Salesforce.com Hidden Costs Page 1 Counting the Hidden Costs of Salesforce.com EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Organizations evaluating CRM solutions should be aware of the hidden costs of Salesforce.com’s licensing structure. This document was created to 1) help organizations to understand the areas where hidden costs exist, 2) ask the right questions of the CRM vendors they have chosen to investigate, and 3) make informed CRM investment decisions. For organizations considering Salesforce.com, common misconceptions or surprises include the following: HYPER-PREMIUM PRICING. Salesforce.com Professional Edition (list price USD $65/user/month) has a very limited set of functionality that meets few businesses’ needs. As a result, Salesforce.com upsells companies to its Enterprise Edition, which they state is their most popular edition at a list price USD $125/user/month. Surprisingly, even this version is incomplete. In contrast, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is a complete CRM solution and available for USD $44/user/month. ADD-ON CHARGES. Salesforce.com sells add-on functionality at an additional cost. Additional costs include items like mobile (USD $50/user/month), knowledge base (USD $50/user/month), offline access (USD $25/user/month), visual workflow, partner and community portals, and more. In contrast, many of these capabilities are included with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, or available at a lower additional cost. EXORBITANT STORAGE COSTS. Organizations that need more storage capacity are subject to Salesforce.com’s additional storage costs which can be as much as USD $250/gigabyte/month. In contrast, additional storage in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is $9.99/gigabyte/month. MISSING FUNCTIONALITY. While Salesforce.com has invested in numerous acquisitions to build its collaboration and Platform-as-a-Service products, relatively less investment has gone into its CRM product line. In contrast, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is recognized as a leader by leading analyst firms, and is committed to innovating its CRM products. FRAGMENTED MOBILE SUPPORT. While Salesforce.com claims to differentiate on its mobile capabilities, it has gaps in device support (e.g., Android, Windows Phone). Additionally, there is no continuity between the Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Chatter. In contrast, Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides options for organizations to obtain a consistent experience across devices for a reasonable cost. The remainder of this whitepaper provides a cost comparison to Microsoft technologies, while providing detailed insight into Salesforce.com’s hidden costs. Additionally, it provides specific guidance on what topics to discuss with Salesforce.com prior to signing a contract. If you would like additional information, please visit our website at http://crm.dynamics.com.
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Salesforce.com Hidden Costs
Page 1
Counting the Hidden Costs of Salesforce.com
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Organizations evaluating CRM solutions should be aware of the hidden costs of Salesforce.com’s licensing structure. This
document was created to 1) help organizations to understand the areas where hidden costs exist, 2) ask the right
questions of the CRM vendors they have chosen to investigate, and 3) make informed CRM investment decisions.
For organizations considering Salesforce.com, common misconceptions or surprises include the following:
HYPER-PREMIUM PRICING. Salesforce.com Professional Edition (list price USD $65/user/month) has a very
limited set of functionality that meets few businesses’ needs. As a result, Salesforce.com upsells companies to its
Enterprise Edition, which they state is their most popular edition at a list price USD $125/user/month. Surprisingly,
even this version is incomplete. In contrast, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is a complete CRM solution and
available for USD $44/user/month.
ADD-ON CHARGES. Salesforce.com sells add-on functionality at an additional cost. Additional costs include
items like mobile (USD $50/user/month), knowledge base (USD $50/user/month), offline access (USD
$25/user/month), visual workflow, partner and community portals, and more. In contrast, many of these
capabilities are included with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, or available at a lower additional cost.
EXORBITANT STORAGE COSTS. Organizations that need more storage capacity are subject to Salesforce.com’s
additional storage costs which can be as much as USD $250/gigabyte/month. In contrast, additional storage in
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is $9.99/gigabyte/month.
MISSING FUNCTIONALITY. While Salesforce.com has invested in numerous acquisitions to build its
collaboration and Platform-as-a-Service products, relatively less investment has gone into its CRM product line.
In contrast, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is recognized as a leader by leading analyst firms, and is committed
to innovating its CRM products.
FRAGMENTED MOBILE SUPPORT. While Salesforce.com claims to differentiate on its mobile capabilities, it has
gaps in device support (e.g., Android, Windows Phone). Additionally, there is no continuity between the Sales
Cloud, Service Cloud, and Chatter. In contrast, Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides options for organizations
to obtain a consistent experience across devices for a reasonable cost.
The remainder of this whitepaper provides a cost comparison to Microsoft technologies, while providing detailed insight
into Salesforce.com’s hidden costs. Additionally, it provides specific guidance on what topics to discuss with
Salesforce.com prior to signing a contract.
If you would like additional information, please visit our website at http://crm.dynamics.com.
Contents Pay More and Get Less with Salesforce.com .......................................................................................................................... 3
User Productivity Costs ........................................................................................................................................................... 6
Application Support Costs ..................................................................................................................................................... 13
How to Avoid Salesforce.com’s Hidden Costs ...................................................................................................................... 15
Select Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customers ......................................................................................................................... 16
Salesforce.com Hidden Costs
Page 3
Pay More and Get Less with Salesforce.com
Cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) vendors such as Salesforce.com have made it relatively easy to
evaluate, compare, try, and subscribe to its CRM solutions. However, some customers have found that the projected versus
actual costs of using Salesforce.com increases their total cost of ownership far more than their published subscription
fees.1
Salesforce.com is missing critical functionality that you get with Microsoft products. Organizations that need to add
additional features or third party products can find themselves paying unexpected, and significant, extra charges in terms
of deployment, application support, and user productivity.
This paper illustrates that Salesforce.com offers a ―pay more, get less‖ value proposition, and also provides insight into
areas where functionality gaps may result in additional costs.
PAY MORE
a
Estimates are based on a common arrangement for a 50-user deployment. Costs are in U.S. dollars. b
Microsoft subscription costs include Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Microsoft Office 365, CWR Mobility, and 2 GB of additional storage. c
Deployment costs in this chart exclude implementation and resource costs associated with configuration, customization, integration, development, and data migration.
As the preceding chart depicts, organizations should be aware of additional costs that might be required to deliver
needed functionality and support through Salesforce.com.
Many Salesforce.com customers find out when it is too late—after a two or three year contract has already been signed—
that additional costs apply. For example, Salesforce.com customers face a hidden cost to user productivity and
subscription costs if important functionality such as workflow, beyond a simplistic version of it, is required.
Despite its premium priced offerings2, Salesforce.com often charges a premium for application support, application
administration, and data archiving and restoration. Additional costs can also apply for things like CRM data migration,
data de-duplication, Microsoft Outlook interoperability, mobile access, and offline usage.
1 See appendix, ―Customer Switchers: Salesforce.com to Microsoft Dynamics CRM‖