Free Paper Sample on Salesforce

Introduction

Salesforce Inc. is a public company (NYSE: CRM) based in San Francisco, California that offers cloud-based software solutions. It was founded in February 1999 by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Mollenhoff, Frank Dominguez, and Halsey Minor (Forbes, 2020). The company majors in customer relationship management (CRM) software services hosted and managed in their centralized cloud system. To complement the CRM product, the company offers customer service applications, business analytics, marketing automation, and software development platforms. The company has five subsidiary companies that are peripheral to the operations and production process of Salesforce. The company offered an IPO at the New York Stock Exchange in 2004, raising more than $110 million (Forbes 2020). Since then, the company has enjoyed a successful run of its operations and sustainability despite some significant hurdles.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

IT Software and Services Industry

The company is in the IT software and services industry, with a primary market focus on the United States. The company business models outline that the company makes solutions for the customers and offer them via the cloud. This business model means that the clients only gain access to the software platform for the service that they need. This model is different from other technology companies that offer software to customers in stand-alone applications hosted for the clients (Walker & Soule, 2017). There advantages that come with cloud-based enterprises that other models do not provide. However, some limitations are present in this model that is not available in conventional models. The cloud-based software solution is a relatively new model in the technology companies that are being aided by advancements in technology both in the web development and the information technology industries.

Salesforce is a hub for suitable investments since it was founded. In its 21 years of operations, the company has gained significant financial success in the local and international markets. Salesforce investors have been handsomely rewarded for their investment in the last decade. Since 2010, the Salesforce total return for the investment value increased by more than 250%of the value (Hagström & Backström, 2017). This good performance of the company enabled it to be listed as an S&P 100 and DJIA component. Under the guidance and management of Marc Benioff (Chairman and CEO), the company has been able to make sound financial decisions that have boosted both the investors' value, and the company retained revenue.

Identity Pointer

Human resource management and satisfaction is another identity pointer for Salesforce Inc's performance. The company has been cited by several workplace evaluation programs as one of the best workplaces to work. The company has invested many resources and time to ensure that their employees are comfortable and happy while working. According to Parker Harris (one of the co-founders), pointed out that the investment made by the company towards employees' comfort has been a crucial factor in the company's success. The employees are motivated not only by the elaborate external rewarding system by the HR but also by the conducive environment in the working areas. Salesforce was listed in the Fortune Magazine sixth in the 'Top 100 companies to work for' category.

This project aims at conducting a General Strategic Review (GSR) of Salesforce company to come up with a recommendation to improve the company's value to the shareholders. Being a public company, Salesforce has a standardized accounting way and an obligation to release its financial performance and position every fiscal period. Since Salesforce is publicly traded, these reports inadvertently recommend strategies to introduce or improve to be more pleasant to current and potential investors in the company using shares. Tweaking the various components of the company's production system influences the quality and quantity of the final products. If the tweaking is done to improve the quality and quantity of the final products, which matches the market demand, more sales are made, which translates to more revenue. More revenue for the company leads to more profit and an increase in shareholder value.

Products and Services

The management of Salesforce Inc. has immersed the company into the modern technology industry by incorporating market-driven products and services. Helping other businesses, companies, and organizations optimize customer experience and satisfaction using software services was the company's primary theme when it was founded. Developing the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) services platform was thus a prerequisite for the company to kickstart their business venture. The company launched its domain through which the CRM services would be offered to its customer: Salesforce.com.

The company's primary enterprise product, which the company derives its name is Salesforce, which is offered on its domain. This product allows companies to interface with their customer-related services like case management, automatic routing, and task management (Amoako & Okpattah, 2018). These services are also available from the customers of the companies that use the product to help them track their cases. The customer portal also ensures that they are well linked to the companies' social networking sites. The social networking plug-in on the Salesforce customer's online platform acts as a marketing tool for the site since they can easily link with social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, among others.

The lightning platform is another product that is offered by Salesforce under the market name of Force.com. The platform is a PaaS (Platform as a Service) that allows corporate and individual third-party software developers to develop and integrate adds-on using an open-source Aura Framework. The applications are developed using a java proprietary programming language called Lightning. The force.com was reported to have more than 1.4 million developers by 2013 who were actively developing components on the Lightning Base (Amoako & Okpattah, 2018).

Another product offered by Salesforce is a community cloud, which enables the customers of the company to develop web frameworks that can be used to collaborate with other parties. The product offers customed portals that can channel sales and organize other operations of the company. Other peripheral platforms provided by Salesforce include work.com, which is a social tool that is used to boost a company's work output through continuous coaching.

Value Proposition

Blaze your Trail! Salesforce Inc. guarantees a personalized experience for their client's customers using the Salesforce Customer 360 (Cohen & Neubert, 2018). The platform offers a robust tool connected to marketing, e-commerce, IT, and many others. The company's value proposition is achieved by various products and services provided by the company in its B2B model of operations. The company is further coupled by a conducive work environment and culture, which are a significant internal factor to consider.

Operational Design

Salesforce's domestic operations are structured to operate from its headquarters in San Francisco, where all the major activities are carried out. The Salesforce tower acts as the administrative focal point for all the branches and subsidiary companies. The company does not have any direct links to the international market. Instead, its clients who venture into the global market are responsible for distributing their service throughout the world.

After the company was started in 1999, the next important event that happened to the company is the offering of IPO and going public in 2004. Just a few years later, the world market crashed in 2008, affecting the company negatively. In 2012 the company embarked on a spending spree where it acquired subsidiary companies that would help the technology company grow and expand its operations. Other significant milestones that have been achieved by the company are product launch events that are often eagerly waited for several years. An eventful experience by the company also marks project breakeven points.

The company's net income as of the year 2020 was US$126.0 million after realizing a total revenue of US$17.1 billion in the same year. The revenue was realized after the sale of its products and services to other business enterprises using their assets valued at US$55.13 billion. The total equity pumped into the business by the investors, lenders, and shareholders stood at US$33.89 billion. The revenue generated was courtesy of the 49000 workers on the payroll of the technology giant company (Davis, 2019).

Market Characteristics

The market of software products and services, both locally and internationally, is rising due to the rapidly improving technology in almost every sector. Many conventional solutions to problems in the workplace, home, schools, governments, and many others are now being offered more conveniently by software solutions. The Customer Relationship Management platform offered by Salesforce is a software solution to the cumbersome job of company management to ensure that all the aspects of customer satisfaction are operated optimally. The industry has a high growth rate, and hence any company that can grab the opportunity will make high profits and become very sustainable.

The digital age is slowly experiencing a facelift from human reliance on artificial intelligence (AI), where computer systems can be making decisions based on some foreseeable outcome. The AI age has also made other trends possible, like IoT and Machine learning, powerful tools in the technology industry. The industry is in the exponential growth stage in the growth cycle, with no signs of stagnation any time soon.

Conclusion

The Salesforce company operates in an industry that has a lot of competition in the market. The advancement of technology in software development has made it possible for new business enterprises to get on board the market and close a market gap. When a new company joins the market, it is both flexible and resourceful to handle contemporary problems. This shows that if the already established companies do not align with the customer needs, they can replace the already established entities. The more established companies have to continually adapt to the dynamics of the market to remain competitive. Cloud computing in the technology industry is a modern service that is offered by a few companies. The few companies that offer it have a well-established marketing capability that catapults the company ahead.