Salesforce Is A Steal (NYSE:CRM) | Seeking Alpha

Salesforce generated $6.6 billion in free cash flow last year and handed $27.5 billion back to shareholders through buybacks.

That's not a knock on them — that's just what the business is optimized for right now.

Here's what it means in plain terms: when a software company is focused on returning capital to investors, product investment slows, roadmaps get conservative, and the customization requests you've been waiting 18 months for keep getting deprioritized. The platform doesn't get more flexible. It gets more profitable — for them.

If you're a mid-market ops leader running your business on Salesforce, you've probably already felt this. The features you actually need are buried behind expensive add-ons or consultant hours. The workarounds your team built last year are now load-bearing. And every time you ask for a workflow change, someone mentions a six-week implementation window.

You've already learned the hard way that switching platforms doesn't automatically fix the problem. But staying put while your vendor optimizes for shareholder returns instead of operator needs isn't a strategy either.

The companies that will win the next few years aren't the ones with the biggest CRM budget — they're the ones whose CRM actually fits how they sell.

#CRM #SalesOperations #MidMarket #RevenueOperations #SalesforceAlternative

Original Source

CRM generated $6.6B in free cash flow and returned $27.5B to shareholders, primarily via share repurchases, highlighting significant capital return ...