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Salesforce is the number one savvy CRM platform for all types of businesses. Recognized by market leaders for CRM technology, Salesforce delivers out-of-the-box solutions by integrating the latest technology. Salesforce is committed not just to connecting with the CRM industry but also representing the future of business across diverse industries. Even though the basic functionalities of Salesforce alone help companies to stand out, integrating them with the latest technology like artificial intelligence, machine learning and many more can bring outstanding results. Salesforce’s secure and creative cloud technology allows users to be enhanced and updated with every single innovation to keep them up and running at the most pace.

As Salesforce is one of the most used CRM in various industries such as banking systems, financial services, enterprises and insurance sectors, retail, healthcare, ed tech, government and almost every other sector. The adoption rate of Salesforce development for digital services and cloud over the past two years. Due to the increased number of proficient and budget-friendly offerings, various organizations around the globe reach out to salesforce development companies in India to get better service offerings.

To efficiently leverage this platform to maintain customer relations, businesses might need a suite of compatible and quality solutions in Salesforce development. The Salesforce development companies in India offer organizational operations and promote a notable enhancement in customer retention for various industries. There are diverse Indian Salesforce consulting companies available, but it's essential to find the right Salesforce partner that provides customized solutions as per the business requirements. Examining each and everything takes sufficient time. After executing in-depth research and analysis, the team of TopSoftwareCompanies.co has shared the list of the top 10 Salesforce consulting companies in India in 2023. To make this list trustworthy, the team has researched many companies from Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Delhi and all major states in India.

The List of Top 10 Famous Salesforce Consulting Companies in India 2023

1. Hyperlink InfoSystem
Hyperlink InfoSystem established its business in 2011 as a mobile app development company that delivers top services like AI, IoT, Big Data, Salesforce, Metaverse, NFTs, and many others. With 11+ years of experience in the IT industry, the company has worked with more than 2,500+ global clients for their custom tech requirements. Hyperlink InfoSystem is recognized as one of India's leading Salesforce consulting companies. They deliver extensive Salesforce development services, including planning, designing, and implementing Salesforce solutions. Furthermore, the company analyses CRM identifies growth opportunities, and provides the best business solutions.

2. Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.
Cognizant, which was founded in 1994, is a top provider of Salesforce services, including design, consulting, implementation, and support. To deliver the finest project in accordance with clients' needs, they are consistently improving their Salesforce competence.

3. IBM
IBM enables Salesforce Einstein and IBM Watson to transform your processes by releasing the potential of data across Salesforce clouds. They carry out this activity over the whole Salesforce platform and the customer life cycle, including sales, marketing, customer service, and commerce.

4. Accenture
Accenture is one of the top international partners for Salesforce. When it comes to developing, fostering, and advancing transformative talents using Salesforce products, they are a dependable leader. Accenture has completed over 1529 Salesforce projects. They encourage innovation to Improve how our lives function.

5. TCS
TCS provides customers with profitable and affordable services and enables them to make use of the full range of Salesforce products, TCS uses a broad cloud-based platform in Salesforce. With experience in several sectors, the company's staff of Salesforce certified and developers numbers over 4 million.

6. FPT Software
FPT Software is a global technology and IT services provider headquartered in Vietnam, with more than USD 513 million in revenue and 20,000 employees in 26 countries. As a pioneer in digital transformation, the company delivers world-class services in the Smart factory, Digital platforms, RPA, AI, IoT, Cloud, Salesforce, AR/VR, BPO, and more.

7. Crowe LLP
Crowe LLP is a public accounting, consulting, and technology firm with offices around the world. Crowe uses its deep industry expertise to provide audit services to public and private entities. The firm and its subsidiaries also help clients make smart decisions that lead to lasting value with its tax, advisory and consulting services, helping businesses uncover hidden opportunities in the market – no matter what challenges the markets present.

8. Grazitti Interactive
Grazitti Interactive is an international strategic partner, assisting brands to grow with their CRM strategy, paving the way for long-term growth. It is trusted for its extensive expertise, innovative solutions and products, and outstanding support throughout. Salesforce’s technology and expertise are connected together to allow them to transform your sales, marketing, and commerce cloud strategy.

9. Zensar
Zensar has been a reputable partner for over 10 years and is a Salesforce Silver Consulting and Implementation partner. It is positioned to oversee customers' accolade-winning initiatives in the manufacturing, financial, insurance, and retail sectors.

10. HData Systems
HData Systems delivers all of today's trending innovation solutions, including Blockchain, Big Data Analytics, Data Science, Salesforce Development, Artificial Intelligence, and many more. HData Systems delivers eye-catching solutions to businesses, starting from startups to enterprises, to achieve their goals efficiently with better decision-making strategies to boost their ROI.

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Introduction

In the world of SaaS (software as a service), there are a few different types of companies. You have your vertical market software companies, think Unity (U) and Constellation Software (OTCPK:CNSWF), both of which I’ve written about at length. And you have horizontal market software companies that serve a variety of verticals - SAP SE (SAP) and Oracle (ORCL) are good examples of those.

And then there’s the third type of software: Microsoft Corporation (MSFT).

Why is Microsoft in a category of its own? Because Microsoft is virtually an HMS bundle monopoly.

Let me explain.

Remember Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (ZM)? How about DocuSign, Inc. (DOCU)? These two pandemic darlings were all the rage in 2020, but sales growth has nearly fizzled out and investors have begun to flee. Microsoft did not escape the 2022 tech crash, either, but it fared much better than Zoom and DocuSign, to say the least…

So what happened to Zoom and DocuSign? What does this all have to do with Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM)? Because I believe Salesforce is replicating just what made Microsoft so successful. Furthermore, I believe they’ve reached “escape velocity” and can’t be crushed the same way Microsoft has so often crushed its horizontal market competitors. (Looking at you, Zoom)...

Competitive Advantage

Let’s back up a bit. Remember those vertical market companies I mentioned just a bit earlier? Let’s talk about what makes those special, and differentiates them from HMS companies, Salesforce and Microsoft included.

You see, vertical markets companies usually target a small niche, like software to manage your local bowling alley, or funeral home scheduling software, markets so small they don’t interest the likes of Microsoft. Sure Microsoft could make better software than what’s on the market, but why waste the time when the total addressable market ("TAM") may only be $1-10mm? Unity started as software to build FPS video games on the Mac, markets like that simply lack the economic sense for a company like Microsoft to enter.

But horizontal markets like spreadsheets, presentations, or document storage solutions? You better bet Microsoft will be all over that. And it’s no surprise, when the prize is in the multi-billions it makes sense to devote the best, and majority of your resources, to that goal.

It’s because of that “prize” (large TAM) that P/E firms and tech investors are fine foregoing profitability today, because they believe the longer they wait to pursue profitability, the more of that future pie they will take. Delayed gratification.

But what’s better than private equity funds?

Internal Capital aka Cash Flow, that’s what.

That’s where Microsoft shines. The cash flow from Azure and Office gives them the capital they need to build new services like Teams which are crushing software products like Zoom. Think about it from the perspective of a manager, you love Zoom, but Teams is half the price because you are already on the office bundle, so why bother with another solution?

It’s no wonder why Peter Theil has been quoted as saying:

[To build a successful startup] You have to be 10 times better than second best.

Is Zoom 10x better than Teams, probably not, is it 20% better?… probably. But that doesn’t move the needle on sales.

Other companies employ a similar strategy to Microsoft, epic games, for example, uses the funds from its smash-hit Fortnite to build its game development tool Unreal. Internal capital is a powerful tool.

The Salesforce Spin

That’s great, but what does any of this have to do with Salesforce?

I’m happy you asked!

It’s because Salesforce too has replicated that strategy but has given it its own unique Salesforce flavor. What’s that flavor? Acquisitions. Epic and Microsoft funnel cash flow from profitable business segments to less profitable segments internally. Salesforce focuses on acquisitions (and internal growth).

Now many companies do acquisitions, including Microsoft. Just look at that massive Activision deal. But for Salesforce, acquisitions are an integral part of their strategy.

Some investors hate acquisitions, they see them as value-destroyers, as the acquiring firm is usually forced to pay a hefty premium on the target it acquires. Others love acquisitions. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) is a case study of acquisitions gone right.

My view? I’m acquisition-agnostic. If a company can employ valuations in a manner that drives value for shareholders, I’m all for it. Salesforce has cracked that code in a manner that many other companies have not.

I won’t rehash the stats here, but Salesforce has acquired a great deal of software companies, often for billions of dollars. If you’d like to read more about the individual deals, I’d shift your attention here.

What I would like to talk address is how these deals have driven shareholder value. Salesforce has been critiqued in the past for overpaying on takeovers, and Slack is a good example of that, at 26x sales investors scratched their heads. But what investors miss is the benefit of being in the Salesforce ecosystem. Just as Microsoft can leverage its office suite to push their Teams software, so too can Salesforce use its other software, like its namesake CRM software, to push Slack. This concept of bundling is what makes Microsoft, and now Salesforce, such a powerful force in the HMS world.

Bundled software creates a strong flywheel effect.

Salesforce has reached the point where its own bundle of products, cannot be threatened in the same way Zoom can by Microsoft, Salesforce has its own bundles. Just like how Microsoft can offer Teams at a discount to office customers, so too can Salesforce offer slack to its CRM customers.

As Salesforce continues to acquire businesses, this “sales force” continues to strengthen as the flywheel effect is further strengthened.

For now, let’s shift our attention to the financials of both companies.

Financials

Revenue

Both Microsoft and Salesforce have had strong revenue growth over the last 5 years. Salesforce’s growth has been exceptionally strong as they’ve grown through issuing equity to target companies alongside using internal capital.

Operating Cash Flow Per Share

On a per share basis, CFO growth has been relatively comparable between the two companies. Both have roughly doubled over the past 5 years and have continued to grow even in the face of a very challenging macro environment. Given the similarity of their business models, seeing such similar financial results does not surprise me much.

Valuation

Now that we’ve gone through the financials, I will present you with my valuation for Salesforce. Let me first preface this with some more context, in my articles I usually employ two methods, a P/E comparison, and FCF (free cash flow) Discount Model. For the sake of Salesforce, I’m performing just the DCF (discounted cash flow) component. If I were to employ a P/E comparison I believe it would skew the results because Salesforce keeps its earnings low as part of its strategy to reinvest into the business. Also, pertaining to the DCF, I am factoring in an expectation for acquisitions to continue, albeit at a slower pace than they previously had occurred.

Discounted Cash Flow Analysis

Source: Yahoo Finance Authors Estimates & Calculations

In my base case, I’m assuming revenue growth of 17% over the next 7 years excluding 2022, and 2023. This is somewhat slower than what they have historically been able to achieve (20%+) but I wanted to err on the side of conservatism due to the unknown nature of future acquisitions and any potential impact to share count.

As you can see above, Salesforce’s shares are roughly at fair value, perhaps slightly undervalued. But that doesn’t paint the whole picture. For my final take on valuation, please refer to the conclusion.

Risks

Before I deliver my final assessment on Salesforce let me highlight the biggest risk I am concerned with: tightening financial conditions (perhaps that is a bit of a euphemism).

As rates have risen, valuations continue to compress across the tech sector. On one hand, as an acquirer, this benefits Salesforce vis-à-vis lower prices. But on the other hand, it may slow the pace of acquisitions, as target companies become more hesitant to sell in a period of lower valuations. Historically, salesforce has acquired companies using a mixture of stock and cash, obviously, with shares much lower than they were last year, the stock portion is much more expensive to issue than it once was. Given the FCF generative nature of Salesforce’s business, they should be able to at least, partially mitigate these concerns.

Since Salesforce is so reliant on acquisitions to fuel growth, investors should pay attention to how the tightening financial conditions wind up affecting the M&A market. P/E firms are still active in the market, but would-be sellers are nervous. The jury is still out on this one.

Conclusion

Microsoft shareholders best watch out, there’s a “new” kid on the block. He’s scrappy, he’s smart, and he moves fast. And his name is Salesforce. Salesforce doesn’t play by your traditional growth by acquisition playbook, it follows its own rules.

Step 1. Acquire. Step 2. Bundle. 3. Forego profit now, in exchange for more profit later.

The macro-economic environment is a legitimate concern but Salesforce, at least to this investor, looks like a company with a secular growth story that is still very much intact, it looks like a company that will continue to grow despite the headwinds.

On the valuation front, the discounted cash flow analysis points to Salesforce being a company that is approximately fairly valued. But a large part of that is due to the conservatism that I have baked into my DCF, should Salesforce execute on their flywheel, 17% growth may be much too slow, and margins may grow much faster than anticipated.

In short, the “bundle” factor is immune to rising rates.

I rate Salesforce as a “Buy” with a 1-year price target of $165.

Thank You

As always, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my article, all feedback and comments are welcome. I try to engage with all of my readers so if something sparked your interest feel free to let me know in the comment section and I will do my best to get back to each of you with a response. Have a fantastic rest of your day/evening!

Investment Thesis

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) had its Investor Day yesterday, on the same day the market read through every comma, comment, sigh, and breath, from the Fed's Chair Jerome Powell.

The market's attention was distracted. After all, the market can only really track one news item at a time.

But as we now go through and discuss Salesforce's Investor Day, particularly its fiscal 2026 targets, I question whether there's really enough to excite new shareholders to this stock. I believe that Salesforce's new guidance didn't lead to significant surprises.

Indeed, I make the assertion that investors want to see cleaner GAAP profits. And that ultimately, investors are not looking too kindly to paying 26x non-GAAP EPS figures.

What's Next for Salesforce?

Let's be honest, despite all the excitement over Marc Benioff's co-founded company, Salesforce's stock has not been all that exciting. Yes, there have been a few winning periods, but as a whole anyone that's come to the stock after 2019 is more likely than not, holding a loser in their holding. That's 3 very long years. Difficult as it may be to imagine, this once crowd pleaser could turn out to be an investment ''dog''.

Salesforce has clearly succeeded in being the default company for businesses of all sizes and shapes to turn to and execute their marketing campaigns. But the stock got ahead of itself.

Salesforce's Guidance in Focus

Salesforce has highlighted for us all to see that its strongest growth says are in the rear-view mirror. The guidance out to fiscal 2026 points to a 17% CAGR. Yes, there's a possible outcome where Salesforce is able to outgrow its own guidance.

But one way or another, the die is cast. Salesforce's revenue growth rates are maturing.

The Market Has Started To Ask Questions about Salesforce's Compensation

Fiscal 2023 is guided to 20% of non-GAAP operating margins. Concurrently, just under 11% of total revenues are being made up of stock-based compensation.

Nevertheless, as we look ahead, Salesforce declares that its profit margins will expand into fiscal 2026.

Now consider the following thought exercise. At 25% of non-GAAP margins on the back of $50 billion of revenues, we should expect Salesforce's stock-based compensation to trickle lower as a percentage of total revenue.

Can Salesforce get its SBC below 9%? Maybe it gets to below 8%? Maybe it's 7%? If we assume 7% and add 3% for the amortization of its acquisitions, that means that Salesforce's 25% non-GAAP profit margins translate into 15% GAAP margins. Note, I've been conservative and assumed 3% in amortization of intangibles, which is half the current amortization percentage, of 6%.

That means that investors in the stock in 2026 could expect to see $7.5 billion of operating profits.

That means that investors today are having to pay 20x its operating profits looking out 3 years into the future.

Surely, that's a rich multiple?

CRM Stock Valuation - 26x Fiscal 2024 non-GAAP EPS

Now, let's get a little bit closer to home. Salesforce finishes its fiscal year in January. Looking out to fiscal 2024 (ending January 2024), Salesforce is priced at 26x its fiscal 2024 non-GAAP EPS.

I believe that this is a ''growth'' multiple for a business that is clearly not a growth stock anymore.

Despite recognizing all the potential and how deeply ingrained Salesforce is into the modern workforce, and how the company is essentially leading the digital transformation, I simply can't make the valuation work.

The Bottom Line

The market is showing no signs of letting up on Salesforce's stock in 2022. That means that over the next couple of quarters, as tax loss season takes hold, I believe that there's a substantial likelihood that the selling pressure increases.

When that happens, my argument is that too many investors will at the same time be challenging Salesforce and asking difficult questions about their investment.

And that's going to pose a significant problem for existing shareholders because they've so long become accustomed to ''trusting'' that Salesforce would do well. Indeed, it's very likely that a large proportion of Salesforce's shareholders use its products.

Yet, despite what Peter Lynch taught us, using the product isn't always the same as being rewarded for holding the stock. Even though admittedly, that works the vast majority of the time, I believe that Lynch's lessons may have been taken too far.

Indeed, I don't believe that present-day investment manager Peter Lynch would hold onto a stock that's priced at approximately 26x next year's EPS when there's a consensus agreement that Salesforce is going to be growing at less than 20% CAGR. After all, Peter Lynch did teach us the PEG ratio too.

It’s been a big week for Salesforce. Its annual Dreamforce 2022 conference — which saw an estimated 40,00 in-person attendees — delivered some big innovations and announcements. According to the keynote presentation from CEO Marc Benioff, Salesforce is one the biggest enterprise software companies in the world, including the leader in cloud-based CRM. Its impressive growth in the last few years shows no signs of slowing as the company pushed its long-term revenue target to more than $50 billion by 2026 in its investor day event that took place during Dreamforce.

The company made a bevy of announcements at the event, but two major announcements caught my attention, warranting further analysis: Salesforce Genie and Slack Canvas. The first will completely shift Salesforce’s existing CRM to enable real-time capabilities, applications, and uses that weren’t possible before. The latter will help the company finally realize the potential of its Slack acquisition and increase its ability to compete with the likes of Microsoft and an ever-growing collaboration marketplace for an even larger piece of the business tech pie–Something that has been part of the Salesforce talk track for some time, but is now much more within reach. Let’s break these down.

Salesforce Genie: Magic in a Software Program

Salesforce called its new Salesforce Genie offering its “biggest innovation in 20 years.” The goal, like every other CRM on the market today, is to create a real-time single source of truth for businesses so that they can create hyper-personalized content and, in turn, create tighter relationships with customers. From one day to the next, businesses use hundreds of different apps to move their companies forward. In the past, uniting the disparate information from all of these different sources has been nearly impossible. But Salesforce Genie aims to conquer the issue for good, pooling and harmonizing data, as the announcement put it, into a clearly reconciled, comprehensive customer portrait.

Salesforce Genie in effect is a data integration model that works with Salesforce’s existing CRM platform. It aims to move data where it is needed at the right time. This will turn the CRM into a real-time data, insight, and action machine which, until now, has only been an aspiration and not a reality.

In an era when third-party data tracking is on the outs, Salesforce Genie could be a huge asset. It could help businesses match the right audiences with the right products on the right channels at precisely the right time. A silver bullet for marketing and customer experience, which is perhaps why Salesforce likes to refer to it as “Magic” in a way. Genie has the potential to be the force that finally allows all of Salesforce’s disparate tools to work together in the way customers have always hoped they would. Also, for those wondering: Eventually, Genie powers will also be added to other Salesforce tools like MuleSoft and Tableau.

Initial thoughts on the Genie announcement are that Salesforce knows it’s facing growing competition in the CDP and CRM world. Combined with Einstein AI, as well as latest flexible public cloud data deployments and integrations with Hyperforce, Salesforce is making it clear that it has zero plans of letting any part of its market share go. However, any first mover advantage here will be short-lived as I fully expect its competition in Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and others to continue pushing for greater real time and AI capabilities. Furthermore, pricing will be in focus as well as enterprise pricing for Genie versus value will surely be in focus as the offering hits the market.

Unleashed Collaboration with Slack Canvas

While Genie was the main headline, I was personally more intrigued by the advancements that were made by Slack and Salesforce. I’ve long felt that Salesforce had a compelling suite of offerings that could truly realize what it is calling the “Digital HQ,” however, it has lacked the complete vision and tools within Slack to meet the evolving landscape of work patterns and collaboration in its previous iterations.

Despite that, Since the acquisition last year, Salesforce has been touting integrations that will maximize productivity and enable flexible work in one environment. And while that wasn’t really the case before–especially in comparison to the comprehensiveness of Microsoft Teams, I do think it is becoming a reality with the advent of Huddles and now Salesforce Canvas, a new surface where work teams can organize and share information from multiple sources. The workspace is envisioned to be a digital headquarters where teams can connect conversations, apps, and automations in one place. According to the Dreamforce presentation, there are more than 2,500 apps in Slack, and the goal is for all of them to work in Canvases in the future.

The move is a smart one for Slack — and the first big announcement since the acquisition. In the past, its bookmarks and pins left a lot to be desired. They were hard to use if they were used at all. Canvas will connect systems of productivity with systems of record, allowing teams to get information quickly, generate time-saving automations, build low and no code apps, and better serve customers — all without leaving Slack. The impressive solution, which has been in beta testing for some time, will allow users to compile files, messages, and multimedia into a template that can be stored and accessed later.

In case you’re having trouble understanding how a Canvas would work in real life, imagine the employee onboarding process. With Canvas, HR can easily create a Canvas with every link, training video, document, etc. that a new hire needs to know with limited tech knowledge needed. You can even embed workflows on every Canvas page that could order new employee requirements like mobile devices, laptops, business cards, and other requirements in a seamless manner without ever leaving Slack.

Looking Forward

In focusing on forward-facing developments like Genie and Canvas, it seems clear that Salesforce is aware of the growing competition in the CRM/CDP space and likewise intends to feverishly defend its CRM market position.

These announcements, along with the others that came out this week, showcase Salesforce’s continued and strong focus on growth. At the end of August, the company announced Q2 revenue of $7.2 billion, up 22 percent year over year. And while both of these new announcements won’t be in GA until sometime in 2023, it’s looking probable based upon the company’s latest forecast revision that the numbers will continue to climb over the next several quarters. Salesforce has a track record of delivering outsized results, and while there were many valuable updates and announcements at this year’s Dreamforce, my belief is that its Salesforce Genie and Slack Canvas have the potential to be momentum builders for Salesforce and will be critical to the company continuing to realize strong growth as we head into an even more complex macro and business environment.

Salesforce, the titanic San Francisco corporate software company, is conducting layoffs — a first this year for the tech behemoth.

Details remain sparse, but according to Protocol and a laid-off employee who posted on LinkedIn, about 90 employees were affected. (A majority of the affected staffers were contractors in the company's recruiting department, a Salesforce spokesperson told SFGATE; as we’ve previously noted, Salesforce has been vague about whether contracted workers count as “employees,” or “Ohana.”)