Big Wins For SMBs: Inside CRM Magazine’s Industry Leaders Awards

Key Takeaways

• Salesforce was recognized for Best Small and Midmarket CRM Suite in the CRM Industry Leaders Awards.
• Specifically, Starter Suite offers a streamlined version of enterprise-grade CRM capabilities to small and medium businesses (SMBs), making it easy for them to get started and scale as needed. 
• Salesforce’s AI capabilities, including its Agentforce platform, help SMBs simplify repetitive tasks, freeing up teams to focus on high-level tasks.

Congratulations to all the winners of this year’s CRM Magazine Industry Leaders Awards — what a year to be in smart technology. This year, we’re celebrating the groundbreaking achievements of small and medium businesses (SMBs) that are driving incredible growth and innovation. 

From artificial intelligence ‌(AI) for hyperpersonalized customer experiences to integrating customer relationship management (CRM) systems to simplify operations, these leaders are setting a new standard for what’s possible. Join us as we shine a spotlight on the CRM categories actively shaping the future of their industries.

What we’ll cover: 

• What are the CRM Magazine’s Industry Leader Awards?
• Best small and midmarket CRM? The award goes to…
• Award-winning AI? Let’s go
• Lead in your industry with the right tools

What are the CRM Magazine’s Industry Leader Awards?

The CRM Magazine Industry Leader Awards are a prestigious annual recognition awarded to the top technology vendors in the CRM space. These awards highlight leaders in various categories, including sales, marketing, and customer service technologies, for both enterprise and SMBs. 

What was awarded, you ask? Here are the picks for the 2025 Industry Leaders‌ — ‌spanning customer service, marketing, and sales‌ — ‌below.

• The Best Enterprise CRM Suite
• The Best Small and Midmarket CRM Suite
• The Best Contact Center Infrastructure
• The Best Contact Center Interaction Analytics
• The Best Unified Customer Experience Platform
• The Best Workforce Engagement Management (WEM)
• The Best Customer Journey Orchestration Solution
• The Best Customer Data Platform
• The Best Business Intelligence/Analytics
• The Best Marketing Automation
• The Best Sales Force Automation

The winners are determined by an expert panel of industry analysts and consultants who evaluate companies based on their innovation, product capabilities, and ability to fuel real-world business results for their clients. The awards serve as a valuable guide for businesses looking to select and implement the best CRM solutions.

Source: Destination CRM

Best small and midmarket CRM? The award goes to…

Salesforce has once again proven its strength in the CRM market, earning a spot among other top contenders for Best Small and Midmarket CRM Suite. This recognition highlights the company’s commitment to providing scalable and powerful solutions for businesses of all sizes, especially those in the small and midmarket segments.

The CRM industry is experiencing rapid growth, with the small business segment projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 16.2% through 2030. This expansion is driven largely by the global adoption of cloud-based solutions, which provide SMBs with an affordable and flexible way to access enterprise-grade CRM capabilities without the need for significant IT infrastructure investments.

With its AppExchange, Salesforce has one of the largest partner ecosystems on the planet, but its appeal among SMBs goes beyond that. Laurie McCabe, partner and Co-Founder of SMB Group, said that Salesforce’s Starter Suite “brings a streamlined version of enterprise-grade CRM capabilities to SMBs, with an upgrade path to the enterprise version. It is well-suited to fast-growing SMBs that want to start simple but need room to scale.” 

Rebecca Wettemann, founder and CEO of Valoir, agreed: “With Starter Suite, Salesforce has packaged the core features from a sales, marketing, and service perspective into a single suite at a compelling price point for SMBs, making it easy for customers to get up and running.”

Salesforce’s success in this space is attributed to its Starter Suite, which offers a starter version of its enterprise-level features. As noted in the article, this suite is perfectly suited for “fast-growing SMBs that want to start simple but need room to scale.” 

Starter Suite packages essential sales, marketing, commerce, and service features into a single, compelling CRM cloud solution, making it easy for businesses to get up and running quickly. And now, you can use Slack right in Salesforce Suites to collaborate with your team in channels (and try it all for free). 

Award-winning AI? Let’s go

In addition to tailored entry-level products, Salesforce’s AI capabilities — including its Agentforce platform — support the way SMB teams actually work. Many small businesses struggle to keep up with lead follow-ups, customer inquiries, and service requests when staff often juggle multiple roles. 

Agentforce helps by embedding AI agents into workflows such as responding to inbound leads after hours, routing support cases to the right person, or nudging sales teams when opportunities are at risk of being overlooked. By simplifying these repetitive but critical tasks, SMBs can be responsive without hiring additional support, ensuring that limited resources stay focused on building customer relationships and closing deals.

Lead in your industry with the right tools

This esteemed award is a testament to Salesforce’s dedication to innovation and its understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities facing small and midmarket businesses. By providing a powerful, straightforward platform, enriched with smart automation, Salesforce continues to help growing businesses build stronger customer relationships and fuel positive growth.

Start your journey with a free trial of Starter Suite today. Looking for more customization? Explore Pro Suite. Already a Salesforce customer? Activate Foundations today to try Agentforce.

AI supported the writers and editors who created this article.

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