CRM is a B-tier investment for value and quality; it is cheap but less exciting than peers, with low organic growth and high risk of AI competition eroding its market position.

>> I'll do Salesforce because I think we can do it quick. All right, Salesforce. Um, I think we can do it quick because I kind of look at Salesforce similarly, um, compared to the other SAS companies as I do to Microsoft when I look at the Max 7.

Um, not because quality is as high, just because I feel like it doesn't excite me that much.

Um, I still remember looking into it. Um, and especially the more companies I looked at that are sort of competitors, um, I think it's, you know, it's not that exciting. There was a time where it was cheaper.

Um I actually have a chart here too um that's basically also showing you you know price to operating cash flow um and then total revenue change. So basically topline growth and if you do that once again you have this you know huge correlation between when the stock or when the the top line is growing slower than it used to.

Um especially for companies in SAS because for the longest time investors were used to them growing at let's say you know 20% a year right as soon as that stopped um you see the soft decline as well.

you're now seeing that there is some form of discrepancy where um the company is growing faster again but the stock has not yet um not yet run up. I mean there's sort of a balance just as with most of these SAS companies.

I should say though um if I'm not mistaken Chad please uh jump in if I am. Um I think a big chunk of this about three percentage points are the Informatica um ex acquisition which they already announced when we covered it but was still quite some time until they um it actually shows up in the numbers.

Um and then the rest of it if you say like okay well compared to the year prior three points or three percentage points is just um M&A then you have about two percentage points left of actual growth and I think that is mostly coming from agent force.

Um I think not as much as some people hope for um when you looked at the company and they announced the products.

Um I sort of have a problem I think we discussed it in the episode too with the communication of Salesforce where they use a whole lot of buzzwords. You never really know what's going on.

It kind of goes back to my point about the consolation management where I just prefer people to say we don't know how like AI will change the world. Um where in this case you have the feeling the CEO tells you what you want to hear.

Um so for me personally again not too many strong opinions um in terms of the chat sales for B today and B in 10 years. Tons of revenue streams and generally strong diversification.

I kind of agree. I think I would put it Btier on value today just because it is kind of cheap and if you assume and this is sort of the assumption that you have to make um well although if I look at the other companies in the Btier here maybe not.

Oh gosh this this is tougher than I thought. I thought this is a quick one. Um I think I'll put it here.

I know it's cheaper than Microsoft and Constellation but value today does not only mean we only look at the price. you still have to have the quality and that matters also in 3 to four years time.

I think the quality is lower than than these other companies to the extent where I wouldn't see it you know better positioned even for the next 3 years um than Microsoft or or consolation.

It could always happen that just because SAS is so bombed out to some extent um that it will do better but I struggle to see it much better. I think I'll I'll put it somewhere here just for me because you know it's about the the quality of the company and then long-term then Sean you can you can comment on that long-term I see it here.

Um you could probably put it on the same level as Adobe so I could totally see it being a B tier. Um but again like probably it's me just being biased because I'm not that excited about the products.

I I I definitely see how they have a mode but also they have a lot of competition in there.

Um and I think that's the sort of product that they have where I will do a lot of damage. Um where AI can change businesses that already exist but that are not yet at the level of Salesforce and we just bump up the numbers of those businesses.

there's so many other companies even I don't know Microsoft you know if AI gives you the opportunity to make products way cheaper than it used to I could see so many stronger companies um sort of expand into fields that Salesforce is now dominating

um I know you know there are some switching costs but I don't know we use Slack for example um and I think it's a better product than the the competitors but it's not enough for me to say that I love the quality um comparatively so B2C for me here I think it depends on where you want to put it and then value today also B2C.

>> Yeah, I mean I think you you can speak better to the value than I can, but um you know going off just a handful of anecdotes like I know my wife's company runs entirely on Salesforce uh and she's talked to me how about how just uh reliant they are and how every year they're renewing their subscriptions uh and at a higher price and and adding you know more seats to their subscri subscriptions and these kind of things.

But at the same time, um, I don't work in corporate America. Obviously, we don't work in corporate America, but my impression is that Salesforce is very, very deeply entrenched.

does it take 10 years for people to move off Salesforce? you know, maybe uh but that Salesforce might I would I would bet that Salesforce is going to be around a lot longer than people think. It's it's definitely not blockbuster.

>> No, 100% agree. I think if I just look at it again comparatively and I just compare to Adobe um and you know there are a lot of points that I don't necessarily like about Adobe or where I think there are risks um but it's still dominating a niche where if you just tell me like or if you ask me I should point out one company that's competing with Adobe and could do it on that scale I couldn't name a single one.

um for Salesforce as I pointed out earlier I could still see how there's more competition in 10 years time for exactly that niche I could see how people build a similar tool to Salesforce and then be better at it through AI, for example.

Um, so I think that's why I think it's slightly lower um than Adobe, but it didn't look like you 100% agree.

So I don't know, I think 10 years time, you mentioned this with Salesforce is we can make up all you know, all possible scenarios in terms of this will change and then Amazon will take over.