The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. So its not surprising that each new year is marked by millions of people rushing to make New Years Resolutions.
For many people this includes the inevitable promises to lose weight, eat better, travel and many others. However, this time of year is also a great time to develop professional resolutions, as well as personal.
Successful business owners are often focused on implementing new strategies, learning new skills and continually evolving and growing their expertise. So it shouldn’t be surprising that when we recently asked the salesforce.com community what professional resolutions they were making this year, the response was overwhelming.
While the responses ran the gamut, some clear themes emerged. Firstly, many people were looking to leverage mobile devices and apps to improve their business performance. Second to that was business owners looking for better alignment between their sales and marketing departments. Finally in 2014, many professionals are looking to develop more personal and frequent connections with their customers and prospects.
These resolutions are not surprising given that we are entering the third wave of computing. With the rise of cloud computing, mobile devices and social media, the world is becoming completely connected. Every day millions of new products, apps and devices 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.
Customers have never been so close, and companies must be prepared to sell, service and market to them anytime, anywhere and on any device. This presents an incredible opportunity for companies to connect every app, employee, partner, product and device with their customers using the power of social, mobile and cloud.
Salesforce.com recently introduced Salesforce1, the next generation social, mobile and cloud platform for this new connected world—the first customer platform built to transform the world’s #1 sales, service and marketing apps for the Internet of Customers. Salesforce1 delivers all the speed, agility and power of Salesforce, re-engineered for the needs of today’s connected business. With 10 times more APIs and services, companies can also build and customize the next generation of connected apps faster than ever before using the Salesforce1 Customer Platform. By connecting and customising everything—every app, every device, every customer data source, every experience—companies can sell, service and market to customers in a whole new way.
Small business owners using Salesforce love how the Salesforce1 Customer Platform puts their entire business into a single user experience. With a powerful mobile platform, sales reps can access and manage their entire business from anywhere, completely personalise the experience and supercharge app development.
In addition to being able to run their entire business from a mobile device, the Salesforce1 Customer Platform also helps breaks down silos between departments. Now, departments like sales and marketing, can work from a common platform to share the most up to date information on the customer, prospect, deal or any business metric that demands collaboration. In today’s connected world, customers expect the companies they work with to know them – regardless of what department they are working with or what channel they are using. Salesforce1 empowers companies to deliver that experience.
The great thing about New Years resolutions is that they are a fresh start, an opportunity to do something different and strive to be better. In a lot of ways technology can be an incredible tool in helping you achieve these goals. From the very beginning, salesforce.com’s focus has been on making our customers successful, and much of our innovation has been driven and inspired by our community. So what’s our new year resolution at salesforce.com? To help our customers make 2014 the most successful year yet!
About the Author
Tom Karemacher is the Regional Vice President, Small Business and Mid-Market at salesforce.com
