I am sure you have heard of the iTunes App Store, but have you heard of the Salesforce AppExchange? Today, the Salesforce AppExchange hit 3 Million Downloads, according to a blog post on Medium.com. What’s really impressive…that number only represents the number of downloads, not the individual users across a company.
The Salesforce AppExchange is the world’s leading business app marketplace and houses more than 2,700 pre-integrated apps that extend the power of Salesforce. Everything from Marketing, Sales, Service, ERP, HR, Payroll, Accounting, and just about every other function you can imagine, exists in the AppExchange. The most beautiful thing about the Salesforce AppExchange (in my humble opinion), is that you no longer have to try and fit every single business requirement that you have into a single out-of-the-box solution. Salesforce is the heart…and the AppExchange serves as your other vital organs.
In the old world of business software, if you had a unique functionality requirement that was not inherent to the core solution, it usually meant a huge increase in cost, time, and long-term maintenance. With the advent of App Stores, the game was changed forever. With powerful APIs and mobile-ready tools, the Salesforce1 Platform lets you easily build apps that you can sell and market on the AppExchange. By piggy-backing the world’s #1 cloud computing company, you can rest assured that these apps are flexible, reliable, and secure. Salesforce takes care of all the heavy lifting, so you can focus on solving business problems.
To give you a real-world example, I will reference a project that we recently completed for one of our customers. This particular customer had multiple departments, all working in silos with very poor internal communication & organizational efficiency. To make matters worse, they were highly dependent on Excel spreadsheets and error-prone manual processes. When we got engaged with the customer, they had already made the wise decision of implementing Salesforce, but quickly realized that their needs extended beyond the core functionality that Salesforce had to offer. To give you a point of reference, I would estimate that Salesforce alone was only going to meet about 70% of their needs. After completing a business process review session (what we coin as a “Discovery”), we determined that 4 AppExchange applications were needed to bridge the gap with their total solution. This included functionality such as high-volume document storage, proposal generation, electronic signature, & project management. In the end, the customer received a tailor-fit solution to meet their unique needs that have set the stage for long-term growth and scalability.
Prolocity is a national Salesforce Partner providing cloud advisory, implementation, and support services to businesses and non-profits. Our cloud consultants deliver strategy, design, development, implementation, training, and optimization services. www.prolocity.com
