Market Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about Salesforce drawn from our latest Value Index research, Ventana Research Value Index: Subscription Management, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

In all of our Value Indexes we utilize a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for subscription management. We evaluated Salesforce and 20 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our benchmark research on subscription management.

Salesforce was categorized as an Exemplary Vendor, ranking fourth overall in this Value Index evaluation. It ranked fifth in Product Experience where it was designated a Value Index Leader in Adaptability and Manageability. It ranked fifth in Customer Experience and performed best in Validation, placing fourth. Its overall performance was impacted by its lower ranking in Capability, which represents 20% of the weighting in the overall Value Index.

When compared to all vendors in this Value Index, our assessment finds that Salesforce could improve in Capability, where it ranked eighth, by better supporting usage-based pricing and revenue recognition reporting. In TCO/ROI, where it ranked sixth, it could more clearly illustrate the economic benefits of its offering.

Salesforce could perform better overall in this evaluation by addressing its Capability performance of 66.4% with focus on revenue allocation for third parties. Salesforce’s strongest performance came in Manageability at 88.2% where it did well with privacy and security.

This assessment was based on Salesforce Revenue Cloud version 240.4 and was available in November of 2022.

Salesforce, like all vendors in this market, should ensure they are tracking the needs and expectations of consumers including business customers, as more organizations outside of the traditional digitally native industries continue to evolve their use of mixed revenue models including subscriptions.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of subscription management software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here.