Salesforce + eProject = Deliveryforce

The service economy value chain has a common macro-process taxonomy.

It is esentially based on preparing, selling, and delivering work. This means that the first input of the process are prepared knowledge workers with adequate skills and competencies. Then, that knowledge put into working practice is used to sell services, through several techniques. Finally comes the delivery process, in which you have to plan, execute, control the engagements to deliver the work that you proposed.

Salesforce.com is a brilliant tool that enables de "Propose" process of this "service economy" value chain. They are the clear leader, perhaps with crmondemand.com (ex-siebel now Oracle) lagging behind.

But there is no clear leader that is enabling [online] the "Deliver" process. Mostly this has been done in a one-to-one manner through Microsoft Project, and then - in very sofisticated teams - using MS Project Server. But Project and Porfolio Management (PPM), structured in SaaS could be owned as a value chain by Salesforce.com

Salesforce could snap up eProject and own the service economy value chain in its main processes. eProject is a brilliant web-based PPM (Project Portfolio Management) tool for professional project managers. All web-enabled, all web, all the time. No software!. MS Project comes above on features in a web review, but the best timeline is no good if your customers can't se it, and the era of one-to-one collaboration (oxymoron there) is very much over.

I am currently an eProject customer, and it gets the job done. I am also an MS Project user (you can upload MS Project files to a web timeline in eProject).

It would be great to have a fluid transition between selling and delivering. Sales turn into projects and there could be an adequate hand-off between sales and production/operations teams. It would allow to really look at a client from a full view (just sales is not a full view) and establish a solid link between the importance of selling and delivering. After all, successful implementation/use is what earns you the right to the next sale/project.

More info on revies for PPM software: http://project-management-software-review.toptenreviews.com/