Salesforce is a CRM powerhouse that specializes in offering customers an end-to-end, cloud-based software solution. Being the #1 CRM solution in the world, Salesforce is constantly innovating and growing to provide their customers with the best possible product. You can read about some of those innovate ideas here, in our 2016 Salesforce recap.
Salesforce Acquisitions
HeyWire
Acquired: September 7, 2016
Amount: Undisclosed
HeyWire is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and specializes in a product called LiveText. LiveText, now named Salesforce LiveMessage, is a conversational messaging channel for the Salesforce Service Cloud. HeyWire provides customers and businesses with another avenue for communication, enabling texts to and from existing 1-800 and other business phone numbers. Supporting both SMS and other popular communication formats, Salesforce LiveMessage can be initiated by either the customer or the business.
Krux
Acquired: October 3, 2016
Amount: $700M in Cash & Stock
Krux is located in San Francisco, California – also home to Salesforce Corporate. Krux’s Data Management Platform (DMP), Intelligent Marketing Hub, captures customer information from multiple sources and analyzes that data to better understand the customer as a whole. Once individual customer information is analyzed, Intelligent Marketing Hub then acts on that information to create customized experiences. Customer information is collected over desktop, mobile, web, social, and many more mediums to aid in compiling the most complete data possible. For more information about Krux, click here.
Releases
Spring and Summer Salesforce releases are typically the smaller of the three yearly feature releases – Spring, Summer and Winter. The releases always come out the season before their name. For example, Spring release is in February and Summer release comes out in June. Winter releases are always named for the next year (Ex. Winter 17 came out this year) and are released in October.
This year, the Spring, Summer and Winter releases all focused on improving the Lightning Experience for Salesforce users. Each release added increased functionality and improved user-friendliness. Click here to see our blog, “What’s New with Salesforce Winter ’17 Release.”
Salesforce Events
Dreamforce 2016, once again, didn’t disappoint. Dreamforce is an annual user conference hosted by Salesforce in downtown San Francisco bringing together thousands of IT professionals. With over 170,000 people in attendance this year, Dreamforce has become one of the largest tech conferences in the world. Here are a few take-a-ways from the event for those of you who were unable to attend or didn’t have time to see all that Dreamforce 2016 had to offer.
The Trailhead Zone
Salesforce offers admins, users and developers the opportunity to learn and grow in a fun and interactive way through their Salesforce Trailhead learning community. Through Trailhead, you can earn badges as you complete the various educational trails. At Dreamforce 2016, the Trailhead Zone had a camping theme and allowed Dreamforce attendees the opportunity to complete challenges and earn awards while meeting and mingling with fellow Salesforce users.
Dreampitch
Dreampitch was a new idea for Dreamforce 2016. Anyone familiar with the TV show Shark Tank will probably understand the Dreampitch concept. With a panel of four successful business leaders as judges – Mark Cuban, Chris Sacca, Will.i.am, and Sharzad Rafati – Dreampitch at Dreamforce 2016 allowed three Dreampitch finalists to pitch their startup company idea for the Salesforce App Cloud. According to the Dreampitch site, the three finalists received travel accommodations and two full passes to Dreamforce, a booth in the Startup Valley at Dreamforce, a chance to receive up to $150K in investments, VIP membership in the company’s global startup program and $10,000 in legal services to fuel their startup’s growth.
My Salesforce1
My Saleforce1 is a rebranded version of the existing mobile app Salesforce1. According to Dreamforce presentations, My Salesforce1 now allows companies to customize and brand the app to be listed on various app stores. The logic behind this rebranding is that employees of that company will be able to find the app quickly and easily which will the promote increased user adoption throughout the company.
We hope this blog provided you with a quick 2016 Salesforce recap. For more information on how you can become a Salesforce customer and have access to all the perks listed above, give us a call today at 614-212-1111 or fill out the form below.
