In a continuously evolving entrepreneurial environment, any business that hesitates to adapt to the latest technological developments will lose. Paradigm shifts and evolving modules are coaxing small-scale businesses as well as giant enterprises to rethink their technological dependencies. Manual ERPs have grown obsolete and now is the era of cloud-based computing and management. Cloud-based automation tools like Salesforce is letting businesses make the most of every business opportunity.
What is Salesforce and what is its main purpose?
Salesforce is an efficient On-Demand CRM that caters to small-scale businesses as well as multi-national enterprises. This customer relationship management system is quite different from the monotonous CRMs found in the market. This application can handle sales management, customer relations, and marketing automation on its own. This smartly-built application caters to the varied needs of a contemporary business. Be it a reputed business or a bootstrapped start-up, this salesforce cloud-based application can help in managing customer accounts and provide services post-sale. Salesforce application also tracks sales lead.
Some of the incomparable features of Salesforce CRM are:
- Synchronizes contacts, plans, and meetings across varied platforms
- Manages contact, information, event, and tasks
- Helps in API integration and cross-platform computing
- Can be accessed remotely from across the world 24X7
- Cross-platform integration
- Remote and offline access
- Developers sandbox
- Huge storage
How businesses can grow with the help of Salesforce application?
Salesforce is the world’s number one Customer Relationship Management application. Salesforce helps businesses understand their customers better and keeps improving operations on the sidelines.
Here’s how businesses can grow big with the help of Salesforce application:
Salesforce brings the varied operations under a central localization Salesforce uses available information to analyze the potential of the business and helps you target potential audience.
With the impressive analytical tool, Salesforce application can help businesses predict the future of a product.
With necessary details related to varied customers available, this tool can create and run automated marketing campaigns.
Salesforce can help businesses build a strong community with ambassadors. These ambassadors work for the company indirectly and bring in more business.
Salesforce has helped hundreds of businesses grow with the evolving needs of a customer. With a cloud-based system like Salesforce, enterprises can stop worrying about inefficiency.
A second of delay in this Internet laden world can lead to loss of millions hence it is important to deliver seamless customer service. Salesforce does the same; it uses the available resources and artificial intelligence to deliver incomparable customer services.
What is the Cost of Salesforce CRM?
Enterprises from around the world have been relying on salesforce development agencies for the best-customized dashboards. The cost of Salesforce CRM depends largely on the number of users you are adding. With a monthly fee charged per user basis, Salesforce CRM fits in the budget of every enterprise. The app cost keeps increasing with every add-on you request. A salesforce development company can help you acquire some bulk discount but there are some hidden costs as well.
Some of the variants of Salesforce CRM offered by the company are:
Contact Manager Edition: This one edition can manage contacts, tasks and perform the cross-platform integration. Contact manager edition costs $5 per month for every user you add. This variant promises easy integration between Outlook and Google products like Gmail.
SalesforceIQ Starter Pack: This variant takes the integration to next level and allows the user to integrate Google AdWords account and helps in tracking business opportunities. SalesforceIQ starter pack was previously known as Group Edition and charges $25 per user on monthly basis. SalesforceIQ is perhaps one of the most used variants because it was one of the first few CRMs to offer cross-platform integration. SalesforceIQ has pushed the envelope in cross-platform integration genre.
Professional Edition: This edition costs $65 per user per month and fits the bill and needs of an MNC perfectly. With the personalized dashboard, this variant allows users to enjoy access to granular security, forecast, enhanced reporting, and email marketing.
Enterprise Edition: Priced at $125 per user per month, this variant has some unique features like territory management, offline access, and API access. One can use this variant at the workplace for accessing features like sales team collaboration and genius sales function. This perhaps is the most commonly used variant of salesforce application. Small-scale businesses with up to 100 employees prefer this variant because it serves the purpose and also suits the pocket.
Unlimited Edition: With a cost of $250 per user per month this variant offers 24X7 support and access to customizable mobile products. Improved storage, developer sandboxes, and third-party apps are the USP of this unlimited edition. MNCs with global audience relies on this unlimited edition for managing the business from remote locations.
How much does it cost to customize Salesforce?
Before we get into the minute details of the cost involved in customization of Salesforce, you must know that nothing comes for free with Salesforce. No matter how lucrative a deal you have got from a Salesforce development company, you will have to spend extra money to have the product fully customized.
With Salesforce, you got to pay for a lot of add-ons, integration, and development. The fact that the integration and development of Salesforce application is no child’s play, you need to hire an expert salesforce app development company to do the task. While some companies charge on an hourly basis there are few who can work on a fixed budget.
Let’s go through the varied costs involved in Salesforce customization:
Implementation cost: When you decide to go ahead with a Salesforce development company, you will have to pay an implementation cost. This is basically the salary you pay to a developer for his or her expert services. While a salesforce development company will charge you on an hourly basis ranging from 75-100hrs but a freelance developer can do the task for a fixed price as well.
The hourly cost for Salesforce implementation starts at $10 and goes up to $75 depending upon the experience and reputation of the enterprise. In case, Salesforce implementation takes 100 hours you will be liable to pay somewhere between $1000 to $7500 to the company.
The size of your organization: With the Salesforce implemented, it is time for you to choose a variant from the varied editions offered by Salesforce. You can choose from Starter Pack, Professional Edition or Unlimited edition based on the needs of your business. While a starter pack will cost $5 per user per month, an unlimited edition will cost $250 per user per month.
Ex: In case, you have a team of 10 people and you decide to go ahead with Enterprise edition, which costs $150 per user per month, the monthly cost will 10*$150= $1500!
Hiring a Salesforce Admin: Well, implementation of Salesforce application is not the end instead it’s just the beginning. With a well-implemented Salesforce application in place, you will be needing an admin to handle it. A salesforce admin will be responsible for maintenance, upgrades and for overlooking customization needs.
An affordable Salesforce admin will cost somewhere between $50-$300 on a monthly basis.
Varied Salesforce development companies are offering admin support bundled with the implementation services. You can pay them up front and they will oversee your admin responsibilities.
Additional costs:
Well! You simply cannot install Salesforce application and forget it; you need to have a look at its performance and discover business opportunities. By looking at the available data on a regular basis, entrepreneurs and admins can unlock hidden opportunities. Some of the services that may incur additional costs are:
Data refresh
Data refresh: You might have to pay $10 for every Data refresh requested from a salesforce development company. Further, you will have to pay $1 for cleaning of every record. Data refresh and cleaning is important because it highlights the potentials and deletes the unwanted syntax.
Data refresh also eliminates duplicate and unwanted entries and it can solve the following problems:
- Unclutters the data
- Arranges data according to the category they belong to
- Makes analytical applications easier and faster
- Improves the overall prediction rate of the business
Conclusion:
Salesforce applications have helped businesses achieve efficiency and accountability. With one such cloud-based technology in place, businesses can now aim to improve their growth rate. While the cost involved is high but when used efficiently these technological marvels can help businesses garner huge profits. The cost listed here amounts to be 80% of the cost involved in the implementation and running of Salesforce application. The rest 20% will incur the cost of add-ons and services that a company desires to have.
Salesforce has proved its mettle and businesses are lining up in front of salesforce app development companies for implementing one. Now is the time for small-scale as well as giant enterprises to make the most of this technology and double their growth rate. This amazing cloud-based application can help businesses with automation and cost-cutting. In the long run, Salesforce application becomes self-funding and generates impressive profits.
