The title of this article should have been "Explaining CRM to the CEO: Top 5 Business Payoffs" since the points mentioned are applicable for all CRM systems.

If you want to show how salesforce.com is different, you need to talk about SaaS (at least for now)

Regarding potential sensitive data (in the case of customer private information) being accessed via the public internet - this is the salesforce.com model - what is the viability of this for major corporations and other entities required to provide secure access to this data? SFDC does not offer any other form of access.

Good points and true for any conversation used to convince a decision maker - discuss the benefits and stay away from jargon. SaaS is not a business benefit of salesforce.com.

Liberal use of acronyms without defining them first. One should not assume that the reader knows them all. SaaS, CRM, SDFC, to name a few... Also, why Salesforce.com? This could have been for Seibel just as easily, surely the comparison should have dealt with SaaS versus an installed solution too?

If you have a discussion with your CEO and you pitch these, either you will get fired or the project will get delay. Obviusly this article was writing by someone who doesn't have a clue of what a salesperson does.
1. Productivity.... How?
Replace it by saying this crm is central location to storage key sales information.
2. Create a set of business rules to manage your sales process.
If you say better set of control, good luck finding a sales guy who will enter the information.
3. How are you wasting marketing dollar and why? That is the first thing a CEO will ask.
About better way to monitor you marketing dollars by managing the entire life cycle.
4. Agility? again you will get hit with a basic question how are we responding to RFP today what is the time that it takes to respond?
Streamline time to respond by assigning ownership and task for the team and insuring that gaps are identify early in the process.
5. CRM is not a pricing tool, it never was and it will never be. Pricing is part of the negotiation process. A CEO will look at you and tell you that you don't have a clue of what a sales process is and you don't understand pricing process, budgeting process, and client buying process.
CRM will help you indetify key desicion makers and using the tool will help you understand if your proposal is ready for prime time.
I have 20 years of sales experience and 10 year of CRM funtionality. I can't help but to comment because I've been there a cross from the CEO and this article not right.
Get the buy from the head of sales, without him your trip to the CEO will be a complete waste of time.

Good article. Agree must stay away from Jargon.
Just learned recently that Salesforce can also connect to your phone system (using Zeacom.com) so that when top customers call your business they automatically get straight through to their preferred contact. Pretty slick.

This system will take your sales team off the streets two hours a day just to load senseless information.

You know who your money players are and who is sitting on their ass.