Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to today's webinar. We would be taking you through how do you become a customer company with the world's #1 CRM today. I'm Sushmitha Vijayaraghavan from the Salesforce team, and we all look forward to taking you through this presentation today. During the course of the demo, in case you have any queries or questions, feel free to use the chat option that you have in the UI, and we would be attending it right after the session. So let's quickly deep dive into how do you become a customer company with Salesforce. A quick forward-looking statement that pretty much mentions for you to actually make all of your evaluation and buying decisions based on the current set of products and solutions available in our portfolio today. A quick introduction into Salesforce, which is one of the world's fastest-growing top 5 enterprise software companies today. And we didn't just do this by being leaders when it comes to hyper growth, right? But by actually constantly being leaders when it comes to innovation quoted by Forbes, leaders in philanthropy as well as leaders in culture as well. And during the course of implementation, we've done this by constantly sticking to some of our core values, which are trust, customer success, innovation, equality and sustainability, and have also been able to reach a revenue goal of $34.7 billion in the year FY '24 as well. Over the last 24 years, we've been constantly innovating and have been pioneers when it comes to technology, both implementing it ourselves and also pushing it back to our customers. And over the last few years, we've only seen how customer expectations are consistently rising, right? And if not more, at least 62% of customers expect companies to anticipate their needs, their preferences, choices, history and so much more. And today, one of the biggest gaps that actually exist is that companies aren't really able to keep up with this, right? And there exists a huge gap when it comes to customer expectations and what companies are actually able to deliver. So some of the biggest challenges that we've been able to see are sort of quoted right here, some of them being inefficient systems, having a lot of siloed data across so many different systems and -- which increases the context switching that really happens between people as well as systems. A lot of manual processes that need to be automated, a lot -- a large backlog of data, and one of the biggest is the sort of skill set gap that really exists in the industry as well. And today, we are actually going to take you through how Salesforce can really help in bridging this overall gap between what customers really expect from brands and how companies can really deliver that as well. So here on this slide, we are able to see how an unknown prospect really goes through an entire life cycle till they become a known customer and an advocate of the brand. So here in the beginning of the life cycle, we see how an unknown prospect move through various stages of awareness to consideration to acquisition and how Salesforce can completely automate the entire lead to cash process overall. And it doesn't just stop there, right? Salesforce that suite of solutions can completely aid in providing optimal customer service and support as well and also we extended and extrapolated to really retain this particular customer and also make them an overall advocate of the brand. So today, during the demo, we would pretty much be demonstrating the overall cycle of how an unknown prospect becomes a known customer, a known happy customer of the brand. So before we deep dive into the demo, let me quickly introduce the personas for the day. So here, we have Raj, who is the Director of IT at Besant Technologies Private Limited and who's looking for a billing solution for his company. We also have Rhea here who is the sales representative at Cirrus IT and who's been crushing her quota over the last so many years. And on a day-to-day basis, she helps customers with their buying process in a very, very consultative manner. So today's customer demo journey is going to look something like this, where Raj, who is our prospect from Besant Technologies is looking for a billing solution. He goes online, does a Google search and comes across Cirrus IT's website. He goes out there and submits his contact credentials and details so that the Cirrus IT team can actually reach out to him. Rhea receives his contact, reaches out to Raj, gets an understanding of their requirements, challenges and aspirations, does the due diligence in terms of technical due diligence, negotiations with respect to commercials and also goes on to onboard Besant Technologies as a customer of Cirrus IT. We also have another persona here, Alex, who is the sales manager. Similar to Rhea, he has another 20 sales representatives in his team. On a day-to-day basis, he tracks his team's engagements, helps them with complex deals and also reviews important metrics using reports and dashboarding in a very, very real-time manner. So this entire journey that we have spoken about on this slide is going to be demonstrated in the form of a product demonstration and let's quickly go ahead and take a look at the solution now. Good morning, everyone. Now let me quickly deep dive into the solution and quickly showcase a demonstration of what it likes to all of our users. So this is the back end of the Salesforce instance. And during the course of the demo, I would be wearing the hat of the different personas that we just got introduced to during our presentation. So let me quickly wear the hat of Rhea the sales rep in Cirrus IT and talk you through how she starts off with her day and Salesforce, how it's really going to add value to people like Rhea and her colleagues, other sales reps. So as I quickly start my day's work and log into the Cirrus IT Salesforce instance, I'm able to get a quick perspective of what I need to start doing for the day, what are some of my priority tasks and how I need to really plan my day in a very, very optimal manner. So the homepage really helps me get a quick perspective of what are some of the important tasks and activities that I've been doing. What are some of the important deals that I've won and some of them that I've lost and the reasons behind it, what are some important events, meetings, and follow-ups that I have for the day? And how do I really need to really go about prioritizing each one of them and completing them? Here on the left-hand side, I'm also able to see a quick dashboard that gives me a perspective of the important metrics that I'm measured on. So I'm able to see how much business have I brought on to the table, the pipeline that I have for the rest of the month and the quarter, some of the activities that I have been really focusing on and doing as well as how do I fare with respect to my team leaderboard, right? And how can I really improve and sort of become better at these metrics as well? So this sort of a homepage is very, very relevant for me and other sales reps. At the same time, this could be very, very different and optimal for someone like my manager, Alex as well, right? Alex might really want to see things like the entire metrics pertaining to his team, right? What is the overall quota like, how much have we closed as a team? What is the deficit that exists as of today and the pipe, open pipe that we have to really match up and meet the deficit? On the same hand, right, by getting a complete perspective, he also wants to do a quick deep dive into the accounts as well as the white space that exists. Here, from an account perspective, he is able to see all the important accounts as well as white spacing that has been done with respect to these accounts. And how is it that the teams are really prioritizing and progressing on these important installed base accounts as well. He's also able to get a quick perspective of how they are segregated in the funnel and where are we with respect to the engagements as well as progressing in the discussions. Here, Alex also gets a quick breakdown of the deals, the product, the activities, and other metrics. Quickly, he moves on to really see where the white spaces exist, what are the products that are being sold, what other solutions and products can be upsold or cross-sold, in which city, and many other aspects of how can we go about planning in attaining the numbers that have been prescribed for our team as a whole. So this really helps give Alex a complete perspective of how is it that he needs to really plan and prioritize his week and month in the oncoming days. And Alex also is able to see few items that he needs to approve for his team here, such as discount metrics, their time-offs, and so on. And he also gets a quick perspective of some of the major high-ticket deals that his team is running currently that are likely to close this quarter. So we are able to really see how this dashboard and home page, as we call it, can be very, very relevant to who is really using the system and who is really sort of starting the day and what their role entails them to do. Now as an individual sales rep, as I have already taken a look and taken a take of what I need to get started and how I need to prioritize my day, I also see that some of the new leads have come into my individual bucket, and I quickly move on to start addressing them. This is nothing but an all-leads workspace wherein leads across multiple sources, be it website, be it calls, be it social media, referrals, and other sources that come in, all flow into a singular workspace so that none of us, be it me or my other sales reps colleagues, are not really missing out on these leads. We are doing our timely reach-outs, follow-ups, and due diligence. By this manner, it really ensures that none of these leads are slipping through the cracks and we are not missing out on some of the important business and conversations that we can have with any of these prospects, right, that could ideally become our customers. So now I actually go ahead, quickly go on to my particular view so that I can prioritize on what are the needs that I need to start calling and quickly go and start dialing out each of these leads. I see that Raj, the Director of IT at Besant Technologies has really reached out to Cirrus IT. I'm also able to see Raj's phone number and e-mail address here, and I quickly go ahead and do a check of what are the details I'm able to get from this entire lead. I go ahead and give Raj a call to really understand what is it that Besant Technologies is looking for. During the course of conversation, I quickly make sure I gather and capture all the important notes right here in the CRM itself. And after the call, I can also go ahead and shoot out Raj an e-mail of all the important offerings that Cirrus IT has to offer right from the CRM with the native integration that we have with the IT cloud. So here, this entire activity management panel is nothing but a complete chronological sort of record of all the discussions and engagements that a sales rep has had with this particular prospect or lead, be it in terms of calls, their follow-ups, your meetings and so on. So this just makes sure that probably 6 months or a year down the line, if anyone has to come back to this lead or the record for that matter, and really see what are the engagements that one has had, all of it is pretty much going to be here, right? The information is not going to be lost. There doesn't have to be any sort of a manual knowledge transfer and it's going to be a complete source of truth, be it with respect to discussions, engagements, or any sort of progress that has happened with respect to this company or lead. As a rep, on a day-to-day basis, I get multiple leads, right? So it makes it very, very important for me to really classify and progress the leads so that I know which stage I am in respect -- in aspect of really sort of progressing that lead. So I now have had multiple conversations with Raj. And I definitely do think that Besant Technologies can make use of Cirrus IT's billing solution. They definitely do have a great need, right? And I do see promise here. And so I quickly go ahead and convert this lead into a qualified opportunity. And as a part of the opportunity, I'm able to really capture a tentative close date, a tentative value for this opportunity and business as a whole as well as a few other important metrics as well. I'm also able to push in some of the next steps, some important pointers as well as what is the forecast and probability of closure that I see for this opportunity. Here, as a part of opportunity management as well, it makes it very, very important for me to move the stages of the opportunity in a very timely as well as efficient manner. And right here, as a sales rep, I also have the availability to really add in my products and sort of do my entire quotation management from the Salesforce CRM right here as well, right? So with -- by actually uploading the entire price book, which really gives me as a sales rep, the opportunity to select the products and send out quotations from the CRM itself. Now that I've done all the due diligence with respect to opportunity management, sending out a quotation, and so on, I also get signatures from Besant Technologies and now, I'm able to actually mark it as a closed 1 deal. So here, we've actually been able to really take a complete look of how a lead comes into the system, how reps from Cirrus IT have been able to engage with the lead, progress them forward till they actually become a customer of Cirrus IT. So this could be just one example opportunity that I have been working on. But at the same time, I might be working on multiple such opportunities where I'm able to really see all the opportunities in a kanban fashion here, right, which really helps me depict and really get a visual representation of where my opportunities are at this particular point of time and in which stage. Just like this view can be very, very helpful for sales reps like me, sales pipeline inspection can be very, very important and helpful for managers like Alex as well, right? So here, a lot of times, managers who have come across this scenario where we have a commit. The entire team has given us a commit for the month. And during the last week of the month, we see that the commit has significantly dropped, right? We don't know which rep has pushed out which deal, by how many months, and so on. So pipeline inspection does exactly that, right? It helps my manager, Alex really get a perspective of which sales rep really dropped which deal, which is sort of what is the value of the deal and how many months has it been really pushed by, right? All these aspects are really going to be captured and pipeline inspection is going to give even a pictorial representation of this to my manager. And this is going to really help him get a complete picture of what is the right discussion that I can have with each and every sales rep so that we are able to really capture the deficit and sort of also pull back the right opportunities in time so that we're actually able to meet the target that has been set for the particular month. Having said that, it becomes very, very important that when the customer comes back to us for any sort of questions, queries, additional opportunities, the right person servicing the customer or talking to the customer has a complete picture of who the customer is and what is their history with us. So this is one of Salesforce's biggest USP, which is Customer 360, which provides a complete 360-degree holistic view of the customer, which is Besant Technologies in this particular case. So here, as a rep, I'm able to get a complete holistic understanding of who Besant Technologies is as a customer. I'm able to see what are the different products we've sold them, what is the discount that they have been provided for the different solutions, do we have any open opportunities with them? And what is it worth? What is the LTV and the total sales that they have with us today? As well as are there any sort of queries and complaints that they've raised with us in terms of cases. So I'm able to actually see a lot of different metrics and a lot of different details with respect to my customer here, right? I'm also able to see things like who are the SPOCs from the different teams that we are engaged with. What are some of the important opportunities that we are driving today? And are there any invoices that have not been paid for and so on. And we are also able to pull in the right set of details from other external systems as well as in-house systems as well. So that the entire picture of what's happening with respect to this customer can actually be seen under a single roof itself. I don't have to toggle between multiple systems and gather different pieces of information in a very siloed manner. So this completely gives me a picture of what's happening between sales and service. And if I want to really extrapolate it even to marketing and post-sales support, I can do that as a part of Customer 360 as well. So this really is the power of the system in providing a wow experience to Besant Technologies. In terms of really increasing their credibility and the wow factor that they get from Cirrus IT as a provider, this is not only going to sort of increase the stickiness but of course, the word is going to spread and sort of the name of the company is going to get better and company is going to move forward. So having spoken about the power of the entire Customer 360, I would quickly want to move and divert us to sort of the last portion of the demo, which is very, very important, that is reports and dashboards. So it's nothing but a very, very pictorial and powerful representation of the metrics. So when they started off with the demonstration during -- while I showcased the homepage to all of you, we were able to see how it is very, very relevant and very, very specific to an individual sales rep or an individual service rep or a manager that is managing a set of -- a team of probably 10 people and so on. Dashboards, you can build dashboards to -- for even the management to view. Here, we are able to really see a dashboard, which is very, very relevant for someone in the management, right? So let's say, I am somebody from the management who wants to see what's happening across my marketing, sales and service team, I'm just able to do that here, right? I'm able to see what has the marketing spend been and what is the ROI that I'm completely getting out of this, right? And how can I really optimize my spends? And I'm sure I'm also able to see what is the overall sales that has happened within the company. And what is the pipeline like to really meet the deficit that exists today. Plus, I'm also able to see how happy are my customers. Are we really being SLA compliance today or does there have to be a slight change in sort of meeting up to those compliance metrics? What is my month-on-month or my annual growth that I'm able to see, right? So these are just some example metrics that exist that I wanted to sort of flash on the dashboard today. But of course, we would be able to really pull in each and every metric that pertains and is important to each of you because, of course, we understand and we do work with multiple sort of companies across industries and segments and I understand that the KPIs and metrics that you would want to track could completely defer, right? So this was just an example and a very high-level demo of Salesforce. And ladies and gentlemen, we'd be more than happy to really have a one-on-one discussion with you to really see how Salesforce can add value to your business individually. Probably, of course, we'd be happy to connect after this webinar so that we can schedule some time for the same. But thanks a lot to each and every one of you to really sort of sit through this webinar and demo patiently, and we look forward to connecting with you very soon. Have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for sitting very, very patiently through the demonstration. So in fact, we've got in quite some questions during the course of the demo as well. So I think quickly, we would be taking some of the questions right here for the benefit of the audience as well. So one of the most sort of asked questions at Salesforce, is it only relevant to sales teams or is it also relevant to other teams as well? So the quick answer to that would be 24 years back, the first Salesforce started off with its flagship solution, which is Sales Cloud, which was predominantly meant to automate your sales team's processes, right? But over the course of time, of course, the gamut of solutions kept sort of increasing and it sort of gets -- getting extrapolated to address any challenges and automate processes like service processes, marketing processes for customer acquisition. And then we also have a commerce solution to actually have more of an e-commerce storefront and so on. And also, over the last 3 to 4 years, Salesforce has gone out there and made 2 large acquisitions, one that of Slack and one for Tableau. And with this, the overall portfolio, especially with respect to collaboration and analytics has also become very, very top-notch, right? And the solution can also be extended to external stakeholders, like your partners, vendors, and so on if need be. And of course, we would be happy to provide the range and gamut of solutions that Salesforce offers to customers today. The next question here that I'm able to see is how customizable is Salesforce and is it only suitable for particular use cases and industries? So to actually take that question up, a very, very relevant question. So Salesforce is a very, very customizable solution, right? So because it is utilized by multiple people in multiple industries, right, industries such as high-tech industries, manufacturing, retail, education, or even financial services industry and so on, it is a very, very industry-agnostic solution, right? So while Salesforce comes with a basic framework of objects and fields, it is highly customizable to the processes that your organization has, and any sort of specific use cases that you might want to address can be actually acclimatized and built out on Salesforce. Next question here is, is it only relevant to large enterprises, like some of the huge enterprises in India as well as internationally that are using Salesforce? So the short answer to that would be no. And just to quickly provide some perspective, companies and organizations starting from start-ups, mid-market companies, mid-sized companies to the largest enterprises, both nationally in India as well as globally, are utilizing Salesforce today to actually sort of automate a lot of their processes that they have for collaboration and having a single source of truth, right? And in fact, we have very, very sort of relevant teams that actually help startups get onboarded. And also one of the biggest USPs that we do provide is how do you really extend and start using Salesforce for multiple more teams as your organization grows as well, right? So sort of growing alongside your business is also something that we really advocate and stand by and we have actually done a lot, many implementations that have started off very small and grown alongside over years. Another question that I'm actually able to see on chart here is, can all of these fields, all of these processes be very, very customized, right? And the path that we are able to see, can it be very customized? So the answer to that is yes, right? So some of these processes that we showcased in the demo was for the purpose of the demo and to actually show you an example of how processes can be built out. But yes, quotations can be sent before a particular process or after a particular process, you can have customized stages, customized fields as well as objects, right? So the answer to that is yes. And to just add on to that question, we have a huge ecosystem of both accredited partners as well as applications, right? So AppExchange is one of the world's biggest marketplaces which provides applications that provides sort of additional capability on top of Salesforce's native capabilities as well that all of you out here on chat and the webinar can actually go out there and explore. One other question is I'm also able to see if we would be able to integrate with external systems such as SAP, Tally, not just system of record but also other applications. And the answer to that would be yes. So on AppExchange, you would be able to see all the applications that have direct connectors to Salesforce. And to actually add to that answer, Salesforce is an open API system, right? So provided the solution that you want to integrate with would expose its APIs, yes, we would be able to do a bidirectional integration for a pull and push of data in a very, very relevant manner. I would be going ahead and taking 1 or 2 questions on top of this. I'm also able to see if -- what -- how can partners, external partners also utilize the system. So the answer to that would be, while probably industries like manufacturing, et cetera, would also have external partners that help in either providing you with leads or also in the entire process of co-selling, we would be or rather you as a brand or an organization would be able to give them a version of Salesforce, which would actually help in automating the entire business process that you have, and they would also be able to sort of utilize the system and you from the organization's end would be able to track every sort of touchpoints that they have with your customers as a whole, right? So the entire tracking and the whole single database, or a single source of truth that we are talking about would become very, very relevant. One last question that I would take is, there is a question which says how many months would be required to really implement for a particular company with a small scale of probably 1 to 10 people. So the answer to that would be, so as I mentioned, we have a very, very trusted ecosystem of partners who would really aid us along. Of course, there would be us, Salesforce as well as the partners who would enable customers like you through the entire implementation process. Partners typically quote a 1 month, 3 weeks to a 4 weeks of implementation time for a small-sized implementation, right? And based on the complexity of the use case as well as based on the timelines that you have to actually go live with the solution, these are some of the factors that we take into consideration to actually provide and come up with an exact implementation time as well. So I think I would take a pause here. And of course, we would be more than happy to take up any questions or queries that we have missed during the course of sort of answering post the session. And of course, we would be happy to stay in touch one-on-one with everybody that's actually attended the webinar. Once again, of course, this webinar link or rather a recording of this webinar would be shared with each and one of you, all the attendees that have attended as well. Lastly, all of us here would definitely want to really thank you for your patience and the time that you've spent here to sit through the webinar and actually shoot out all your questions as well. We look forward to reconnecting with all of you very, very soon. Thanks a lot, team. Have a great day.