The Forrester Wave™: Midmarket On-Premise Sales Force Automation, Q4 2005 (Forrester)

The Forrester Wave™: Midmarket On-Premise Sales Force Automation, Q4 2005 Small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) continue to invest in sales force automation (SFA), and many seek on-premise deployment rather than one of the increasingly popular software-as-a-service (SaaS) options. While SaaS appeals with its pay-as-you-go pricing, quicker deployments, and easier upgrades, many firms we surveyed cite concerns about long-term price, security, and weak customization and integration capabilities. Forrester's April 2005 Wave™ evaluated the hosted SFA market; this report assesses the state of eight midmarket on-premise SFA applications across 151 criteria. Included in this report, as always, is an interactive vendor comparison tool that provides detailed product evaluations and customizable rankings. Some tips for successful, rapid implementation: Jump-start deployments with vertical editions. Find an industry-specific edition that comes preconfigured with relevant objects, fields, and reports. Take advantage of partner add-ons and third-party services. Keep it simple. Don't over-customize; don't buy more than you need -- work with key users from all divisions and roles to decide what the business requires.

Pivotal, Sage CRM SalesLogix, and Siebel Professional Edition are best suited for medium-size firms (chart is shown here). FrontRange and Maximizer Software fit the needs of small businesses; a similar chart for small firms is in the full report. Scorecards for all firms reviewed are available at forrester.com.