Reporting from Dreamforce, Quinton Pienaar says that, as expected, Marc Benioff’s keynote address was packed with announcements.
Kicking off, Benioff said that Salesforce’s growth will continue with the company reporting its first quarter (2014) to generate more than $1-billion in revenue, and predicting that FY 2015 will be over $5-billion.
Over the years, business moved from being personal and more intimate, into a production age where we were all cogs in a bigger machine and as a result, personal relationships with customers were lost. Today, Benioff says that customers want personal relationships again.
They want you to know who they are, what they like and dislike. But to do this successfully, you must know your customer’s sales history and exactly how you have assisted them across all channels. It is time to create a one to one relationship again but this time, use technology and design a personalised customer journey together.
The Salesforce 1 (SF1) platform announcement introduced some exciting new features. It has 10x the API integrations allowing customers to integrate and develop more solutions. The SF1 mobile app now supports VisualForce and all customer objects and applications are available on an iPad.
All Web functionality is reproduced on the mobile app and is another strong indication that Salesforce’s is fully commitment to the mobile platform.
Customers can brand SF1 and make the application look and feel like a custom-built branded application. You can also launch marketplace applications and services from the SF1 mobile application.
* Quinton Pienaar is the CEO of African Salesforce.com reseller Agilitude. Dreamforce is the premier event on the Saleforce.com annual calendar, with 100 000 delegates. Follow Pienaar on Twitter @agilitude, read his blog www.buildingagilecultures.com.