers to overcome.

Salesforce.com was the first online CRM, today major ERP systems -such as SAP- have moved into this arena and are a major threat for salesforce.com with their CRM systems. Salesforce.com focus into CRM has its advantages, but there are necessary service transformations that Salesforce.com needs to do in order to become competitive:

a.- Selling Information for salesforces (leads, market reports, etc)

b.- Develop a whole ERP on their own.

c.- Create and Sales and Operations planning system for adding more functionality

d.- Develop a whole suite for mobile phones (*there is an iPhone app, but needs a more universal approach)

e.- follow up tools for after sales services

Lets explore option B. While there are major ERP players out there, salesforce.com users have always liked the easy way salesforce.com CRM works. Usually ERP systems are too complex too use, and most of them are designed for heavy users, meanwhile the medium and small enterprises have very few real options of accessing this systems - thus they begin collecting different it systems to cover their needs. Salesforce.com can cover for them this gap, using its interface and brand reputation can develop a simple ERP system for their day to day needs and also developing a whole collaborative community that benefits from the same principles as salesforce.com.

This move is a necessity for remaining competitive. Barriers to entry for this are the learning curve, the first adopters move and the general perception around the complexity of ERP systems. Salesforce.com had to overcome this barriers before, now they could leverage their brand and develop an ERP extension.

Describe a successful process innovation that occurred in your focal service organization. How did customers likely respond to the innovation? How did competitors respond to the innovation?

Identify 2-3 specific barriers to entry that give your focal service organization the greatest advantage? (e.g., opportunity to obtain sustainable advantage and/or what makes it difficult for others to enter the market).

Salesforce.com developed APP exchange, this gave them a first mover advantage in the cloud computing environment versus big major CRM commercial software out there. APPexchange is an applications pool in the web, where all the Salesforce.com users are able to search for applications that allow them to get more from the CRM (dashboards, reports, user interfaces, etc). App exchange also allows its users to upload custom apps they have developed.

In this area, Salesforce.com developed 2 main competitive advantages

- Developed a strong community of users of their CRM

- Provided them with early information of how their customers were using the software, allowing them to improve their new versions.

Salesforce going to Latin America

Q: Imagine that your focal service organization is going to expand into a country which has a very different culture from the home company. Identify that country and a few significant cultural differences between the home and expansion countries. For each difference listed, indicate how the service process may differ between countries.

The process that the potential users -salesforces- follow may seem similar at a first glance between the U.S. and Latin American countries; however cultural differences create major issues to solve.

Salesforces follow a road of:

a) talking to prospective customers

b) submitting proposals

c) closing deals

and d) following up delivery of products/services according to the contract

There are two main differences -related to culture- that must been taken into consideration:

1) Personal relationship are strongly considered in Latin America, the relationship is more important than the product/service itself.

2) Latin America culture does not document activities as often as the U.S.

These two differences require that salesforce.com adapts its processes. First adaptation required: the system should provide more tools that foster personal relationships, such as birthday and anniversary dates of potential customers, lunch and dinner preferences, sports and leisure preferences.

The other adaptation requires more training and a simplification of the system: many fields to fill in salesforce.com or complexity may discourage Latin American saleforces from using the service. This is critical for creating momentum for the service, and is also a challenge for salesforce.com because they have to adapt their service, which is based on a standard product used by a vast majority.

The ability of salesforce.com to meet this two main differences will be critical in order to succeed as a service in a different cultural environment.