Salesforce Inc. is a supplier of cloud-based software with its main office in San Francisco, California. It offers customer relationship management (CRM) software and apps that emphasize sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, and application development.
Salesforce Inc: Bio
Salesforce is one of the first and most well-known cloud-based customer relationship management platforms. Several CRM tools for sales, service, marketing, commerce, sustainability, safety, and experiences are offered by the software service provider.
Salesforce provides custom packages for companies of all sizes in addition to a range of need-based software solutions to integrate marketing, sales, commerce, service, and IT teams with a unified solution for every stage of their customer journey.
Marc Benioff, a senior executive at Oracle, co-founded Salesforce, which eventually became one of the biggest businesses in the world.
By the fiscal year 2009, Salesforce became the first cloud computing business to generate $1 billion in yearly sales, and by 2022 it became the largest enterprise software company in the world.
Salesforce Inc: History
Salesforce was established as a service business in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, David Moellnhoff, and Frank Dominguez.
The dot-com bubble burst at the start of the new century impacted Salesforce, which had to lay off 20% of its workers. Despite its setbacks, Salesforce remained successful throughout the early 2000s. Salesforce also rose to prominence during this time.
From 2000 to 2003, Salesforce’s income grew steadily, rising from $5.4 million in the fiscal year 2001 to over $100 million by December 2003. Salesforce also hosted its inaugural Dreamforce conference in San Francisco in 2003.
The company raised $110 million through its initial public offering in June 2004 on the New York Stock Exchange using the ticker CRM. Salesforce introduced IdeaExchange in 2006 as a platform for connecting customers and corporate managers.
Salesforce annual revenue surpassed $1 billion in 2009. Furthermore, in 2009, the business introduced Service Clou, a tool for managing customer support interactions about products and services.
A free learning platform named Trailhead was established by the company in 2014. Einstein, an artificial intelligence platform that powers several of Salesforce’s cloud services, was introduced in September 2016. By replacing oil colossus and Standard Oil descendant ExxonMobil, Salesforce joined the Dow Jones Industrial average in 2019.
It was announced that Salesforce would buy Slack for $27.7 billion in December 2020, making it the company’s most expensive acquisition to date. The acquisition of Salesforce over Slack was completed in July 2021.
In September 2022, Salesforce declared a collaboration with Meta platforms. According to the agreement, Salesforce’s customer 360 platforms would be integrated with Meta’s consumer software WhatsApp to let users engage with businesses directly.
The company announced a 10% reduction in staff or nearly 8,000 positions in January 2023. They claim that amid the COVID-19 outbreak and the rise in telecommuting, the company employed too quickly. Following the reorganization strategy, Salesforce will also downsize its office space.
Salesforce. Inc: Key People
Salesforce has been a successful business since its beginning. There is a huge effort and hard work of many people behind this success. As we mentioned earlier, the corporation was founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez.
A pioneer of cloud computing, Marc Benioff is the chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Salesforce. Salesforce became one of the world’s fastest-growing enterprise software companies and the world’s top provider of customer relationship management software under Benioff’s direction.
Parker Harris serves as one of the company’s Board of Directors whereas Dave Moellenhoff serves as the Chief Technology Officer at Salesforce. Frank Dominguez supposedly left the company in 2009.
Besides the founders of Salesforce, Alex Dayon serves as the companies Chairman of the Advisory Board, Amy Weaver is the President and Chief Financial Officer, Brent Hyder is the President and Chief People Officer, and Alan Hassenfeld, Neelie Kroes, Sanford Robertson, Susan Wojcicki, and Maynard Webb are a few of its board members.
Salesforce. Inc: Services
Salesforce services included several customer relationship technologies including the Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, App Cloud, AppExchange, Salesforce Platform, Salesforce+, and Trailhead.
- Sales Cloud
One of Salesforce’s most important and popular services is the sales cloud. It is a CRM platform that enables you to control the sales, marketing, and customer service aspects of your business.
- Service Cloud
This is a service platform for your company’s support team. It offers options such as case tracking and a social networking plug-in.
- Marketing Cloud
When it comes to operating a business, marketing is an essential tool. With the assistance of a tracking system, the marketing cloud enables you to handle campaigns, emails, messages, social media, content management, data analytics, etc.
- App Cloud
This service allows you to create unique apps that work on the Salesforce platform.
- Salesforce Platform
A platform as a service called Salesforce Platform enables developers to build add-on applications that interface with the main Salesforce.com application.
- AppExchange
Appexchange is an online application marketplace that links customers with consulting services and third-party apps. It was introduced in 2005 and has approximately 5,000 apps listed as of 2022.
- Trailhead
Trailhead is a free online learning program obtaining Salesforce technology-specific courses introduced in 2014.
- Salesforce+
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, Salesforce introduced a streaming service called Saleforce+. The service includes unique content created by the business with the participation of its clients, ranging from CEO interviews to days in the life of smaller business owners.
Also Read:- e2open: All About Cloud-Based Supply Chain Software
Salesforce. Inc: Subsidiaries
The Salesforce subsidiaries run independently on the behalf of their parent firm. A subsidiary functions as a distinct, legally recognized entity. The following are a few of the subsidiaries of Salesforce:
- Pardot
- Tableau Software
- Slack Technologies
- MuleSoft
- Heroku
- Demandware. Inc.
- SalesforceIQ
Salesforce. Inc: Controversies and Legal Issues
A phishing scam leaked the contact information of some Salesforce customers in November 2007. Then, some clients received phishing emails that looked like Salesforce bills.
Because of Salesforce’s agreements with the US Customs and Border Protection, the non-profit organization Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services declined a significant amount of donations from Salesforce.
Salesforce was one of 91 businesses that paid an effective federal tax rate of 0% or less in 2018 as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Salesforce was sued in March 2019 by 50 unnamed women who claimed to be rape, abuse, and sex trafficking victims and survivors. According to the lawsuit, the business benefited from and assisted in developing technology that made sex trafficking possible on the website Backpage.com.
According to Japanese legal media, a former employee filed a discrimination lawsuit against Salesforce in Japan in July 2021, at a time when the company has been openly criticized for its commitment to equality.
In the lawsuit, it was claimed that the victim experienced hate speech, microaggressions, and rejection of reasonable accommodation from the manager while working at Salesforce from 2018 to 2020.
Read More:- OnePiece Labs And Upland Confirm Joint Mission To Foster Web3 Ecosystem
