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In my previous blog, Salesforce beyond CRM: The Complete Business Platform,
I discussed the possibility of how companies could use Salesforce not only as a CRM but as a platform to run their whole business operations. In this blog, I would like to highlight the practical use of Salesforce's PaaS.
I have been working with CIO/CTOs for more than a decade now, helping them set up their captive software delivery centers throughout the globe to develop robust software applications. I would like to go back in time. Around 2007, I was having a discussion with a CIO of a renowned Atlanta-based consumer goods company about implementing a client-server based order management software. The company had a fantastic line of food products, and they needed an order management software to manage the order transactions with restaurants chains, cafes, and several other B2B customers.
The strategy for developing the application required a thorough analysis of the client's business process, but we could not arrive at a roadmap to develop the software. In the process ahead, the most complicated part the CIO had to work on was to evaluate, buy, and configure the necessary IT and hardware infrastructure to deploy the software application. Those days and until recently, enterprises had to go through a typical procurement cycle and were not able to fathom the consequences of choosing the wrong infrastructure until a great deal money was already spent. The saddest part is that a few companies are still making the same mistake, but there are a lot of enterprises who are investing smartly in technology now. Developing and maintaining on premise solutions has always been slow, expensive, and complicated. Additionally, it requires a lot of physical place and electricity along with specialized facilities to manage the data centers. Apps built with such complexities are tough to scale.
I recently started working with another consumer good company to build a similar order management app, and we developed the app in record ¼ of the time it took us in 2007 and platform which fuels the Order-Management app is Salesforce’s PaaS.
With the evolution of Platform as a Service powered by Force.com’s App cloud and Heroku, companies now have a choice to test the waters before they spend even a nickel on IT infrastructure. With robust cloud-based single sign-on PaaS applications powered by companies like Salesforce.com, enterprises have the ability to perform a small scale trial in a development environment before advancing at a more complex scale. The best benefit of having your apps running on PaaS is that unlike your in-house on premise setup, the service never goes down in the PaaS environment and neither do you require a full-time administrator. Moving to PaaS-based applications is apt for enterprises to be really successful in the cut-throat competition where million dollar transactions are done in a fraction of a second.
With PaaS, businesses can focus on building apps for the consumers instead of managing complex IT infrastructure. The end users can consume these apps in PaaS at a faster speed than those which were built on the client-server model. Salesforce's App cloud bring the power of Heroku and force.com to build and deploy the application fast and at the same time keep security in check.
In the end, I'll just say that only enterprises who build strong PaaS based apps will sustain all the way in the business, and be at the end of client-server spectrum, welcoming and subsequently benefiting from the new cloud world.
We are proud to be associated with Salesforce as a Consulting Partner as well as a Product Development Partner and help clients embrace PaaS powered by Salesforce with our Implementation, Integration, Administration, Support and Development Services. Email us at customersuccess@appshark.com to know more!
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