Salesforce (CRM  ) has effectively established itself as the leading cloud-based customer relationship management system.

Founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, Dave Moellenhoff, Frank Dominguez, and Parker Harris, the company has earned almost $20 billion in revenue so far. Their goal is to make $60 billion by 2034. Last year alone, the SaaS giant had 150,000 companies on its consumer roster, the likes of which include Amazon (AMZN  ) and American Express (AXP  ). According to the Salesforce website, Salesforce produces the following results: "an average 27% increase in sales revenues, 32% increase in lead conversion, 34% increase in customer satisfaction and a 56% faster deployment" for companies that use the service.

Salesforce is able to achieve such stellar numbers because it invests heavily in the right areas. For instance, Salesforce bought software company Mulesoft in March in order to bridge the gap between private data and cloud data, improving its service whilst ensuring expansion. It also bought Datorama in July, subsequently revamping its market intelligence department. Salesforce has also catered to large companies with deep pockets as opposed to smaller companies, and benefits from the fact that once companies adopt their service, it's difficult to switch to a different one. They've also drummed up international interest via their annual Dreamforce conference, as well as traveling tours and events. Salesforce also aggressively markets itself, placing a heavy focus on training and rewarding its sales staff.

Salesforce is not without rivals. One of Salesforce's main competitors is Pipedrive, a private sales CRM that has acquired $80 million in funding. It is considered to be more activity-based than Salesforce, and has an interface that offers enhanced visual appeal.

Writer Maria Timko of HT says: "In using Pipedrive, it is clear that it is truly a tool designed by salespeople for salespeople. It is a tool that simplifies and organizes sales tasks, making it easier to focus on the selling itself. Because it is an activity-based tool, it keeps you on track of leads by scheduling follow up calls and emails, proposal deadlines and meetings. If you're in the middle of one task, you can schedule another sales activity for a later time so that no activity is forgotten. It is also easy to keep notes for each deal and find them at a later date. This is particularly handy when taking over tasks for a colleague or predecessor."

Still, Salesforce has a scale that Pipedrive simply doesn't have. It also has a strong sense of corporate responsibility, spending on the homeless as well as other benevolent initiatives. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has said: "You've got to really be mindful and think about what it is that you want your company to be for and what you're doing with your business and here at Salesforce, that's very important to us."