Hiring Salesforce Developers to customize a single instance of Salesforce is hard. But finding an AppExchange Developer is harder, unfortunately.
The reason for this is because building a product to be listed on the AppExchange requires knowledge of Managed Packages - a collection of application components that can be deployed into any Salesforce environment. The process for building a managed package is very different than opening the Developer sandbox in your internal Salesforce org and adding some Apex code.
It requires adhering to very specific coding standards, best practices, and security requirements. Finding a Salesforce Development Partner with an AppExchange specialization is key.
What is the Salesforce AppExchange?
Let's start with the basics. The AppExchange is one of the largest B2B App Marketplaces and offers 3,000+ pre-built applications that can be integrated with an existing Salesforce org to add functionality and features with ease.
The AppExchange has an install base in the millions and has specific Apps for Sales Intelligence, Marketing Apps, Analytics tools, Collaboration platforms, and dozens of other categories related to your Salesforce user base.
It can be a lot to navigate, particularly since there are Free Apps vs. Paid Apps as well as Native Salesforce Apps and Non-Native Salesforce Apps.
This is a big distinction. Native Salesforce Apps are those that have been built on top of Salesforce - using a managed package - this can make integrating them to your existing Salesforce instance much easier so be sure to keep this in mind when building or deploying AppExchange apps.
What is a Salesforce OEM Partner?
OEM Partners are a big part of the Salesforce ecosystem but aren't as commonly known.
These are a specific type of SaaS vendor building application solutions for the market and doing so on top of Salesforce. These are essentially AppExchange Expert Developers with the best knowledge of how to structure, build, and deploy managed packages.
They understand how to construct a versatile application as a library of components that can literally be downloaded from the AppExchange and plugged into any org - they sell these products directly do their customers (either via listings on the AppExchange or in a direct Sales model).
Typically, a solution offered by an OEM Partner will be 80% out-of-the-box and 20% customized, meaning 80% of the features are pre-built and ready to go but 20% of the tool will be configured specifically to the customer needs and use case.
OEM Partners pay Salesforce a per-user licensing fee for every user of their product.
This means their costs are higher (so the cost to use the product might be higher) but they have the advantage of using Salesforce's platform infrastructure instead of having to build from scratch.