Saturday, July 09, 2005

Salesforce.com struggling at Cisco

It appears that Salesforce.com is having a bit of trouble in its biggest deal to date: a 10,000 user rollout for Cisco.

According to research firm JMP Securities, "our due diligence suggests that Cisco has only deployed 1,000 seats in the time that it had expected to deploy 10,000." Apparently there are problems with users embracing the system and issues with integration with other Cisco sales systems.

Adding insult to injury, JMP's research note also indicates that CRM leader Siebel is still a force to be reckoned with. Specifically, Siebel is working on a $30 million, 75,000 seat deal with a financial services institution where Siebel's own On-Demand offering will co-exist with or replace Salesforce.com.

Line56 has a report, and Computerworld has additional analysis.

CRM projects--especially large rollouts in large companies--are notoriously difficult. Gaining user acceptance and managing changes in desired behavior are particularly challenging. I have maintained in the past that the low initial cost and rapid implementation characteristics of software on-demand are particularly well-suited for CRM. But the problems of Salesforce.com at Cisco show that software on-demand is not a panacea.

Related posts
Software on demand: attacking the cost structure of business systems
Siebel shaken by new shareholders
SAP set to launch CRM on-demand
SAP denies plan for CRM on demand

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