Salesforce.com for Small Businesses
Salesforce.com is now promoting a suite of editions for small business, with the launch of the small business page. The three, offered editions provide an easy way for small businesses to get started with the world’s leading CRM solution. While the small business editions have feature limitations compared to the higher end, Enterprise Edition, users can still benefit from solid, core functionality and from all of the of the Force.com platform’s physical security, application security controls, and high availability.
Salesforce.com Contact Manager Edition
The Salesforce Contact Manager Edition is for up to five users and is currently only $5 per user per month. This edition provides the standard Account and Contact objects, but it does not have the Leads or Opportunities as standard objects. However, since custom objects can be created even in this edition, for basic opportunity management, a custom Opportunity object could be created.
The Contact Manager Edition includes the core functionality that many users need, including activity management and Outlook integration. Email to Salesforce, which provides email integration for any email client, is also available. Google Apps can be enabled for companies that have moved toward Google as a productivity platform.
Salesforce.com Group Edition
The Group Edition, which also supports up to five users, has additional functionality beyond what the Contact Manager Edition offers. This edition costs $25 per user per month.
The Group Edition has a Lead object, which includes Web-to-Lead — an easy way to post Web form HTML on a company Web site for capturing visitor information into Salesforce as a new Lead.
A Lead can be converted to a Contact/Account/Opportunity, just as with the higher end editions (Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited). The Opportunity object includes all of the features that the Opportunity object has in the higher editions, including Opportunity-related reporting. The Group Edition also comes with Dashboards.
Salesforce.com Professional Edition
The Professional Edition lifts the user limit of five and provides unlimited users. It also has a number of features that the Group Edition does not have. These features include:
- Case Management
- Mass Email Capability
- Mobile Access using free, Mobile Lite
- Sales Forecasting
- Customizable Dashboards
This edition costs $65 per user per month.
Small businesses with five or fewer users can get started with a very low cost of entry and, if needed, upgrade to higher editions that have additional features and functionality. Salesforce.com has come up with an excellent combination of CRM power and attractive price points for small business.
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Steve Chipman is the founder and president of Lexnet Consulting Group, based in San Francisco. Lexnet is a leading value added reseller for CRM (customer relationship management) solutions.
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