I think one of the coolest business intellegence tools is a customer relationship manager (CRM). I have a friend that is a sales manager that has told me he couldn't do his job without a CRM. It has become as intregal to sales and marketing as a finance ERP like SAP is to finance organizations. A large number of the marketing roles I have applied for have required experience with a CRM. I recently completed Google's Google Analytics Individual Qualification certification, which Google offers for free. I thought I would see if SalesForce offered similar training. I was suprised to find that Salesforce classes are several thousand dollars.
I remember in the 80s and 90s, Apple offered huge discounts to schools on their computers. Shocker, the computers I used in school was an Apple. Why? Apple was smart enough to figure out that if students use their products in school, they will buy them later when they need their own computer. That was true in my case. The first (and second) computer I bought was an Apple. Microsoft has a similar program where they offer huge discounts to students. They also have a program where startups can get almost all their products for free. Same strategy. I assume Google is using the same strategy by offering Google Analytics certification for free.
I have not looked at SalesForce's income statement, but I would venture a guess that training revenue is not much compared to what they get from the main CRM license fees. CRMs, especially SalesForce, is not cheap. $125 per user per month for their enterprise level. According to this article at Forbes, they are the industry leader but only have 14% market share. The reason for that is the huge number of CRMs out there. The Forbes chart shows the largest segment is "other" with 40%. It is an extremely competitive market worth $18B+ growing at double digits.
I think free CRM training could be a huge marketing opportunity for SalesForce. Imagine how much of an edge it would be if you had certification in the most utilized CRM? If you are a business looking to make a decision on a CRM and you knew the majority of the workforce looking for sales and marketing roles were certified in one particular CRM, would that make a difference in your decision? I would say so. It seems most CRMs try to get an edge by being a CRM for a specific industry niche. For instance, they might be the CRM for real estate. Some have tried to leverage social sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Focusing on any one industry or market could actually be counter productive to SalesForce since they are the market leader and I am sure they would insist would work equally well in any industry or market. According to indeed.com (see chart below) job growth in CRM has grown from 25% in 2006 to 175% in 2015. With such a large number of job postings looking for CRM experience, training job seekers with free CRM training could achieve several things that could simulateously all drive growth and market share. It increases the number of people that have a working knowledge for that platform and they will likely add that certification to their resume and profiles on sites like LinkedIn. Free CRM training for one specific platform will definitely be a contributing factor for businesses looking to choose from the growing number of CRMs. I think it would also create a great deal of positive plubicity.
