Salesforce has quickly risen in the ranks to dominate the enterprise software market, specifically customer relationship management, surpassing even the most recognizable of industry behemoths. Despite this notoriety, few truly know about the ERP offerings within Salesforce.com’s AppExchange that are written on the Salesforce Lighting platform, specifically FinancialForce and other sound products, Rootstock and Accounting Seed. In this episode of the ERP Advisor, Shawn Windle provides a full inspection of the ERP offerings of Force.com.
Salesforce’s Force.com AppExchange ERPs: FinancialForce, Rootstock, & Accounting Seed
Salesforce, the enterprise software industry’s most preeminent CRM (Customer Relationship Management Software), recently surpassed SAP to become the largest software company in the entire world. With its growing prominence in the software space, it is no wonder customers want to leverage the platform of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider to complement their prior investments in Salesforce. In 2008, Salesforce capitalized on the increasing demand for solutions beyond CRM with the development of the Force.com platform, enabling customers to extend their preexisting solutions to connect disjointed business processes as well as allowing independent software vendors to build their own autonomous applications on the Force.com platform.
What is Force.com?
Force.com is a Platform-as-a-Service offering within the cloud that allows developers to easily create and deploy products on the same platform which is native to Salesforce’s applications.
Since its release at Dreamforce in 2008, Force.com has served customers worldwide across many industries. Utilizing a Platform-as-a-Service product allows for quick deployment of the application to the Force.com multi-tenant servers.
Being a PaaS, the number of applications offered on the Force.com platform through the Salesforce AppExchange is seemingly endless. The most recognizable proprietary ERP applications built on the Force.com platform by individual companies are FinancialForce, Rootstock, and Accounting Seed, making them important products within the Force.com family.
What is FinancialForce & What Does it Sell?
FinancialForce emerged in 2009 as the first ERP option built on the Force.com platform. Its strategy is to leverage Salesforce’s CRM success by extending functionality on the Force.com platform across the company, from orders, accounting, projects, and more. It continues to grow its position in the ERP space with its cloud-based ERP offering due to its backing from Salesforce Ventures, Technology Crossover Ventures, Advent International, and Unit4. The joint venture ensures that FinancialForce has the resources for continued expansion. Today, FinancialForce boasts over 1,300 customers and 750 employees.
The FinancialForce suite provides applications for Accounting, Billing, Professional Services Automation (PSA), Revenue Recognition, Human Capital Management (HCM), and Supply Chain Management. When coupled with Salesforce CRM and Marketing, customers can have an all-in-one application. FinancialForce focuses primarily on providing value to service-centric businesses to connect and enhance disjointed processes. FinancialForce products are often integrated to organize sales, services, finance, and human resource processes.
FinancialForce customers find success by utilizing the FinancialForce partnership ecosystem. Its ecosystem has narrowed its focus to support implementation and reselling efforts from its partners.
Value Added Resellers (VARs) within the FinancialForce network assist customers in receiving an end-to-end FinancialForce solution. VARs provide sales, consulting, and implementation services in addition to supporting the customers in their efforts.
FinancialForce has also developed a services provider program for customer support through consultation and implementation. These partners are skilled in integrating and implementing ERP, CRM, and PSA applications.
To provide further value to customers, FinancialForce established its ReadyApp program to encourage the development of complements or extensions to its base applications. Support Developers and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) can easily utilize the program to develop their applications for the enhancement of the FinancialForce offering.
What is Rootstock & What Does it Sell?
Rootstock launched in 2008 to deliver a cloud-based ERP solution built upon the Force.com platform. Its size, at about only 160 customers and 125 employees, has not inhibited its ability to provide extreme value, especially when paired with the Salesforce CRM to easily manage and grow businesses.
The Rootstock offering provides real-time connections to Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Salesforce CPQ, Salesforce eCommerce Cloud, and Salesforce Field Service Lightning, designed specifically for Manufacturers, Distributors, and Supply Chain companies. This integration combines engagement and record systems on a single cloud and data model, enabling businesses to create seamless front-to-back-office processes. The close connection between an ERP and a CRM under the Rootstock/Salesforce partnership greatly connects the organization for a more personalized customer experience, the ability to efficiently scale operations, and the power to out-service the competition. Rootstock’s Cloud ERP offering delivers capabilities for inventory reporting, financial management, supply chain management, safety management, and more.
Rootstock’s partnership ecosystem consists of implementation partners and complementary software partners. Implementation partners are based worldwide, with locations in North America, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, and the Asia Pacific. These partners assist customers through the process of Rootstock ERP implementation. Rootstock also works with complementary software partners who develop solutions to complement Rootstock’s offerings.
What is Accounting Seed & What Does it Sell?
Tony Zorc founded Accounting Seed in 2008 to combat the clunky, inefficient nature of traditional accounting platforms. Accounting Seed serves over 1,000 customers across a number of industries worldwide. Developed on the Force.com platform, Accounting Seed adapted its product in ways that other accounting applications cannot, delivering greater control of a business through automation, configuration, and customization.
Accounting Seed provides functionality through an automated general ledger, accounts payable and accounts receivable capabilities, orders and inventory, financial reporting, and more features to deliver enhanced financial dashboards and real-time reporting. This cloud-based accounting system allows customers to customize operations for their business model. Accounting Seed product extensions amplify the base product to go beyond its out-of-the-box functionality. These extensions include project accounting and expenses, multi-currency functionality, consolidations, purchase and sales orders, nonprofit connector, and fraud detection, among other features.
Accounting Seeds partnership network has less depth than other ERP applications within the Force.com platform due to its more narrowed functionality; however, the network does offer connected applications with no-code automation, implementation partners, and training tools for customers.
Connected applications allow for seamless integration between Accounting Seed and other Salesforce-ready applications. By also utilizing the Force.com platform, customers can personalize dashboards and configure processes easily due to Accounting Seed’s Click, No Code automation.
Implementation partners within the Accounting Seed network are experts working to assist customers with accomplishing successful implementations. They also work with product specialists within the market to enable users with easy integrations of authorized applications.
Accounting Seed’s ease of use and design enables customers to implement the product without a partner. Because of its commitment to the customer experience, Accounting Seed provides users access to extensive implementation tools and training materials for “do it yourself” implementations.
Why do the Force.com ERP Applications Win Over its Competitors?
It is clear to see why the ERP Force.com applications win over the competition: its platform. Providing a PaaS solution increases ease of use, scalability, and available products. The vast number of available applications within the Salesforce AppExchange guarantees that customers will find the right solution for their business. Ultimately, customers using Salesforce CRM are more likely to choose a Force.com application so they can leverage their existing enterprise investment and ecosystem by extending it to the back office and operations.
Due to the nature of the platform, Force.com customers have expanded options for scalability. Solutions like FinancialForce and Rootstock enable businesses to take a best-of-breed approach to growth for Services and Manufacturing businesses, respectively, by allowing for easy integration with the Salesforce CRM. The ability to integrate or remove “a la carte” offerings ensures that customers can configure the software to meet their needs. This is extremely appealing to small and mid-sized organizations that need an ERP but are also prepared to experience significant growth.
Conclusion
The Salesforce AppExchange is an extensive network of applications built on Force.com’s Platform-as-a-Service offering. As composable ERP and best-of-breed solutions remain popular in the ERP space, the Force.com ERP applications, FinancialForce, Rootstock, and Accounting Seed, will continue to see growth in its user base and the expansion of its current product offerings. Salesforce’s grip on the ERP market will continue to expand due to Force.com platform’s user-friendly and adaptable ERP product offerings.