CRM SaaS market heats up

Software as a service got its big boost when Salesforce.com hit the virtual streets with its CRM tool nearly a decade ago. NetSuite, a CRM and more SaaS supplier matched Salesforce.com with an attention-grabbing initial public offering. And, of course, Microsoft, Entellium and others have jumped into the SaaS CRM market.

Razi Imam, CEO of Landslide Technologies Inc. in Pittsburgh demurs when being lumped together with other CRM or salesforce automation SaaS offerings, preferring the phrase Sales Workstyle Management. Semantics aside, Landslide has a service that may fit your organization's approach to CRM and sales.

The summer release of Landslide, available this week, significantly updates the user interface, putting virtually everything a sales professional needs in a well-organized view. You customize Landslide to reflect your company's sales process into distinct phases and establish goals within each phase and add links to specific tools and tasks needed to achieve the goals.

Each goal is weighted and the software automatically calculates the forecasted probability of a given sale based on the goals accomplished. Alerts can be sent to management based on variety of factors, such as whether a sales person has overridden Landslide's probability estimate.

The update also includes mashup technology that lets it take direct feeds from services like Salesview and LinkedIn.

The service starts at $125 per sales representative, including Landslide's touted VIP module, which offers salespeople the use of a real person to assist with such things as data entry.