Salesforce.com is positioning its new Salesforce1 platform as a means for companies to closely engage with their customers
Much has been made about the "Internet of things," but behind every device is a customer, and companies that fail to recognize this do so at their own peril, according to Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff.
The concept of B-to-C, or business-to-consumer, is old hat, Benioff said during a keynote Tuesday at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. "In the world of the Internet of customers, consumers get transformed into customers."
The difference is a deeper level of engagement between companies and organizations and the people they serve, Benioff said. He recalled a recent visit to his alma mater, the University of Southern California. "The last time I went there, my phone didn't light up with the USC fight song and say, 'Hi Marc,'" he said. "But it should have."
This is going to change, Benioff said. "In this new world, I'm going to have a one-to-one relationship with USC," he said. "The only question is, are you ready to make that change for your customers?"
C-suite gets behind digital customer engagement
How CMOs can orchestrate a total customer experience
How to achieve customer-centricity across your organisation
Salesforce.com wants its technology to sit at the center of companies' strategies as they build out these relationships. To that end, this week the vendor announced Salesforce1, a new version of its cloud-based development platform.
A key component of Salesforce1 is a new mobile application through which Salesforce.com users can get access to the company's CRM (customer relationship management), service and support software, as well as any custom applications they've built with Salesforce.com's tools and applications from third-party vendors.
"We are bringing all of your investment, all of your code, everything you've done with us into the present," Benioff said.
The mobile application is so powerful that Benioff is able to run the entire company using only his phone, he claimed.
Salesforce1 also includes 10 times as many APIs (application programming interfaces) as before, according to the company. In addition, Salesforce1 targets a broader set of application types. The original Force.com platform has now been joined by Heroku1, a version of Salesforce.com's development platform for consumer-centric applications. Heroku1 will have access into Salesforce.com data, which can be used to build applications.
Until now, Salesforce.com had kept the Heroku brand separate from Force.com since it bought the platform's namesake company in 2010. Heroku1 is set for general availability early next year.
Salesforce1 also encompasses the Fuel platform that Salesforce.com gained through this year's acquisition of marketing software vendor ExactTarget.
Still to come in the first half of 2014 is the ability for companies to customize the look and feel of Salesforce1's mobile application for their own companies. 'We know how important branding is," Benioff said.
Overall, Salesforce1 is "a massive rebranding of the Developer platform but also a launch of a major mobile effort into enterprise mobility," IDC analyst Al Hilwa said via email on Tuesday. "Enterprise mobility is happening today as companies are investing most of their new application development efforts on mobile-related projects."
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com
Our latest CMO 2022 readiness episode on the great resignation and staff motivation and leadership is now live!
Companies encounter a variety of challenges when it comes to marketing overseas. Marketing departments often don’t know much about the business and cultural context of the international audiences they are trying to reach. Sometimes they are also unsure about what kind of marketing they should be doing.
Using data is a hot topic right now. Leaders are realising data can no longer just be the responsibility of dedicated analysts or staff with ‘data’ in their title or role description.
It’s not that your agencies don’t have your best interests at heart – most of them do. But the only way to ensure they’re 100 per cent focused on your business and not growing theirs by scope creep is by setting the guard rails for healthy agency collaboration.
Focus on your customer experience not your NPS score. Fix the fucking problems and the customer support requests will go away.I currently...
Chris B
Bringing community thinking to Optus' customer service team
Nice blog!Blog is really informative , valuable.keep updating us with such amazing blogs.influencer agency in Melbourne
Rajat Kumar
Why flipping Status Quo Bias is the key to B2B marketing success
good this information are very helpful for millions of peoples customer loyalty Consultant is an important part of every business.
Tom Devid
Report: 4 ways to generate customer loyalty
Great post, thanks for sharing such a informative content.
CodeWare Limited
APAC software company brings on first VP of growth
This article highlights Gartner’s latest digital experience platforms report and how they are influencing content operations ecosystems. ...
vikram Roy
Gartner 2022 Digital Experience Platforms reveals leading vendor players