The Descartes Systems Group (NASDAQ:DSGX) versus Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Head-To-Head Analysis

The Descartes Systems Group (NASDAQ:DSGX) and Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, valuation, risk, institutional ownership, profitability and dividends.

Risk & Volatility

The Descartes Systems Group has a beta of 0.77, meaning that its stock price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Salesforce has a beta of 1.19, meaning that its stock price is 19% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

77.7% of The Descartes Systems Group shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.4% of Salesforce shares are held by institutional investors. 0.3% of The Descartes Systems Group shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.0% of Salesforce shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares The Descartes Systems Group and Salesforce’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
The Descartes Systems Group	21.64%	10.41%	8.81%
Salesforce	16.87%	13.27%	8.21%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for The Descartes Systems Group and Salesforce, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
The Descartes Systems Group	0	5	6	1	2.67
Salesforce	1	13	25	0	2.62

The Descartes Systems Group currently has a consensus price target of $121.80, suggesting a potential upside of 26.11%. Salesforce has a consensus price target of $325.23, suggesting a potential upside of 27.84%. Given Salesforce’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Salesforce is more favorable than The Descartes Systems Group.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares The Descartes Systems Group and Salesforce”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
The Descartes Systems Group	$651.00 million	12.75	$143.27 million	$1.69	57.15
Salesforce	$37.90 billion	6.39	$6.20 billion	$6.88	36.98

Salesforce has higher revenue and earnings than The Descartes Systems Group. Salesforce is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than The Descartes Systems Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Salesforce beats The Descartes Systems Group on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About The Descartes Systems Group

The Descartes Systems Group Inc. provides cloud-based logistics and supply chain management solutions worldwide. Its Logistics Technology platform offers a range of modular, interoperable web and wireless logistics management solutions. The company provides a suite of solutions that include routing, mobile, and telematics; transportation management; ecommerce, shipping, and fulfillment; customs and regulatory compliance; global trade intelligence; broker and forwarder enterprise systems; and B2B messaging and connectivity services. It also offers its customers to use its modular, software-as-a-service, and data solutions to route, schedule, track, and measure delivery resources; plan, allocate, and execute shipments; rate, audit, and pay transportation invoices; access and analyze global trade data; research and perform trade tariff and duty calculations; file customs and security documents for imports and exports; and various other logistics processes. In addition, the company provides consulting, implementation, and training services, as well as maintenance and support services. It serves transportation providers, such as air, ocean, and truck modes; logistics service providers, including third-party logistics providers, freight forwarders, and customs brokers; and distribution-intensive companies, such as manufacturers, retailers, distributors, and mobile business service providers through subscription, transactional or perpetual license basis. The Descartes Systems Group Inc. was incorporated in 1981 and is headquartered in Waterloo, Canada.

About Salesforce

Salesforce, Inc. provides Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology that brings companies and customers together worldwide. The company's service includes sales to store data, monitor leads and progress, forecast opportunities, gain insights through analytics and artificial intelligence, and deliver quotes, contracts, and invoices; and service that enables companies to deliver trusted and highly personalized customer support at scale. In addition, its platform offering comprise a flexible platform that enables companies of various sizes, locations, and industries to build business workflow and apps with customer; online learning platform that allows anyone to learn in-demand Salesforce skills; and Slack, an intelligent productivity platform. The company's marketing services enables companies to plan, personalize, automate, and optimize customer marketing journey, connecting interaction, and connected products; and commerce services, which empowers shopping experience across various customer touchpoint, such as mobile, web, social, and stores and provides click-to-code tools that offers customers to build and deploy solutions. Further, its analytics offering includes Tableau, an end-to-end analytics solution for range of enterprise use cases and intelligent analytics with AI models, spot trends, predict outcomes, creates summaries, timely recommendations, and take action from any device; and integration service including MuleSoft, which provides building blocks to deliver end-to-end and connected experiences. Additionally, the company provides data cloud, a hyperscale data engine native to Salesforce; vertical services to meet the needs of customers in industries, such as financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing and automotive and government; and offers salesforce starter for small and medium-sized businesses. Salesforce, Inc. was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.