The line item nobody defends
Salesforce is usually a company's second- or third-largest software line — and the only large one with no owner who reports on its return. Engineering justifies infra spend. Marketing reports on ad spend. Salesforce renewals get signed on inertia.
What Salesforce is actually for
Strip the platform language and Salesforce earns its cost exactly three ways: a forecast you'd defend to investors, faster revenue motion, and decision-grade records. Every field, automation, and add-on is overhead unless it serves one of those three.
The full guide covers the five leaks (unused licenses, dirty pipeline masquerading as coverage, manual work the platform should be doing, unscoped consulting spend, and enterprise-priced AI), the five questions that surface all of them in one meeting, and the healthy-vs-leaking benchmark table for 10–300-person companies…