Technology Solutions
Throughout my career I’ve been a user of Siebel CRM, Salesforce CRM from salesforce.com, Oracle CRM On Demand and Oracle Sales Cloud. In this section of my blog I’ve provided my view of each system to help you make a decision about which solution would best suit your organisation.
Oracle
Through various acquisitions, Oracle has managed to deliver best of breed CRM solutions. It did this with Siebel Systems. Which brought in both Siebel CRM as well as the SaaS or cloud-based Siebel CRM On Demand, now known as Oracle CRM On Demand.Oracle’s own Oracle CRM never really did well, the joke was that the 6 clients globally who used it, love it!
That’s part of the reason they bought Siebel, innovation through acquisition.However, Fusion CRM (now called Oracle Sales Cloud) is a truly innovative product. The first really robust version 1.7 is available around May of 2013.
salesforce.com
Marc Benioff, CEO of salesforce.com launched his product in 1999. He survived the dot-com bust of 2001 and has gone on to deliver an outstanding product.I’ve been exposed to Salesforce over the years, but it wasn’t until 2012 that I was involved in an implementation.
The client is a not for profit based in Sydney, The Miracle Babies Foundation (MBF).The salesforce.com Foundation provides 10 Enterprise licences at no charge to registered charities, a great deal for charities with limited funds.As a marketing guy, I’ve been delighted with the ease of use and the power of Salesforce.
Via the Salesforce AppExchange there are a huge number of plugins to help you exploit the core CRM functionality. Some are free and others are provided by 3rd party vendors.Like Oracle Sales Cloud, Salesforce is a SaaS or cloud-based product. This helps with speed and flexibility. You have access to your data via a range of mobile apps purpose-built for iPhone, iPad and Android.