Salesforce Pros and Cons: Does the Best in the Field Mean the Best for Your Business?

The cloud-based nature of Salesforce has two sides to it. On the one hand, it’s extremely easy to start with. All you need is a browser and internet connection (and a license, of course, after a trial period is up). It means that you can access your Salesforce space anytime and anywhere: the platform runs smoothly on any device and in any major browser. Plus, its mobile app provides a full-featured access.

On the other hand, when internet connection is the only thing needed to enter the system, the absence of it cuts you from Salesforce altogether.

Yet one more blessing of the platform’s cloud nature is that it’s much simpler to administer than it would be in the case of an on-premises solution. There’s no need to build a complex IT infrastructure or hire an entire team of admins.

However, while Salesforce stores data for you, it provides the service with a limit. Currently, it gives 10 GB per organization. Larger companies will obviously find it insufficient and will have to purchase additional storage units.

What’s more, as you ‘borrow’ space on the platform, Salesforce will dictate its own rules by running forced upgrades and planning downtimes according to their own schedule.

Salesforce is an open ecosystem specifically designed to be configured and customized. When default features are not enough, the Lightning Platform gives you an opportunity to develop apps and digitize your business processes. What’s more, Salesforce’s artificial intelligence tool called Einstein is built into the Lightning Platform so that users can create AI-powered apps without heavy coding.

There are a number of drag-and-drop and coding options for configuration and further customization, such as custom fields, email templates, tailored dashboards, or automated workflows for specific tasks.

Although users with minimal technical experience can manage the platform with no hassle, in many cases this level of skills isn’t sufficient. If you want your Salesforce platform to work as if it was developed in-house, most probably you will have to hire a Salesforce admin and a team of certified developers. What’s more, the limit upgrades and additional plugins required for customization will come at a price.

Once you start an optimization spree, make sure you have a platform personalization plan since the absence of a well-thought-out scope of needed features may lead to over-optimization. Why is it undesirable? First, you will have a pile of redundant features. Second, the more features your system has, the more challenges your employees will experience while trying to get the most out of it. As a result, you will face a rather steep learning curve and a low adoption level.

Salesforce has a robust reporting feature with extensive customization opportunities. The platform can collect data from multiple datapoints and generate reports that can be further edited and exported. Report data can be drilled down to small specifics as well. Reports can also be scheduled for regular updates and delivery to specific users. Keep in mind that reports can be generated by and sent only to Salesforce users.

The reporting feature gets extremely powerful if you know how to navigate it. Unfortunately, in some cases it’s not intuitive enough, which can lead to a great deal of confusion and wasted time. As a rule of thumb, employees need training to use this feature efficiently.

With Salesforce, you also get access to the Einstein Analytics platform powered by AI. Along with smartly visualized data from different sources, your dashboard can be filled with so-called augmented analytics: predicted outcomes, opportunities, and recommendations.

However, the data collected from multiple sources within Salesforce can be duplicate, excessive, or inconsistent, which can make reports inefficient. If it’s a human factor (marketing and sales teams entering the same data without consulting existing records, ignoring record updates, etc.), then there’s a strong need for inside policies dealing with data management requirements. If the problem lies in integration gaps, then you need more minute customization or visualization via additional plugins.

Salesforce doesn’t hide the fact that you’ll need some training to get the most out of the platform. For this reason, they launched an educational gamified platform with plenty of training resources to learn at a user’s pace:

There are also various learning resources, from tools and guides to webinars, video tutorials, and blogs for each major role: Salesforce admins, developers, partners, and students.

In spite of the fact that Salesforce learning resources are designed to cut on training costs, in reality, staff from different departments may feel rather overwhelmed and incompetent to use the platform to drive any results. Consequently, it’s often necessary to introduce an adoption plan with a training curriculum for every level and track the progress continuously.

Salesforce has a free 30-day trial for unlimited test-driving. Once you start to analyze which license is the best fit for you, you will see that the pricing model is scalable. The platform has four editions for each Cloud: Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited. There are also different add-ons that can be purchased separately.

Here is where you start finding traps on your way. Note that the price is set per month but payments are per annum. Plus, the price is per user, not per business. So, the license costs will rise proportionally if your number of users increases. For some plans, the number of users is limited, so while you may be satisfied with the plan, you will have to upgrade to have more users onboard. There are plenty of hidden costs for additional (but essential) tools and limit upgrades.

As a result, when implementation and maintenance costs are considered, the overall budget required may be overwhelming for smaller businesses (even with Salesforce’s small business edition).