In a bid to combine all posts of this blog into one single space, I am starting to put these together in a e-book format. You can enroll and see the complete course here https://www.openlearning.com/courses/salesforceforall as it progresses. It's FREE.
Feel free to leave feedback, and any topics you think should be included. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
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Feel free to leave feedback, and any topics you think should be included. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
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Salesforce for All - Chapter One : Introduction
Preface
This book is intended to provide a basic understanding of Salesforce.com. This book aims to strongly establish the fundamentals of Salesforce.com as a platform/technology. This book is intended for audience who are new to Salesforce.com, or who are new to software development in general.
Introduction to CRM
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. Managing a Company’s customer operations, which includes Sales, Service, and Support etc. is broadly represented as CRM. Customer base is important for any Company’s success, and a powerful CRM system plays a major role towards achieving this.
What is Salesforce.com?
Salesforce.com is a Software Tool which helps companies better manage their CRM. There have been many such popular tools including Siebel CRM, but Salesforce.com entered the industry in 1999 and gained popularity around 2004 to 2007 and has remained at the top ever since. Salesforce was able to achieve this level of success in a short span of time because it is a CLOUD BASED application. To understand what a CLOUD BASED application really means, we would have to look at some history.
Traditional Application Architecture
Traditionally a software application pretty much followed the same architecture as shown in the below diagram.
Fig 1.1 Traditional Applications
As seen in the diagram, the hardware infrastructure (database and Application Layer) which typically included server machines were being maintained individually by every company. Developing and maintaining such architecture does involve manpower, space and a considerable maintenance cost.
Cloud Based Application Architecture:
As seen in the diagram, in the cloud based approach an Infrastructure Provider Company maintains the infrastructure and multiple organizations share the same resources. Organizations can now forget about allocating space, manpower and budget for the infrastructure. They can readily purchase the required resources from the Infrastructure Provider Company and be up and running in a short span of time. As the organization grows in the future (more data /more users), they could purchase additional resources and expand.
The table below summarizes the basic difference between the two.
Traditional Architecture | Cloud Based Architecture |
Involves infrastructure setup and maintenance cost | Does not involve infrastructure setup and maintenance cost |
Involves considerable manpower for setup and maintenance | Manpower is less compared to traditional architecture |
Upgrades are time consuming and requires manpower and resources | Upgrades are instantaneous and easier to setup than the traditional approach |
