Salesforce Vs SAP – Clash of the Titans

Salesforce is the most popular CRM solution available right now. Like Windows is to operating systems, and Photoshop is to graphics, Salesforce has become what people think of when they envision an SaaS CRM solution of high caliber. Considering how much of a core to business in the computing age CRM has become, that’s a very valuable title to have. Salesforce is dancing on rainbows right now. So when comparisons like Salesforce vs SAP come about, you automatically expect Salesforce to win. But, will Salesforce win in a comparison of Salesforce vs SAP? Let’s take a look and see. First of all, what is CRM supposed to do? What set of functions do we consider to be basic, de facto abilities for a CRM solution to actually perform? We expect it to track opportunities and leads, marketing campaigns, existing customers, service and support incidents, and books on services plans or merchandise, right? We expect it to also work in contact management, and financial metrics to track things like customer lifetime values, recurring revenue, and so on. Knowing what we expect out of CRM, let’s look at both in brief, and see what they can offer. Salesforce is a flexible, powerful CRM solution which does do a lot of base tracking and the like efficiently. Its claim to fame is really its easy customization of darn near everything in it, as well as the exposed API and its feature extending add on App Exchange service. The problem is, a lot of the things we looked at above are only achievable through the extensions. Without a lot of additional technology, and sibling services like FinancialForce, the actual out of the box abilities of Salesforce are somewhat limited. It is very competent at what it does, but it isn’t as naturally extended as it could be. Now, SAP is the opposite in all respects except for also being of good base quality. SAP does not have the kind of exposed API that Salesforce does, or its bottomless App Exchange service. This means that for the most part, its feature availability is locked in and won’t change unless they revise it in their development and advancement. However, it does all of the base CRM functions we mentioned before, and it does them swimmingly. It is a bit more affordable than Salesforce, which is another advantage to using SAP over Salesforce for small or medium businesses. So, which one wins in this general comparison? Well, Salesforce’s extendibility means that you will use the app service anyhow, so if you’re going Salesforce, then no harm, no fowl either way. However, if you want to save money, and that limitless feature set is not something you will honestly need, then SAP is a good choice. So, Salesforce vs SAP is a bit of a tie, depending on what you need. Salesforce and SAP both have their advantages, so one of the biggest concerns is, will you use Salesforce’s limitless power, and do you have the money for it? Or, do you just want core CRM out of the box, at a reasonable price. It’s all on you, but they’re both very good choices.