Basati has grown again. Bang the drums! Beat the walls! Break out the celebratory bubblies (although I prefer mine un-bubbly, de-iced even..)! We are ready to build for you.

The latest additions to team Basati include Kapil, salesforce admin extraordinaire; Sharon, our resident whiz-kid at processes and procedures; and Eric, our scrum-master/project manager who brings some much needed direction to our group.

I know, I know. You’re asking yourself ‘Why all the buzz in salesforce (aka SFDC)? I don’t even HAVE a sales force!!’ and ‘Why don’t you talk to me instead about why I need a social marketing guru that will explain how I’m losing all these opportunities to connect with all these people I didn’t know I needed to connect with.’ Geesh. I don’t even know what salesforce IS!

Sooo.. What the sam-hell is Salesforce, anyway? From ask.com, Salesforce.com is defined as an enterprise cloud computing company famous for three things:

1. The Sales Cloud and the Service Cloud: Their applications for sales and customer service (customer relationship management or CRM)

2. Force.com: Their cloud platform for building and running business applications

3. Chatter: Their enterprise collaboration app.

Salesforce.com’s taglines are low cost, low risk and fast results. Customer relationship management (CRM) focuses on both your potential and current customer service. Through the combination of technology, business processes and people to satisfy all of your customers. CRM is successful by involving three important aspects of your company: sales, marketing and customer service. Salesforce CRM and their Force.com cloud-computing platform will take care of your budget and your customers.

Fine. I get it. But really.. Who uses Salesforce? Well, there are companies such as Avon (they use SFDC to integrate their warehouse platform, enabling their sales professionals to view information from a variety of Smart devices).. Dell (SFDC collaborates around documents and information like sales opportunities and marketing campaign leads).. NBC Universal … AOL (SFDC integrates with the company’s order management systems and track sales activities).. American Red Cross (who uses SFDC to effectively manage their most valuable resources – the volunteers, partners, and donors.. you know, the people who make what they do possible)… Ally Bank (their agent community is empowered with the most up-to-date tools and answers they need).. Just to name a few.

Oh yeah. And our government and many political candidates use Salesforce.com. Check out this cool slideshow: http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/4939844. In addition to the Obama campaign, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, John Kerry all used Salesforce for their campaign platforms.

But seriously. I know what you’re thinking. I am NOT (yet) the size of Dell.. or AOL.. I’m not even remotely political… and I can hardly hire one person, much less amass an army like the Red Cross has. I’m just a *small* business who needs some direction (didn’t you mention a social marketing guru?? how can I get one of those instead??) Why should *I* use Salesforce??

Well that’s easy. Just like Basati, SFDC allows you to concentrate more on your business (c’mon, you remember our tag line, right? Let us handle the stuff!). Refer to this Ezine article which touts the Top Ten Benefits of Sales Force Automation – http://ezinearticles.com/?Top-Ten-Benefits-of-Sales-Force-Automation-%28SFA%29&id=339798. In a nutshell, SFDC is easy to use, it offers real-time reports, and it’s CUSTOMIZABLE (insert Basati services/shameless plug here!).

All right already, you’ve convinced me. How do I get started?? Go to salesforce.com and check out their product. And then buzz Basati so we can show you how to dynamically integrate this phenomenal platform with your business vertical.