“Do I need Salesforce, Rootstock, or both?” It's one of the most common questions we hear from manufacturers evaluating their technology stack. The short answer: it depends on your business model. The longer answer requires understanding what each platform does best.
What Salesforce Does Best
Salesforce is the world's leading CRM platform. It excels at managing customer relationships, sales pipelines, marketing campaigns, and service cases. For manufacturers, Salesforce provides:
- 360-degree customer view — Every interaction, quote, order, and support ticket in one place
- Sales pipeline management — Track opportunities from lead to close with AI-powered forecasting
- Einstein AI — Automated lead scoring, email drafting, and next-best-action recommendations
- Agentforce — Autonomous AI agents that handle routine sales and service tasks 24/7
What Rootstock Does Best
Rootstock is a cloud ERP built 100% on the Salesforce platform, specifically designed for manufacturers and distributors. It handles:
- Inventory management — Real-time visibility across multiple warehouses with lot and serial tracking
- Production planning — MRP, work orders, shop floor control, and BOM management
- Supply chain — Procurement, vendor management, and demand forecasting
- Order fulfillment — Quote-to-cash automation with shipping and invoicing
When You Only Need Salesforce
If your business is primarily service-based or you already have a solid ERP system, Salesforce alone might be sufficient. Consider Salesforce-only if:
- You're a professional services firm, SaaS company, or non-manufacturing business
- Your existing ERP handles manufacturing well and integrates with Salesforce
- Your primary pain point is sales pipeline visibility, not production management
When You Only Need Rootstock
In rare cases, manufacturers might start with Rootstock alone, especially if:
- You have a very small sales team or sell through distributors
- Your immediate pain is production and inventory, not CRM
- Budget constraints require a phased approach (though you'll likely add Salesforce later)
When You Need Both (Most Manufacturers)
For most manufacturers, the real power comes from running both platforms together. Here's why:
The Integration Advantage
Because Rootstock is built natively on Salesforce, the two platforms share a single data model. When a sales rep closes an opportunity in Salesforce, it can automatically create a sales order in Rootstock. When production ships an order, the sales rep sees it in real-time. No integration middleware, no data sync issues, no duplicate entry.
You need both Salesforce and Rootstock if:
- You're a manufacturer with a direct sales team
- You want a single source of truth across sales and operations
- Manual order entry between CRM and ERP is causing errors
- You need real-time visibility from quote to shipment
- You want AI capabilities across both sales and manufacturing
The Decision Framework
Ask yourself these questions:
- Where is your biggest pain? If it's sales visibility and customer management, start with Salesforce. If it's inventory and production, start with Rootstock.
- Do you manufacture products? If yes, you likely need ERP capabilities that basic Salesforce doesn't provide.
- How do orders flow today? If someone is manually re-entering orders from your CRM into your ERP, that's a strong signal you need an integrated solution.
- What's your growth trajectory? If you're scaling rapidly, investing in both platforms now prevents painful migrations later.
Key Takeaways
- Salesforce excels at CRM, sales, marketing, and service
- Rootstock excels at manufacturing, inventory, and supply chain
- Together, they create a unified platform from lead to shipment
- Most manufacturers benefit from running both platforms
- Native integration eliminates the data sync problems of separate systems