The Best Sales Force Automation: The 2024 CRM Industry Leader Awards

The Market

IMARC Group valued the worldwide sales force automation (SFA) software market at $8.4 billion in 2023 and expects it to reach $21 billion by 2032, growing at a compound annual rate of 10.4 percent. This CRM segment is experiencing significant growth, driven by the increasing demand for streamlined sales processes and improved productivity among sales reps and the demand for more accurate sales forecasting. Innovations in artificial intelligence are revolutionizing sales force automation software by enabling predictive analytics, personalized customer interactions, automated task management, and actionable insights and real-time guidance.

Key for the industry segment going forward will be integration with marketing, back-office, order management, supply chain, and purchase and payment systems, experts maintain. And SFA software equipped with lead management tools enables companies to automate lead capture from various channels, score leads based on their likelihood to convert, and nurture them through personalized communication.

The Top Five

The Sales module in Microsoft Dynamics 365 has long been a dominant force in the sector, and now paired with the Copilot generative AI assistant, it is even more capable and user-friendly. Copilot “enables sellers to work in Office productivity tools and write data back to the CRM,” says Kate Leggett, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. But Microsoft’s real selling point is “an excellent product vision and road map, an attractive price point, an exhaustive partner ecosystem, and industry cloud solutions,” Leggett says. Rebecca Wettemann, founder and CEO of Valoir, also says that its investments in Viva Sales and Sales Copilot “continue to make Microsoft an attractive solution for companies with Microsoft on the desktop.”

Oracle has doubled down on its Fusion CRM strategy, and its sales products have benefited tremendously, according to Leggett, who says it now “supports full lead-to-cash cycles, with advanced configure-price-quote capabilities, digital sales capabilities, strong workflow automation, and orchestration of sales tasks across buying and selling groups.”

Salesforce for years has enjoyed what Leggett calls “a first-mover advantage in the cloud SFA category,” and this year was no different. The company, she adds, offers “a complete suite with core sales force automation, partner relationship management, and sales performance management.” And it’s not done yet. “Salesforce continues to invest in ways to automate more sales force tasks,” Wettemann says. “Its Slack Sales Elevate solution has the potential to be a real game changer, not just in terms of productivity but in changing forecasting from weekly to near-real-time accuracy.”

SugarCRM’s Sell solution has broad appeal, primarily because “it provides consistent, easy-to-use experiences for sales teams,” according to Leggett, who notes that its highlights include “workflow support, customer journey visualization, and a robust renewals console for recurring revenue management.” And though its solutions have largely been cloud-based, Sugar has expanded its deployment options with Sugar Enterprise and Sugar Enterprise+ for on-premises customers. Sugar has brought many of the strengths from Sell, including guided selling, geo-mapping, mail and calendar integration, and automatic data enrichment, into Sugar Enterprise+.

Zoho’s sales solutions have really come on strong in the past year or two, driven primarily by a slew of innovations around artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. But even before that, the company’s sales force automation was worthy of consideration. “Integrated collaboration, AI assistant, and high usability continue to make Zoho an attractive SFA choice,” Wettemann says. “The introduction of CRM for Everyone makes it even more attractive for non-users [of sales force automation] who regularly interact with sales teams.” Zoho for Everyone, which launched in June, allows sales teams to communicate and coordinate customer deliverables across areas like solutions engineering, contract management, sales enablement, customer onboarding, and advocacy. Liz Miller, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, at the time called it “a solution that meets the modern sales and engagement strategy, reaching beyond the stagnant notion that CRM is a record or a database.… It puts CRM at the center of the project called revenue.”

Niche Players

Analysts this year identified Spotlogic, Monday CRM, Freshworks, and Pipedrive as niche players to watch in the sales force automation market.