Some people say that Hubspot will eventually beat Salesforce; just like Salesforce disrupted SAP and Oracle.
I get it. 2022 was turbulent for Salesforce. And 2023 has done little to dissuade this chatter.
But you can't compare the way Salesforce took the CRM market with how Hubspot is trying to compete with them.
Why Hubspot Doesn't Threaten Salesforce
Salesforce dominated Oracle, Siebel, and SAP by fundamentally shifting the value proposition of enterprise systems architecture by pioneering the CLOUD.
The move from on-premise infrastructure to cloud infrastructure was a massive paradigm shift, driven almost single-handedly by Benioff and Salesforce in the early 2000s.
Sure, Hubspot outperforms Salesforce in some areas - but it's on a feature level.
This is the advantage of younger competitors because they can shape the product around how business is done today (instead of needing to adapt to stay relevant). For example, people cite that Hubspot performs better for startups with emerging go-to-market strategies like PLG.
Fair enough. PLG didn't exist when Salesforce started.
And yes, this is an enormous challenge for a company like Salesforce, and it's the type of headwind that any industry leader encounters over time.
But Hubspot's advantage in this dimension is peanuts compared to the advantages Salesforce used to take the entire market from legacy players.
Until Hubspot demonstrates the ability to drive a transformational shift similar to what Salesforce ushered in, I have no concern they will maintain (and potentially extend) their market dominance in CRM.
Where Hubspot Beats Salesforce
Hubspot threatens Salesforce in just one big way.
Usability.
How is Salesforce tackling the need for an improved user-experience?
There are a few options...
Native Functionality
👉 Dynamic Forms
Salesforce doesn't have the best UI.
Fine.
Using Dynamic Forms is a great way to improve page load time and simplify the layout.
👉 Slack Workflows
Reps spend less than 20% of their time in Salesforce.
And Slack is a great way to meet them where they are.
More native workflow automation and chat-based tools are coming.
Stay on top of it!
👉 Conditional Lightning Pages
Salesforce page layouts can get crowded.
Instead of wrestling with custom layouts per profile.
Adopt conditional Lightning Pages and only display the relevant info.
Third Party Tools
👉 Scratchpad
Fast, clean interface that sits on top of Salesforce.
Give your Sales Reps tooling with a modern look + feel.
👉 Rattle
Build Salesforce workflow logic in Slack.
Bring reporting into Slack.
Manage activities and pipeline in Slack.
Your Reps are in Slack, so lean into it!
👉 Gong
Call transcription directly logged into Salesforce.
Automatically sync Zoom call transcripts.
Skip the activity tracking. And gain searchable call notes.
Hubspot vs Salesforce
Let's list the pros and cons of each platform:
Hubspot Pros
- User friendly application
- Simpler and lower cost initial implementation
- Cheaper ongoing maintenance and support
Hubspot Cons
- Service Desk UI/UX is not great.
- Operational functionalities are a bottleneck (ie. you can't have a dynamically updated product list in a company record for customer support)
- No Quote-to-Cash functionality unless you are US based
- Integrations exist but a lot of it is one-way sync and the reviews are not great.
- The ability to customize and extend functionality of the platform is extremely limited
Salesforce Pros
- It is the most customizable CRM available on the market
- All third party data in one place
- Also strong in business operations (ie. quote to cash), has all advanced functionalities.
- The AppExchange, a B2B App Marketplace, offers thousands of out-of-the-box apps and features
Salesforce Cons
- Poor user experience, not user friendly, complex to use
- Not powerful out-of-the-box, leading to more complicated initial setup
- Complex pricing
Conclusion
Any argument that Hubspot is better than Salesforce is, frankly, ridiculous.
It's like saying pen and paper is better than Google Docs.
Salesforce generates $30B+ in revenue, while HubSpot does $1.6B.
Yes, it's harder to realize the full value of Salesforce compared to Hubspot. But that comes down to the fact that it offers more features, scalability, and custom development horsepower.
By A LOT.
I do believe there is a case for many companies starting with Hubspot as a CRM, Marketing tool, and/or Support application.
Simple setup and limited features makes sense when you're small.
But at scale, all roads lead to Salesforce.
