Salesforce's Roadmap to Recovery: Insights From CEO Marc Benioff and COO Br Taylor

Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor, co-CEOs of Salesforce, led investors through their company's experience during the pandemic, providing key takeaways that all businesses could implement to survive and thrive. Salesforce stands out with their services by ensuring effective disaster recovery solutions for their client data in case of external intrusions and system failure. They do this by always having a team available to monitor clients' information. 1. Invest in Your People Salesforce was founded by Marc Benioff, an innovative tech entrepreneur, billionaire, and philanthropist who pioneered an innovative new way of selling software - hosting it online rather than installing it onto client systems - in 1999. Over time the firm expanded from CRM sales software to marketing, e-commerce, data analytics services, becoming one of the world's premier cloud providers. Einstein AI software tools from Salesforce help salespeople make better decisions, while their Workplace platform promotes collaboration and productivity for all employees. Furthermore, Salesforce is strongly committed to equality and diversity initiatives such as GLAAD and Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative's recognition for Benioff's efforts regarding LGBT rights. Although Salesforce's revenue growth is slowing, there are still numerous levers it can pull to boost it. Their new Einstein AI software tools should improve salespeople's efficiency and effectiveness by helping identify which leads are more likely to convert to customers; also their Workplace platform allows teams from around the globe to collaborate and share information more effectively than ever before. At its investor day in 2023, the company took steps to reduce costs and shore up its balance sheet by disbanding its acquisition panel and setting an organic revenue growth goal of 19% from 20%. Salesforce Ventures and Corporate Development leader John Somorjai have also expanded their investment team over time; direct listing and special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) offerings allow investors to purchase shares at market price rather than receiving discounted shares through initial public offerings (IPO). Over two years alone, John has more than doubled his team. Salesforce can bring many advantages to businesses of all sizes, as its products can be tailored specifically for industry needs. IKEA uses Salesforce to digitalize its customer service processes and create an engaging customer journey that fulfills its promise of open and honest interaction with its customers. 2. Invest in Your Platform Salesforce is one of the most advanced business management tools available today, enabling businesses to manage everything from sales pipelines and customer relationships. Unfortunately, many teams struggle to take full advantage of it. Salesforce provides an extensive library of resources to assist companies in using its platform effectively, with training programs and webinars covering data integration, automation and sales processes. Furthermore, their DevOps tools and platform help streamline development cycles so companies can spend less time doing manual tasks and more time thinking creatively about innovation. Salesforce's platform can also be an essential investment for businesses looking to safeguard their data. With effective disaster recovery approaches that ensure data can be recovered within minutes in case of hardware failure or system crash, backup services and encrypted sensitive information storage, Salesforce provides comprehensive protection. Having a solid disaster recovery plan in place ensures business continuity. One way to increase Salesforce adoption is to encourage employees to incorporate it into their everyday workflows. For instance, use Salesforce Sales Cloud to manage the sales process while automating repetitive tasks via third-party applications like DocuSign for electronic signatures or QuickBooks for financial reports. Create a culture of Salesforce adoption by encouraging employees to participate in networking opportunities and share best practices amongst users, giving them ownership over the platform and encouraging them to use it more frequently. Finally, another effective way to increase Salesforce adoption is through seeking feedback. Salesforce provides various means for this, including user committees and surveys; this will allow you to identify roadblocks to adoption and seek solutions. Salesforce is an impressive enterprise software provider that serves a range of industries. Their marketing, sales, service, e-commerce and cloud platform software is utilized by healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, consumer goods and nonprofit organizations - while their customer success and innovation platforms benefit companies of all sizes. Their success has propelled Salesforce into being the sixth-largest software company globally - alongside SAP, VMWare Oracle and Microsoft among many others. 3. Invest in Your Data When businesses experience accidental data loss or corruption, recovering lost files can be both expensive and time consuming. Sometimes this process even requires hiring an entire team of Salesforce administrators just to restore lost information. Salesforce was first founded in a San Francisco apartment in 1999 and today stands as one of the leading customer relationship management (CRM) solutions providers worldwide. Their technology helps companies connect with both customers and employees across all channels - while their cloud platform and ecosystem of partner applications offer solutions for CRM, customer service, sales, marketing, commerce and beyond. Philanthropic initiatives of the company encompass healthcare, ocean conservation and public education. Through the generosity of their gifts to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in both San Francisco and Oakland and Stanford Microbiome Therapy Initiative. As of March 2020, Salesforce had raised over $284 billion for nonprofit organizations and educational institutions worldwide. Their work in the United States supported various programs focused on community health, mental wellbeing, arts, culture and more. Salesforce has also made significant strides in their data and analytics capabilities, with their platform now capable of handling large volumes of structured and unstructured data simultaneously, helping companies make smarter decisions about investments and strategies. Einstein artificial intelligence software from IBM helps businesses detect patterns in data and predict future trends based on past behavior, making their marketing campaigns more effective, improving customer experiences, and ultimately driving up revenues. Cloud storage for this platform is fast and secure, helping to reduce operational costs while providing comprehensive views of customers through integrations with third-party data sources and partners. Furthermore, its self-service analytics and visualization tools offer users a range of ways to visualize and analyze data. Salesforce's multi-layered approach to storing all its clients' pertinent data can be an immense advantage in times of disaster or total system failures. Furthermore, Salesforce regularly conducts disaster recovery tests with clients, which helps confirm projected recovery timelines and relay all recovered information back using encrypted links for maximum security. 4. Invest in Your Business Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff insists every company must embrace new ways to run their business, from customer relationships and sales operations to back office functions and investing in software and technology. Benioff explained in an interview with CNBC: "We're all trying to do something different; therefore, our processes need to change; which may cause some disruption." Salesforce encourages its customers to invest in their businesses by providing seed money through Salesforce Ventures investment arm. This fund has supported start-ups like Auth0 and nCino that went public last year. These investments produced collective gains of $1.7 billion according to Salesforce's fourth quarter earnings report on Feb 25 - 78% of their total revenue increase was driven by these investments alone! John Somorjai, Chief of Salesforce Ventures, claims their pitch to start-ups has never been more compelling. Over the last two years, they have nearly doubled their staff from six people to 15 individuals to keep pace with a surge in start-up funding requests and make use of their deep knowledge of Salesforce's many customers to assist portfolio companies access these important clients easier. ReachOut, which Salesforce purchased for $10 million in 2022, allows salespeople to send personalized email messages directly to prospective buyers and has since gained 250,000 users. ReachOut is just one of several tools provided to Salesforce customers to improve their sales process. Salesforce is known for investing heavily in its own software while also making strategic acquisitions of high-priced cloud startups. Their acquisition of Demandware for $4.6 billion led them to create the "Commerce Cloud", while purchasing productivity software startup Quip kicked off their AI ("artificial intelligence") cloud products. Salesforce remains market leader despite an abrupt selloff this year, and any recovery of its stock could depend on whether or not they can fend off competitive pressure from other CRM providers, and capitalize on increasing corporate spending on digital transformation projects.