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  • April 4, 2014
  • By Leonard Klie, Editor, CRM magazine and SmartCustomerService.com

Salesforce.com Realigns Around Six Industries

Salesforce.com this week announced plans to reorganize its sales strategy around six key industries—financial services/insurance, healthcare/life sciences, retail/consumer products, communications/media, government, and automotive/manufacturing—with a focus on delivering innovative solutions to help companies within those industries better communicate with customers.

Led by former White House chief information officer Vivek Kundra, executive vice president of industries at Salesforce.com, the company's new Industries Business Unit will work toward delivering social, mobile, and connected cloud solutions for the six industries. Salesforce.com’s strategy includes growing a team of industry experts, developing an ecosystem of preferred partners, and creating transformational solutions that leverage the Salesforce1 Platform to address the major challenges for each sector.

"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 of Salesforce.com, in a statement. "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," Kundra said in a statement. "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."

Also as part of the effort, Salesforce.com continues to grow its team of global experts with deep experience driving transformational technologies to lead their respective industries. Members of the industries leadership team already named include the following:

  • Andy Baer, head of communications/media: As former chief information officer at 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 at Gap.
  • Patrick Pelata, head of automotive: As former chief operating officer at Renault, and a former board member and executive vice president at Nissan, Pelata brings 28 years of automotive leadership.
  • Todd Pierce, head of healthcare/life sciences: As former chief information officer at Genentech and global head of pharma IT and group infrastructure at Roche, Pierce brings more than 20 years of managing disruptive technologies for the healthcare industry.

 

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