We evaluated Salesforce, Appian, Pega, ServiceNow, Remedy, and we ended up selecting ServiceNow and Salesforce.

We selected Salesforce over Pega as we were able to consolidate everything on it. Then we selected ServiceNow for the IT side of it.

Someone from the higher management was involved in the evaluation process.

I used the Salesforce Platform in my previous company, then in my current company, I've been using HubSpot, and I prefer Salesforce over HubSpot because the Salesforce Platform gives you more control. It's easier to manage opportunities with the Salesforce Platform, even if you have a holding company with multiple companies, especially in the enterprise version as it gives you a more economic group view.

We did evaluate a few other options before ultimately choosing Salesforce. Among these was Microsoft.

I've used Goldmine Software, SEIBEL, Oracle, and Symantec Compass. 

We did evaluate one solution, however, Salesforce is the best when it comes to marketing.

We don't plan to replace Salesforce but we're looking at other ERP solutions to integrate with Salesforce. 

Yes, we also looked at RightNow Technologies, which was later bought by Oracle. We actually used RightNow and Oracle CRM, so we had experience with both.

We are exploring multiple different tools at this point.

Within our company, we haven't developed automation practice so far, which is the reason why I have been doing research to identify the most suitable tool exclusively for Salesforce functional automation.

Not at this company but in previous companies yes.   One declined Salesforce because it was not easy to get out of should they need to change their mind, and they were penny pinchers to a fault, so it was best they did that as I had issues with data loss in past when leaving Salesforce and going to a new CRM.  

I wasn't the project manager at the time the solution was chosen, and therefore I don't know if there were other options that were considered before ultimately choosing this product.

I have evaluated HubSpot and it does 85% of the functionality of the Salesforce Platform.

We didn't evaluated any system at that time. But after Salesforce got implemented, we tried evaluating other systems as well

Yes, we considered building in-house, Sage CRM, Oracle CRM.