Observations on an independent CRM consultant's quest to help organisations get real value from CRM technology

In summary:  Salesforce.com’s Q1 results trigger a share price dip, NetSuite makes an acquisition and signals there may be many more, and Rimini Street needles SAP at its Sapphire Now event…

Salesforce.com released its quarter one earnings with revenues in line with analyst expectations at $893 million, an increase of 28% on the same period last year. The company’s loss widened from $19 million to $67 million for the same period. Salesforce’s share price dipped 6% in after-hours trading, perhaps reacting to guidance of 27-28% growth for Q2 and 26-27% for the full year, suggesting a slowing in the steady 30% plus growth rates it’s been posting in recent quarters.

SugarCRM also announced Q1 figures in May which pegged its growth rate at 30% over the same period last year, with the number of customers rising to 6,500. No details were released as to actual revenue levels as the company is privately held, though these will potentially become clearer later in the year if rumours about an initial potential 2013 public offering prove true.

NetSuite, the cloud-based ERP/CRM provider, announced that it had purchased OrderMotion, building out its e-commerce portfolio. The terms of the deal were not announced, but the acquisition will enhance its order management capabilities.

NetSuite seems to have some momentum behind it at the moment, perhaps as a result of increasing acceptance of cloud-based solutions for financial applications where perhaps previously there had been more sensitivity around how and where financial data is stored.

The company also announced a partnership with Capgemini in the month which looks as it will help deliver the company’s two-tier strategy, where NetSuite used to deploy regional or satellite systems that report in to a global ERP system such as SAP or Oracle. It will also be investing more heavily in international operations, where previously it had tended to focus on US based companies. This includes the appointment of a new president of EMEA.

Finally, it looks unlikely that OrderMotion will be the last purchase as the company also announced in May that it would float $270 million of convertible bonds in order to fund future acquisitions.

In the aftermath of last month’s Gartner CRM market share report which had Salesforce.com taking over the No. 1 CRM software supplier crown from SAP, a number of analyst and commentators were querying the accuracy of some of the figures. Microsoft’s performance, which was pegged as the number 4 CRM supplier with $1.1 billion in CRM revenues and a 6.3% market share, came under particular scrutiny.

Whether there figures were 100% accurate or not, there’s no question that Microsoft and Salesforce.com are the main movers in the market right now, and, in terms of this competitive relationship, Microsoft signalled that it was adopting a rather combative stance vis a vis Salesforce.com by hitting them with a patent suit. The patent infringement claim alleges that Salesforce.com have infringed nine of their patents.

Finally, another company that was making few friends this month was Rimini Street, the third party software maintenance provider, kindly providing a fully branded ‘Maintenance Savings Express’ bus in order to both ferry delegates to and from SAP’s Sapphire Now event in Orlando as well as helpfully provide free competitive quotations which delegates could use as leverage for their maintenance contract negotiations at the show.

Anyway, that concludes my take on the news for May 2013. If I’ve missed or misunderstood anything significant please feel free to comment!

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