Salesforce.com Announces New Industries Strategy

BOSTON, April 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the world's #1 CRM platform, today announced a new industries strategy aimed at accelerating the company's growth and transforming the way companies across key industries connect with their customers. Led by Vivek Kundra, EVP of Industries, salesforce.com's new Industries Business Unit is delivering social, mobile and connected cloud solutions for six global industries—financial services/insurance, health care/life sciences, retail/consumer products, communications/media, public sector and automotive/manufacturing. Salesforce.com's strategy includes growing a team of industry experts, developing an ecosystem of preferred partners and creating transformational solutions that leverage the power of the trusted Salesforce1 Platform to address the major challenges for each sector.

Comments on the News

• "As we look to grow to $10 billion and beyond, our new industries strategy is a huge opportunity for salesforce.com to expand our footprint within existing customers and reach new enterprise customers," said Keith Block, president and vice chairman, salesforce.com. "Companies across all industries are turning to salesforce.com to help them transform their business models and connect with their customers in new ways."
• "Entire industries are seeing the power of social, mobile and connected cloud technologies up-end decades-long business models. This is no small disruption; it's a complete re-imagination of industries," said Vivek Kundra, EVP of Industries, salesforce.com. "We've only just begun to see the transformational power of the Salesforce1 Platform and the innovative, scalable industry solutions that we are delivering with our ecosystem of partners."

Industry Solutions for the Internet of Customers
The world is becoming completely connected. Every day, millions of new products, apps and devices—from every industry—are connecting to the Internet. By 2020, there will be more than 50 billion connected things, from smartphones and wearable smart devices to jet engines and cars. And behind every product, every app and every device there is a customer. It is the Internet of Customers, and customer relationship management has never been more important.

With the Salesforce1 customer platform, companies across every industry are transforming their sales, service and marketing apps for the Internet of Customers. The Salesforce1 platform allows companies to rapidly implement new solutions, and eliminate the costly operational expenses required with legacy on-premise software solutions.

Initially, salesforce.com and its ecosystem of partners are focused on delivering innovative solutions for six industries:

• Financial Services/Insurance: Salesforce.com's solutions enable financial institutions to move beyond today's transactional relationships with customers and identify opportunities to build lasting trust through personalized engagement.
• Health Care/Life Sciences: Salesforce.com enables payers, providers and life science companies to connect with patients and providers wherever they are to improve the patient experience, outcomes and cost.
• Retail/Consumer Products: With salesforce.com, retailers and consumer brands can accelerate brand loyalty and engagement by meeting customers wherever and however they want to shop. This connected and integrated approach across channels and locations will unlock new business opportunities and transform the shopping experience.
• Communications/Media: Salesforce.com solutions enable communications providers to take advantage of social, mobile and connected cloud technologies to give their teams instant access to the information they need and create a connected experience for every customer, across every product and every channel—from networks to devices to content.
• Public Sector: Salesforce.com delivers the mobile, social and connected cloud solutions that enable state, local and federal government agencies to create a 21^st century government experience for citizens. Using Salesforce, governments are inventing new ways to engage and empower citizens and employees without large up-front investments in IT infrastructure.
• Automotive/Manufacturing: Automotive companies and manufacturers are not just searching for ways to reduce costs and increase production; they are looking to connect with customers in new ways by creating direct relationships with dealer networks and consumers. Salesforce.com solutions are allowing companies to integrate customer feedback into each step of the marketing, sales, design and manufacturing process.

Proven Leaders Drive Industry Innovation
Salesforce.com continues to grow its team of global experts with deep experience driving transformational technologies to lead their respective industries:

• Andy Baer, Head of Communications/Media: As the former CIO for Comcast Cable, Baer brings more than 30 years of experience in the communications/media industry.
• Shelley Bransten, Head of Retail/Consumer Products: Bransten brings more than 20 years of experience in retail, most recently as Vice President of CRM Marketing for Gap, Inc.
• Patrick Pelata, Head of Automotive: As the former COO of Renault, previously Board Member and EVP of Nissan, Pelata brings 28 years of automotive leadership.
• Todd Pierce, Head of Health Care/Life Sciences: As the former CIO at Genentech and global head of Pharma IT & Group Infrastructure for Roche, Pierce brings more than 20 years of managing disruptive technologies for the health care industry.

Salesforce1— the Customer Platform to Deliver Innovation for Every Industry
Salesforce1 is the first CRM platform for developers, ISVs, end users, admins and customers moving to the new social, mobile and connected cloud. Salesforce1 was built to transform the world's #1 sales, service and marketing apps, supercharge existing Salesforce custom apps and to enable the next generation of custom mobile apps built on a completely new set of APIs. Now sales reps are empowered to sell from anywhere, on any device. Every service agent can now deliver service everywhere to solve cases faster and leverage the more than 2,000 apps available on the AppExchange. And now every marketer will have the full power of social insights and dashboards within the Salesforce1 Mobile App to deliver 1:1 marketing.

Leveraging the Salesforce1 Platform, ISVs and SI partners are building new industry-specific apps that help enterprises manage their business in the cloud.

Additional Information

• For more information on salesforce.com's Industries, please visit http://salesforce.com/industries 
• Explore industry-specific partner solutions on the Salesforce AppExchange: http://appexchange.salesforce.com 
• Follow @salesforce on Twitter: http://twitter.com/salesforce 
• Like salesforce.com on Facebook: http://facebook.com/salesforce 

About salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is the world's largest provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software. For more information about salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information please visit http://salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

"Safe harbor" statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release contains forward-looking statements. The achievement or success of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements involves risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, the company's results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. Further information on factors that could affect the company's results is included in the reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K and in other filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including the company's most recent Form 10-K. These documents are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of the company's website at www.salesforce.com/investor.

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SOURCE salesforce.com