For Salesforce, founder Benioff is a rockstar

There isn’t anything common among the former first lady of the US Michelle Obama, singer Alicia Keys, actor Ashton Kutcher and a clutch of monks.

Or so it seems until you read the guest list of Salesforce.com’s annual event, Dreamforce which kicked off early this week.

All of them are participating in the annual event, billed as the largest congregation of software professionals in the world, being held this week in San Francisco, about 40 miles of the famed Silicon Valley.

The driving force behind Salesforce.com considered the fastest growing among the top five software companies in the world and the leading CRM company globally, Marc Benioff, founder, chairman and CEO of the company, has been organising this event every year which a local newspaper in San Francisco calls it as a block party masquerading as a tech conference.

But for Benioff, personalities like Obama, Keys, the monks and Kutcher, are more like an icing on the cake. Their representation marks an unusually aggressive marketing effort which Salesforce.com rolls out every year. The event attracts over 1.7 lakh participants across the globe for the four-day event. Considering the fact that San Francisco population is slightly over 8.5 lakh, the organisation of such a huge event virtually shuts down the city.

Benioff, 53, is seen more of a cult figure in the tech world, someone who took on his former employer, Oracle and created his own empire which according to various estimates, is valued at $36 billion. His software as a service model by putting CRM (customer relationship management) online became an instant hit among enterprises (large companies) that catapulted Salesforce.com into one of the most valuable companies in the world.

At Dreamforce event, Benioff, who is a devotee of Mata Amritanandamayee, gets the same treatment as that of a rock star during his keynote address to investors, clients, employees and several others. Wearing a dark blue suit and a light blue shirt, the Salesforce.com founder walks through rows and rows of seats addressing the participants.

“My inspiration comes from all of you. We have 2,700 sessions over the next four days and I expect you to go over every single session,” says Benioff drawing laughter from people gathered around.

Benioff has worked hard on his keynote speech. Before the final copy was delivered to the audience, bits and pieces of the speech were shared during his interaction with his clients and some of his townhall address to his employees who then were asked to send in their feedback.

After several tweaks to the speech, Benioff renders it to an audience which has been eagerly waiting to hear him. “Business is the greatest platform for change,” says Benioff whose company has given away a huge amount of wealth and time for charitable causes. His 1-1-1 philanthropic model which commits 1 per cent each of equity, employee hours and product has seen a huge following among corporates. “We have given away $168 million, 2.3 million of volunteer hours and 32 K for non-profits and education so far,” drawing an immediate applause from the audience.

Benioff goes on to add that apart from being the fastest growing among the top five enterprise software companies with over $12.5 billion sales, two out of 10 jobs in the tech world are Salesforce.com jobs. Its eco-system, as per the Salesforce economy report compiled by research firm, IDC, is expected to create 3.3 million new jobs and more than $859 billion in new business revenues worldwide by 2022.

But there are challenges ahead for the company which is not as well known in most parts of the world as it is in the Silicon Valley. Over 70 per cent of its revenues come from its home country and according to the Motley Fool website, it hasn’t done much to diversify into other geographies. Analysts also say that Benioff’s irreplaceability is another issue which needs to be addressed soon.

Larry Carvalho, a research manager at IDC told BusinessLine that the need to look for another CEO is a long way off. “This might become a challenge at some point of time but as of now it is not a challenge. In the case of Microsoft, no one looked beyond Bill Gates. But since his exit, there have been two more CEOs.” The Indian-born Carvalho says Benioff is as talented as Tesla’s Elon Musk or Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

In India, the company recently appointed Sunil Jose as country head, a newly created post. The company already has a centre of excellence in Hyderabad, which is the largest outside the US. Its clients include Bajaj Finserve, Urban Ladder and InMobi. Salesforce.com believes that India is one of its fastest growing markets in Asia Pacific.

But there is no denying the fact that the Dreamforce event isn't going away anytime soon. If one were to use a yardstick to measure its success, one just needs to measure the company CEO’s chutzpah.

The writer is in San Francisco at the invitation of Salesforce.com

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