Salesforce.com® For Dummies®, 4th Edition

Chapter 1. Looking Over Salesforce

In This Chapter

• Solving business challenges

• Extending the value of what you have

• Deciding what Salesforce size fits you

You might not realize it yet, but every time you log in to Salesforce, you're accessing an extremely powerful lever of change for you, your group, and your company.

Sounds like a tall order, but consider this: What value do you put on your customer relationships? Your partner relationships? If you're a sales rep, it's your livelihood. And if you're in management, you have fewer assets more valuable than your existing partner and customer base. What if you had a tool that could truly help you manage your partners and customers?

Salesforce isn't the first customer relationship management (CRM) system to hit the market, but it's dramatically different than the other CRM systems you might have used (spreadsheets and sticky notes count as a system, too!). Unlike traditional CRM software, Salesforce is an Internet service. You sign up and log in through a browser, and it's immediately available. Over the years, describing these types of Web-based business services has evolved. The current nomenclature uses cloud computing, where the customers access "the cloud" (that is, the Internet) for their business needs, and are not required to install any traditional software on, presumably, Earth. As long as you have an Internet connection, you can be anywhere in the world and have access to the clouds.

Salesforce customers typically say that it's ...