Customers Realize Significant ROI from Salesforce.com Implementations, but Many Looking Elsewhere for Greater Value Beyond Low Costs

Nucleus Research, the leading provider of Return on Investment (ROI)-focused research and advisory services for the global IT industry, today announced the results of an independent study on Salesforce.com CRM solutions. The study, published today and titled, "Investigating the ROI from Salesforce.com," found that most companies had achieved a positive ROI from Salesforce.com by replacing a paper-based or individual contact management solution, and few had deployed to more than 500 users. The report is available at NucleusResearch.com and is available free of charge as part of Nucleus's Tech Advisor service.

The analysis was based on user experiences and factual data – the only method guaranteeing the validity of the results. Key findings of the report include:

• Nucleus found no customers that had deployed to more than 2000 users; 93 percent of Salesforce.com customers had fewer than 500 users.
• The large enterprises that had deployed Salesforce.com did so on a divisional or regional basis.
• 76% of customers migrated from a paper-based or electronic contact management solution.
• 28% of customers had deployed another CRM solution to supplement the functionality in Salesforce.com
• The cost barriers to switching from Salesforce.com to another solution were relatively low.

While few customers with an enterprise CRM solution would consider moving away from Salesforce.com if they had achieved a positive ROI, Nucleus Research found one of the biggest challenges facing Salesforce.com is that 38 percent of Salesforce.com customers are open to switching. This partly indicates the low switching costs of on-demand but highlights the fact that for many customers Salesforce.com is a commodity product, not a strategic one that impacts the way they do business.

28% of Salesforce.com customers had integrated the solution with other applications or data sources, but some customers had to purchase additional middleware to achieve effective integration.

"As the On-Demand CRM industry continues to mature, companies are looking for more functionality solutions," said Rebecca Wettemann. "As a result, Salesforce.com is finding stronger competition and challenges in this marketplace as more products with expanded functionality are becoming available and low cost is only one of the considerations for technology selections."

Nucleus independently contacted customers to assess their experiences using Salesforce.com, and Salesforce.com was invited to provide customers to be included in the sample.

About Nucleus Research

Nucleus Research is the leading provider of Return on Investment (ROI)-focused research and advisory services for the global IT industry, providing real-world information to decision-makers as they seek to maximize business returns from their technology investments. The organization’s goal is to support business decision makers as they strategize and plan for growth using the best technology solutions available. Nucleus’ expert analysts focus on research issues across the entire enterprise software and hardware space to provide its clients with ongoing advice to help with both short-term technology decisions and long-term strategic plans. Blending financial analysis and case-based investigations with comprehensive technology expertise to deliver factual return-on-investment (ROI) data to organizations worldwide, Nucleus uses an uncompromising set of processes and tools to evaluate the financial return on IT assets and is the only firm to gain certification by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy. For more information, visit nucleusresearch.com.