In this 4 minute video clip, watch Salesforce founder Marc Benioff share news about the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco and the dramatic revenue growth of the company. Keith Block, President & COO of Salesforce also shares just how well Salesforce is positioned for the future.
This slide that Keith shares at the 1:40 mark reveals that CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the fastest growing enterprise software category, based on projections into the year 2020.
Did you know the Salesforce's stock symbol is CRM?
Not only is Salesforce the market leader in the CRM space, Customer Relationship Management is Salesforce’s original purpose upon its inception in 1999. Did you know that Salesforce’s stock symbol is CRM?
This explosive growth explains some of the recent moves by Salesforce that I have been seeing. Noticeable to me, beyond the obvious marketing thrust behind both Einstein and Lightning are these two things:
If you go to Salesforce’s YouTube channel the video that auto-plays is What is CRM?
This video is geared directly at small business owners. The video is less than 2 minutes long, but it reveals that Salesforce sees Small Businesses as a key driver in this growth and expansion in the CRM space.
If you look at Salesforce’s Small Business Solutions page you’ll see that their core offerings are:
Common pushback from small business is that Salesforce is too expensive, or overkill for the small business owner’s needs. This will be a challenge for Salesforce as they figure out how to reach the SMB market. I’m sure Salesforce will continue to evolve to meet the needs and demands of this market space, but opportunities abound for developers and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) to create apps to fill that gap and provide realistic paths to the cloud. Here is a ISVforce Guide PDF from Salesforce on how to go about getting your own apps listed on the AppExchange. Someone has to solve this problem and build the killer app for SMB on Salesforce, so why can't that be you?
Another problem that Salesforce will face with SMB adoption is the steep learning curve that many that are new on the platform encounter. It's hard to know where to begin, and even hard to know how to customize Salesforce to meet your specific needs. Taking this mountain of customizable options that Salesforce provides and coalescing them into an actionable plan for any business can be daunting, and is one that I identify with and appreciate. This is one reason I create Salesforce Training Videos.
Keeping in mind that Fiscal year 2018 is the year of Einstein, it will be fascinating to see what inroads Salesforce is able to make in unleashing the power of Artificial Intelligence and Data Discovery in the SMB market. Salesforce Einstein Discovery is a game-changer for this space, making Artificial Intelligence and Data Science accessible to the masses with clicks instead of code. Salesforce is in the midst of another technological shift and is innovating their way into a market leading position when it comes to AI. No wonder Fiscal Year 2018 is coined the Year of Einstein!
You can learn Salesforce Einstein Discovery in my 2 hour video training course, which is half-off on my Salesforce Learning Platform.