In a flat world, does where a CRM company is headquartered matter to a CRM buyer?
Generally not. However, there are cases in which the location of a CRM company can influence a CRM buying decision.
An emerging brand is often better marketed in its local area than in others. A small business owner in St. Louis is likelier to have heard of Less Annoying Software than a small business owner in Seattle.
Conversely, someone in Seattle is likelier to have heard about PipelineDeals than someone in St. Louis.
It’s probably not a stretch to presume that a greater percentage of companies in Redmond, Washington, the home of Microsoft, use Dynamics 365 than in San Francisco, the home of Salesforce.
CRM Company Relocations
Some CRM companies started in one area but shifted their headquarters location to another.
For example, Insightly was founded in Australia. However, a condition of a $3 million investment from Emergence was that the company relocate to San Francisco. It’s not clear where the company is currently located in San Francisco.
SugarCRM began in Cupertino, near Apple. The company now has a San Francisco P.O. box as its headquarters address.
Base CRM started in Chicago but moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2014. The reason cited was difficulty finding tech talent in Chicago. Zendesk later acquired base CRM.
Workbooks is a well-known brand in the U.K. but not as well-known in the U.S.
Here’s a map of the headquarters locations of over 35 CRM companies. All are in the Northern Hemisphere.
It’s best to view the map in a separate browser tab.
Because there are clusters of CRM companies in some areas, zoom in to a regional level to see the exact locations.
Vendor Clusters
Salesforce, Copper, Insightly, and SugarCRM’s listed address are located within several blocks of one another in downtown San Francisco.
HubSpot, Bullhorn, and Creatio are near one another in Cambridge and downtown Boston.
The map shows the ultimate parent of CRM brands. Sage and SAP are based in Europe but have a significant presence in North America and other parts of the globe.
