In these tough economic times, many businesses are looking internally for ways to cut costs and streamline their business processes to remain competitive in the marketplace.  It’s more important now than ever to make sound investments in the right technology to ensure the ongoing success of your business, which is why so many companies are turning to the cloud for their business needs.  Cloud computing offers companies scalability and economies of scale without having to contend with the high costs of hardware, software, and an ongoing support staff to maintain them.

Salesforce.com’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud computing platform is not only enabling companies to scale back on costly technical solutions while increasing efficiency, but it’s helping them increase revenue, profit margins, and customer satisfaction.  Check out this article to see how companies are growing their businesses with salesforce.com’s CRM solution.

How are you changing your business processes to adapt to the current economic climate?

In tough economic times, the importance of making a sound organizational investment cannot be understated. More so than ever, companies, nonprofit organizations, and government are hesitant to invest their money, time, and staff in solutions that rely on archaic business models. Investments in technology are frequently met with resistance, but is this resistance justified?

An article published this year explains why Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions like salesforce.com defy traditional software business models. As important as it is to know your organization can increase its return on investment using a SaaS product like salesforce.com, it is equally significant to understand factors that will keep SaaS companies viable  in both good times and bad. According to the author, SaaS is recession resistant due to a business model that not only is more psychologically preferrable to a customer, but a business model that can supply solutions to customers with both large and limited cash reserves. While we encourage you to read this article for an analysis of why SaaS is recession resistant, we also remind you to be diligent in your research before making an investment in technology.

Has your organization changed the way it thinks about technology solutions as the economy fluctuates?

Regardless of your line of business, empowering your customers and constituents is a goal that all organizations share. Our constituents drive our organizations to grow, evolve, and deliver better services and products.

In our busy world, it can be difficult to reach out to constituents. Between personal lives, work schedules, travel schedules, and time differences, it can be a daunting task to really communicate with our constituency groups. With salesforce.com, organizations no longer have to worry about figuring out how to have an effective dialogue with constituents.

Utilizing salesforce.com’s Ideas functionality, organizations big and small can leverage technology to drive change both internally and externally.

One of the best examples of how salesforce.com can be leveraged to drive change is to review how President Obama used Ideas functionality during his transition period to offer Americans a forum to share their thoughts, concerns, and ideas with the incoming administration.

Check out Paul Greenberg’s article on how the Obama transition team utilized salesforce.com to generate communication between Americans and our nation’s leadership. Greenberg discusses that this type of technology can be useful to all organizations regardless of sector.

Have you had any success using salesforce.com Ideas? Has your organization struggled with finding an effective way to involve constituents in your growth?