Salesforce Crowned King of CRM for the 11th year Running

Salesforce is the number one CRM provider in the world, according to a recent study conducted by the International Data Corporation (IDC).

Celebrating its 11th consecutive year at the top of the charts, Salesforce boasts a record that Ed Sheeran would be proud of.

The report revealed that for 2023, Salesforce had a market share of 21.7% – over three times the size of Microsoft (5.9%) in second place, and more than the combined total of its nearest four competitors.

Oracle (4.4%), SAP (3.5%), and Adobe (3.4%) all failed to crack the five percent mark, with the graph below highlighting Salesforce’s dominance in the sector:

In discussing another successful showing for his company, David Schmaier – President and Chief Product Officer at Salesforce – commented:

Salesforce earning the #1 rank globally once again underscores our unwavering commitment to helping our customers connect with their customers in a whole new way.

“As we push the boundaries of what’s possible with CRM, AI, data, and trust on the Einstein 1 Platform, Salesforce is well positioned to lead the industry through this AI innovation cycle – delivering far greater productivity, stronger relationships with customers, and optimized daily workflows and processes for companies around the world.”

The results form part of IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker, which forecasts the development of software companies across 52 geographies and 79 discrete software market segments.

As well as claiming top spot in the worldwide CRM provider category, Salesforce was also named the number one market share leader in North America, Latin America, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific (including Japan).

Another notable triumphs included being ranked first in the following areas: Sales for the 12th year, Customer Service for the 11th year, and Marketing for the fifth year.

So, what exactly is the secret to Salesforce’s success? And were there any surprise omissions from the top five?

Lessons from the King

As mentioned in the above comments by Schmaier, Salesforce’s Einstein 1 Platform has been a key factor in the company’s recent success.

A relaunch of the original Salesforce Platform, the Einstein 1 was announced in September of last year under the tagline “A Trusted AI Platform for Customer Companies.”

The solution consolidates all of the vendor’s CRM and Einstein apps, Data Cloud, and more.

In addition, despite being low-code, it is also an open platform – supporting various data, LLM, and independent software vendors.

This initiative aims to assist Salesforce in its goal of offering a unified platform for customers to integrate their data seamlessly.

Typically, such projects involve multiple applications, creating data lakes, and connecting disparate APIs from various vendors, which often hampers transformation efforts.

With Einstein 1 as an open platform however, Salesforce aims to overcome these obstacles.

Conspicuous by its Absence

While the results of this year’s IDC report did not contain any major surprises – with the top five market sharers remaining in the same positions and only fluctuating slightly from a year ago – many within the customer service space may have expected HubSpot to make an appearance.

Despite the company being less than fifteen years old, HubSpot reached two major milestones earlier this year, having surpassed 100,000 paying customers and breaking $1 billion in annual recurring revenue.

A key driver behind HubSpot’s success has been its agility in aligning with market and customer demands.

Initially concentrating on inbound methodology and a marketing automation app, it has transformed into a comprehensive CRM platform with 600+ integrations and extensive educational resources.

Additionally, a pivotal move toward catering to scaling companies has propelled HubSpot’s ascent in the CRM arena.

While these achievements have already led to a 41% share price increase year-on-year, it will be interesting to see whether HubSpot can continue this upward trajectory and threaten the monopoly of the big five CRM providers.

What Else is New in the World of Salesforce?

Undoubtedly hoping to further enhance the offerings of its Einstein 1 Platform, Salesforce has now announced the general availability of Einstein Copilot, its conversational AI assistant for CRM.

Powered by generative AI (GenAI), Einstein Copilot is seamlessly integrated into all Salesforce applications, allowing employees to interact with it to perform various tasks and ask questions using natural language.

Salesforce also distinguishes its solution from other AI assistants and chat tools by offering unified capabilities.

Moreover, Copilot can access data from Salesforce’s Data Cloud and is compatible with Salesforce metadata. This allows Copilot within one CRM system to utilize data from other Salesforce solutions, facilitating cross-application workflows.