Re:Shopify Is Winning Salesforce Clients, Stoking E-Commerce...
by beAbU on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @11:42AM
(#41985232)
Salesforce is not sold as a CRM though, and that's the problem. They position themselves as the do-everything-you-can-dream-of engine for your business' IT transformation. It's like it's rule 34 of the business word: If you can think of it, Salesforce has a checkbox on a powerpoint somewhere about it.
What this results in is that upper management sees all the features and capabilities in a flashy sales pitch, they close a deal with Salesforce (probably after some less-than-noble negotiation tactics deployed by SF salespeople), and then the mandate comes from the top: "We must implement Salesforce!" And all the tech people look awkwardly at each other not having the faintest fucking clue what that even means.
Re:Shopify Is Winning Salesforce Clients, Stoking E-Commerce...
by ToucanLoucan on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @11:51AM
(#41985407)
And this is just my experience but like: every single product I have ever used, from anything, that claims to be the "do anything!" solution, always, always, always is shit.
It seems to be a hard and fast rule of the universe that the more things your thing is designed to do, the worse it does all of those constituent things.
Re:Shopify Is Winning Salesforce Clients, Stoking E-Commerce...
by DowagerDave on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @12:11PM
(#41985748)
maybe a counter-example? Zoho doesn't have one product that does everything but does seem to have A product for everything. None of them are fantastic, but many are decent or good enough, and they are cheap. I've been pleasantly surprised with the experience, as I thought it would be similar to the GoDaddy or AWS perpetual dark-pattern upsell.
Imagine a company that is driven by actual salespeople β like car dealerships, or any telemarketing or charity operation β where someone is making phone calls and trying to make sales.
Salesforce is their CRM, a Customer Relation Manager. You can get a complete history of an individual and their buying history within your company.
I worked for a travel-adjacent company a couple years ago, the entire thing was predicated on a half-dozen sales reps making handfuls of deals worth $50k+ each. Nothing like e-commerce. Salesforce was their Rolodex and their beating heart.
That said, it isn't a good CRM. It's nineties tech that became very essential to very very big companies. Someone else here described it as akin to PhpMyAdmin and he absolutely nailed it.
I think Salesforce is likely to be worth more someday for their Slack acquisition, not unlike how Meta is worth more for Instagram than Facebook.