Slaesforce FAQ

how was salesforce created

by Prof. Esteban O'Reilly Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago
image

Full Answer

Who will acquire Salesforce?

With Salesforce being such a behemoth of a company, this news doesn’t come around too often. In fact, the last rumour of Salesforce being acquired was back in 2015 when Microsoft was rumoured to offer Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, $55B, but he countered with $70B and the deal fell through.

Who should buy Salesforce?

With an expense ratio of 0.51%, the ETF provides you exposure to quality companies such as Amazon, Meta Platforms, Alphabet, PayPal, and Salesforce.com that account for a cumulative 38.4% of the fund. All the companies mentioned here are market leaders and enjoy wide economic moats.

Who can create the users in Salesforce?

Step One: Add New User

  • From Setup, enter Users in the Quick Find box, then select Users.
  • Click New User to add a single user or click Add Multiple Users to add up to 10 users at a time.
  • Enter each user’s name, email address, and a unique username in the form of an email address. ...

More items...

Why is Salesforce so expensive?

Why is Salesforce seeing so much popularity now?

  • Helps to provide customer service
  • Improves customer engagement
  • Improves remote working
  • Ties together different areas of the business
  • Helps to improve sales and business growth

See more

image

How Salesforce was created?

February 1999, CaliforniaSalesforce / Founded

How did Salesforce become so big?

Selling an easy-to-use product with a viral distribution model to an amenable market helped Salesforce achieve high capital efficiency. This allowed the company to keep investing back into their growth engine. These sales and marketing practices also fueled unusually high revenue growth.

Was Salesforce born in the cloud?

The cloud was born. In 1999, four Salesforce founders, working shoulder to shoulder in a small San Francisco apartment, launched a customer relationship management (CRM) system with a groundbreaking twist.

When did Salesforce start as a company?

1999Founded in 1999, Salesforce enables companies of every size and industry to take advantage of powerful technologies — cloud, mobile, social, blockchain, voice, and artificial intelligence — to connect to their customers in a whole new way.

Why is Salesforce so successful?

One of the reasons that Salesforce is so popular is that it is packed with features like no other CRM software; features such as contact management, workflow creation, task management, opportunity tracking, collaboration tools, customer engagement tools, analytics and an intuitive, mobile-ready dashboard.

Who are Salesforce competitors?

Competitors and Alternatives to SalesforceMicrosoft.Oracle.SAP.SugarCRM.Zoho.Sage.Zendesk.CRMNEXT.

What language is Salesforce written in?

JavaThe Salesforce application and the force.com platform are predominantly written in Java, and some specific areas are written in other languages. Apex is only used to build applications and custom functionality on the platform, and is not the language for the core application and platform development.

Did Salesforce invent SaaS?

In 1999, Salesforce launched their customer relationship management (CRM) platform as the first SaaS solution built from scratch to achieve record growth.

Who founded Salesforce?

Marc BenioffParker HarrisSalesforce/Founders

What platform is Salesforce built on?

Salesforce Experience Cloud, previously Salesforce Community Cloud, is Salesforce's Digital Experience Platform built on the Customer 360.

What database is Salesforce built on?

Oracle DatabasesSalesforce also utilized PostgreSQL and a few other languages, but the majority of its platform runs on Oracle Databases.

What exactly Salesforce does?

Salesforce is a company that makes cloud-based software designed to help businesses find more prospects, close more deals, and wow customers with amazing service.

Where was Salesforce launched?

Salesforce launched at the Regency theater and had a surprise for all guests attending. They turned the lower level of the theater into a space that resembled Enterprise Software aka “Hell”, there were screaming salespeople actors in cages and games such as wacka-mole where the moles were other software companies.

What is Salesforce's biggest acquisition?

Salesforce were on a roll, setting records with some of their biggest acquisitions ever. In 2019 they followed suit and shocked everyone with their $15.7 Billion acquisition of Tableau, one of the world’s leading data visualisation and business intelligence companies.

How much did Salesforce buy Ohana?

In 2018, Salesforce made their biggest acquisition at the time, bringing Mulesoft into the Ohana for $6.5 Billion. This was over double their previous record when they acquired Demandware in 2016 for $2.8 Billion.

What is Salesforce a fish in a pond?

Salesforce stood for something very different, and compared to the behemoth of other industry giants, Salesforce were a tiny fish in a huge pond, they had to stand out. Salesforce launched at the Regency theater and had a surprise for all guests attending.

What is trailhead in Salesforce?

Trailhead is a fun (and free) way to learn Salesforce – an online platform provided by Salesforce that opens up access to learn about the technology and build a career in the industry. Anyone can create an account and learn, which has made Salesforce specific skills accessible for anyone.

Where was the first Dreamforce event held?

This new event was called Dreamforce, and instead of lasting for a few hours, it was held over a few days. The first Dreamforce was held in downtown San Francisco at a hotel called Westin St. Francis and had just over 1000 registered attendees coming to the event with 52 presentations.

Does Salesforce have Einstein Analytics?

This was interesting for a few reasons, but primarily because Salesforce already had an enterprise-grade solution for business intelligence, called Einstein Analytics. As data is quickly becoming one of a company’s most valuable assets, it’s imperative to be able to dissect this data to make informed decisions.

When did Salesforce buy Slack?

On December 1, 2020, it was announced that Salesforce would acquire Slack for $27.7 billion. In February 2021, Salesforce announced that CFO Mark Hawkins would be retiring from his position after six years of working for the company, retaining however a position as CFO emeritus until October.

Why did Salesforce reject donations?

The not-for-profit organization Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) rejected a US$250,000 philanthropic donation from Salesforce because the company has contracts with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The executive director of Raices, Jonathan Ryan, tweeted that "When it comes to supporting oppressive, inhumane, and illegal policies, we want to be clear: the only right action is to stop" in reference to the rejected donation. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff responded in an official statement that the company's employees "don't work with CBP regarding separation of families. CBP is a customer & follows our TOS. We don't have an agreement with ICE. I'm Proud of the Men & Women who protect & serve our country every day & I'm Proud of our Ohana ."

How much revenue does Salesforce have in 2019?

For the fiscal year 2019, Salesforce reported revenue of US$13.28 billion, an increase of 26% year-over-year and 26% in constant currency. The CRM giant reported subscription and support revenues of US$12.41 billion, an increase of 27% year-over-year.

What are the tabs in Salesforce?

Salesforce users can configure their CRM application. In the system, there are tabs such as "Contacts," "Reports," and "Accounts." Each tab contains associated information. Configuration can be done on each tab by adding user-defined custom fields.

What is Lightning Platform?

Lightning Platform (also known as Force.com) is a platform as a service (PaaS) that allows developers to create add-on applications that integrate into the main Salesforce.com application. These third-party applications are hosted on Salesforce.com's infrastructure.

Is Salesforce a tax avoidance company?

Tax avoidance. In December 2019, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Salesforce was one of 91 companies who "paid an effective federal tax rate of 0% or less" in 2018, as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Does Salesforce use Solaris?

The company uses the Momentum platform from Message Systems to allow its customers to send large amounts of email.

Where is Salesforce based?

The company, based in the high-rise Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, reported revenues of $13.28 billion in 2019, making it one of the strongest financial producers in the global software sector. That’s a pretty big deal for a company that’s only been around a few decades. So how did Salesforce ( CRM) - Get Report get to the top ...

What is Salesforce model?

Salesforce Model – A “Single Idea”. Salesforce was founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, a sales executive at Oracle, one of the largest software companies in the world. The company was founded on a single, bold premise – that software should be made available to the masses, on a 24/7 basis, over a global cloud computing infrastructure.

How much is Salesforce worth in 2020?

In 2020, Salesforce stands as one of the most prominent computer software companies the world, with a market cap of $156 billion and a one-year target consensus analyst estimate of $203 per share.

Where was the first Dreamforce convention held?

Getting off the ground was a slow process, but the company turned the corner after its first-ever Dreamforce annual convention, held at the Westin Hotel in San Francisco in 2003, which attracted thousands of attendees.

Does Salesforce pay taxes?

Twelve years later, the company found trouble on the tax and cultural fronts. In 2019, Salesforce was cited as one of many Fortune 500 companies that paid an effective U.S. tax rate of 0% or less, even though it did so legally.

Is Salesforce the big dog?

That’s an impressive outlook for a company that was once dismissed as an “ant at the picnic.”. Instead, Salesforce is the big dog now, in a cloud computing landscape that it helped to create and has dominated in for the past two decades.

What is Salesforce history?

Salesforce (the company) has arguably done more to advance the adoption of what’s now commonly known as “cloud software” than any other company. When Salesforce (the product) was first launched, a majority of businesspeople were distrustful ...

How much did Salesforce buy?

In March of 2018, Salesforce announced its biggest acquisition ever—a $6.5 billion purchase of integration vendor MuleSoft. Also in 2018, Marc Benioff declared that the goal of Salesforce is to be a $60 billion company by 2034.

How much revenue did Salesforce have in 2009?

2009: A Billion Dollars In Annual Revenue. 2009 was the year that Salesforce reached the $1 billion revenue mark. The company ended its fiscal year with over 55,000 customers. At Dreamforce ’09, Salesforce announced Chatter, which functionality continues to be iterated with each seasonal release.

Why did Salesforce need a browser?

Because of this uneasiness , Salesforce not only needed to sell the idea of using a browser as a CRM user interface — the company also had to convince buyers that customer and other data was secure from loss and intrusion.

What was Salesforce's most acquisitive year?

2016 was the most acquisitive year in the history of Salesforce. Acquisitions included the native CPQ tool SteelBrick. It also included the largest purchase price up until that point—$2.86 billion for DemandWare. 2016 was also the year that Salesforce announced Health Cloud.

Why did Marc Benioff leave Oracle?

Marc Benioff decided to leave a lucrative sales career at Oracle in order to pursue a vision. While Marc Benioff had the idea for Salesforce, there were three other company founders: Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez. The latter two were co-founders at Parker Harris’s previous company.

What is Digital 360?

This is a series of pre-built apps or templates for consumer goods, financial services, healthcare, communications & media, public sector, emergency response management and nonprofit.

Who invented CRM?

The beginnings of CRM as we know it started in the 1980s. Robert and Kate Kestnbaum were pioneers of database marketing. Which was a form of direct marketing that analysed the customer database statistically to identify which customers would be most likely to react to a marketing campaign. The concept took off and Kestnbaum, together with Robert Shaw, brought us new concepts and methodologies, ranging from customer lifetime value to channel management. There is a lot of debate about who invented CRM, but, if you take Bob Kestnbaum's contributions to modern marketing and strategy, he probably has earned the crown.

Where did CRM originate?

The first recorded example of trade dates back 20,000 years, during this time obsidian knives were traded in what is now Papua New Guinea, between islands that had valuable obsidian deposits and those that did not. Obsidian was prized globally in those early times for its suitability for knives and other cutting implements and was traded in early Europe and Asia as well as the Americas.

What was the SFA in 1990?

The acronym "SFA" (Sales Force Automation) described these products, that were an amalgamation of database marketing and contact management. One of the early products from a pioneer, Tom Siebel, who was working at Oracle at the time, left to form Siebel and sell his solution, which became the market leader in its day. The ERP companies also saw an opportunity and the market became very competitive. However, not all companies were offering megalithic and expensive solutions. Companies such as Goldmine (1990) and Maximiser (1987) provided off-the-shelf software that was affordable for small businesses, but had enough features that made them attractive to large multinationals. Both companies are still around today.

Where was obsidian traded?

Obsidian was prized globally in those early times for its suitability for knives and other cutting implements and was traded in early Europe and Asia as well as the Americas.

When did automation start?

Automation was eagerly adopted by anyone with record keep concerns and lots of money to spend, starting in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Is CRM in the 21st century?

CRM in the 21st Century. As of now, the market for new CRM products does not seem to have reached it’s saturation point. New companies continue to come to market with cloud products, while existing vendors have changed their licensing models to offer cloud alternatives to traditional site licenses.

image

1999

  1. In February, the Salesforce journey begins with a clear vision to be “A World-Class Internet Company for Sales Force Automation.”
  2. On March 8, Salesforce incorporates and Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Frank Dominguez, and Dave Moellenhoff begin working on the first version of Salesforce’s CRM. Their base is a rent…
  1. In February, the Salesforce journey begins with a clear vision to be “A World-Class Internet Company for Sales Force Automation.”
  2. On March 8, Salesforce incorporates and Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Frank Dominguez, and Dave Moellenhoff begin working on the first version of Salesforce’s CRM. Their base is a rented one-bedroom...
  3. As the four develop their prototype, they also build a distinctive startup culture. They only work on what they believe is important and necessary, to do it “fast, simple, and right the first time....
  4. The company also writes its first V2MOM(Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures) strategic plan, aiming to provide employees with a clear vision and align the organization around common go...

2000

  1. Like many other tech companies, Salesforce endured challenges brought on by the dot-com bubble bursting, and 20% of the company’s workforce was laid off.
  2. On February 7, salesforce.com officially launches at an event themed around “The End of Software” at San Francisco’s Regency Theater with 1,500 attendees and a concert with The B-52s.
  1. Like many other tech companies, Salesforce endured challenges brought on by the dot-com bubble bursting, and 20% of the company’s workforce was laid off.
  2. On February 7, salesforce.com officially launches at an event themed around “The End of Software” at San Francisco’s Regency Theater with 1,500 attendees and a concert with The B-52s.
  3. In March, Salesforce gets a boost from its first piece of major press coverage, in The Wall Street Journal, when it hires actors to stage a mock protest outside a Siebel Systems conference. The “pr...
  4. Salesforce.org launches the1-1-1 model, leveraging its technology, people, and resources to improve communities around the world.

2001

  1. In April, Salesforce announces its expansion into the worldwide marketplace with headquarters in Dublin and Tokyo.
  2. Salesforce surpasses 3,000 customers, making it the fastest-growing CRM company.
  3. In November, Benioff is named Chief Executive Officer and Chairman.
  4. Salesforce delivers $22.4 million in revenue for the fiscal year, ending January 31, 2002.
See more on salesforce.com

2002

  1. By end of the year, the company has 5,740 customers, 70,000 users in 107 countries accessing the service in multiple currencies and eight languages.
  2. Salesforce delivers $51 million in revenue for the fiscal year, ending January 31, 2003.
  3. Marc Benioff makes a prediction about the future of Salesforce, CRM, and business: “There were the leaders, but Oracle displaced them. The same thing is going to happen again. It’s th…
  1. By end of the year, the company has 5,740 customers, 70,000 users in 107 countries accessing the service in multiple currencies and eight languages.
  2. Salesforce delivers $51 million in revenue for the fiscal year, ending January 31, 2003.
  3. Marc Benioff makes a prediction about the future of Salesforce, CRM, and business: “There were the leaders, but Oracle displaced them. The same thing is going to happen again. It’s the beginning of...

2003

  1. The first Dreamforceevent is held at the Westin St. Francis hotel in downtown San Francisco. Just over 1,000 registered attendees take part in the event, which has 52 presentations.
  2. sForce 2.0 — the industry’s first on-demand application service — is launched at the event.
  3. The company’s employees number more than 400.
  4. It establishes a global presence, opening offices in Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan…
  1. The first Dreamforceevent is held at the Westin St. Francis hotel in downtown San Francisco. Just over 1,000 registered attendees take part in the event, which has 52 presentations.
  2. sForce 2.0 — the industry’s first on-demand application service — is launched at the event.
  3. The company’s employees number more than 400.
  4. It establishes a global presence, opening offices in Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Spain, and the U.K.

2004

  1. On June 23, Salesforce successfully completes its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, raising $110 million at $11 per share.
  2. Salesforce earns $176 million in revenue over the fiscal year ending January 31, 2005.
  3. The company has 767 employees.
  4. The customer base has grown to 13,900.
See more on salesforce.com

2005

  1. In September, Salesforce introduces its AppExchangeservice, offering third-party developers a place to work on their own applications and open them up to Salesforce customers.
  2. By the end of the year, the company’s customer base stands at 20,500 worldwide, with nearly 400,000 unique users.
  3. The company surpasses 1,300 employees by end of fiscal year.
  1. In September, Salesforce introduces its AppExchangeservice, offering third-party developers a place to work on their own applications and open them up to Salesforce customers.
  2. By the end of the year, the company’s customer base stands at 20,500 worldwide, with nearly 400,000 unique users.
  3. The company surpasses 1,300 employees by end of fiscal year.
  4. It has earned $309.98 million in revenue for fiscal year ending January 31, 2006.

2006

  1. Salesforce’s mobile journey starts with the acquisition of wireless technology startup Sendia, and the original Salesforce mobile app, AppExchange Mobile.
  2. The AppExchange ecosystem grows into a vibrant marketplace with 575 apps from 250 independent software vendors.
  3. In a defining moment, Benioff shares his view that business is the greatest platform for chan…
  1. Salesforce’s mobile journey starts with the acquisition of wireless technology startup Sendia, and the original Salesforce mobile app, AppExchange Mobile.
  2. The AppExchange ecosystem grows into a vibrant marketplace with 575 apps from 250 independent software vendors.
  3. In a defining moment, Benioff shares his view that business is the greatest platform for change, publishing The Business of Changing the Worldwith essays by 20 other thought leaders.
  4. The Power of Us partner program launches, engaging Salesforce’s partners with the 1-1-1 philanthropy model.

2007

  1. IdeaExchange (nowTrailblazer Community) launches, inviting customers to contribute new feature ideas for future releases.
  2. At Dreamforce, plans for the Force.com technology platform are announced, which will allow developers to build applications on the Salesforce platform and create any user interface on demand.
  1. IdeaExchange (nowTrailblazer Community) launches, inviting customers to contribute new feature ideas for future releases.
  2. At Dreamforce, plans for the Force.com technology platform are announced, which will allow developers to build applications on the Salesforce platform and create any user interface on demand.
  3. Salesforce reports revenue of $748.7 million for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2008.
  4. Users exceed 1.1 million, from 41,000 customers across the globe.

Overview

Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development.

Services

Salesforce's products include several customer relationship management (CRM) technologies, including: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Commerce Cloud and Platform. Additional technologies include Slack, MuleSoft, Tableau Analytics, and Trailhead.
Salesforce's main technologies are tools for customer management. Other products enable customers to create apps, integrate data from other systems, visualize data, and offer training c…

History

The company was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, together with Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez as a software as a service (SaaS) company. Initial funding for the company came from Larry Ellison and Halsey Minor.
In 2003, Salesforce held its first annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. In June 2004, the company had its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbo…

Operations

Salesforce is headquartered in San Francisco in the Salesforce Tower. Salesforce has international offices in Hong Kong, Israel, and Sydney.
Standard & Poor's added Salesforce to the S&P 500 Index in September 2008.
According to Marc Benioff, Salesforce corporate culture is based on the concept of Ohana.

Acquisitions

Salesforce has acquired many companies throughout its history.
In 2006, Salesforce acquired Sendia, a mobile web service firm, for $15 million and Kieden, an online advertising company. In 2007, Koral, a content management service, was acquired. In 2008, Salesforce acquired Instranet for $31.5 million. In 2010, Salesforce acquired multiple companies, including Jigs…

Criticisms

In November 2007 a phishing attack compromised contact information on a number of Salesforce customers. Some customers then received phishing emails that appeared to be invoices from Salesforce. Salesforce has stated that "a phisher tricked someone into disclosing a password, but this intrusion did not stem from a security flaw in [the salesforce.com] application or database."
In 2017 at DEF CON, two security engineers were let go after giving a presentation on an internal …

Salesforce Ventures

In 2009, Salesforce began investing in startups. These investments became Salesforce Ventures, headed by John Somorjai In September 2014, SFV set up Salesforce1 Fund, aimed at start-ups creating applications primarily for mobile phones. In December 2018, Salesforce Ventures announced the launch of the Japan Trailblazer Fund, focused on Japanese startups.
In August 2018, Salesforce Ventures reported investments totaling over $1 billion in 275 compa…

See also

• Salesforce Tower
• Salesforce Tower Indianapolis
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud
• SalesforceIQ

Salesforce Model – A “Single Idea”

Image
Salesforce was founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, a sales executive at Oracle, one of the largest software companies in the world. The company was founded on a single, bold premise – that software should be made available to the masses, on a 24/7 basis, over a global cloud computing infrastructure. No longer would compa…
See more on thestreet.com

Growth of Salesforce

  • After creating Salesforce in the usual Silicon Valley style - Benioff created the blueprint for his new company in his tiny Telegraph Hill apartment near downtown San Francisco – Benioff went to work. He did so with three business partners Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff and Frank Dominguez, with the original funding coming from Larry Ellison, CEO and founder of Oracle and …
See more on thestreet.com

Downbeat News

  • Salesforce has had its share of growing pains – and bad news – throughout its 21 years in operation. In 2007, the company was victimized by an email phishing attack that led to cyber-thieves landing the contact information of Salesforce customers (a company salesperson had inadvertently provided a log-in password to a data fraudster.) Twelve years later, the company fo…
See more on thestreet.com

Going Forward

  • In 2020, Salesforce stands as one of the most prominent computer software companies the world, with a market cap of $156 billion and a one-year target consensus analyst estimate of $203 per share. The company is widely cited by in-the-know investors as a major growth stock, with 91% of technology industry analysts tracked by FactSet.com calling CRM either a “buy” or “overw…
See more on thestreet.com

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9