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Someone spending $50,000 to $60,000 a year on Salesforce asked if I could build a replacement with AI-assisted coding.
I said no.
A bill like that gives you a reason to look at alternatives. But before agreeing to build anything, I wanted to know whether replacing Salesforce was the highest-value problem to solve in that business.
Getting a new tool built would only be part of the work.
What happens after the replacement is built?
You still have maintenance and the risks that come with a new system. You also have people who need to use it.
Maybe not everybody wants to switch. Now some of the company uses the new tool while the rest keeps working in the old one. The replacement project has left you running two systems for a while.
I've been through that with a lab information system I built. We had to use the old and new systems together because healthcare couldn't stop while we changed the software.
That experience shapes how I think about a rebuild. Before comparing the annual software bill with the price of writing a replacement, I want to consider what the transition will ask of the business and its people.
A working new system doesn't mean everyone can stop using the old one that day.
Look for a smaller piece of work to change
I'd start by mapping the workflows inside the company: what people actually do as work moves through the business.
That gives you smaller things to consider. You might automate part of a workflow, delegate a task or delete a step. AI might help with a particular piece. Those options deserve a look before committing to a replacement for the whole system.
People also need a chance to adjust. If everything changes at once, they have to relearn how to work while the business keeps going. With smaller changes, they can get used to the new way, see what helps and build confidence.
I wouldn't promise that every small change will succeed or that a rebuild is always wrong. In this case, I didn't think a large replacement was the right place to start.
Before you commission a replacement for your customer relationship management system, map the work it supports. Look for one task you could automate, delegate or remove, then compare that smaller change with the disruption of replacing the whole tool.