Salesforce just announced a new cloud (it’s 6th) called Wave or Salesforce Analytics Cloud. The announcement of Wave comes at the same time Salesforce is changing its positioning from the Customer Company to the Customer Success company. The question is: "What is customer success, and what does that have to do with Analytics Cloud?"
What is Customer Success?
The term Customer Success, coined by Marc Benioff during the early days at Salesforce.com, is an emerging buzzword in the enterprise cloud market. It has become a mantra for cloud/SaaS/software subscription businesses, particularly in the enterprise software space, that need customers to be successful in order to get the renewal.
It is an important concept for subscription businesses because the days of buying a perpetual software licenses are dwindling. Organizations are buying software by subscription and can cancel just about anytime. So when an enterprise software company claims its software can help a customer improve outcomes or change their financial statements or otherwise achieve success, it needs to live up to that promise or the customer will not renew.
No Renewals. No Business.
Salesforce.com understands this and is changing its focus to helping customers succeed. This is where the Salesforce Analytics Cloud comes in.
Salesforce is now helping customers succeed at achieving outcomes by making it easy for people to retrieve the insight they need to make better decisions. Analytics Cloud is designed so that data is accessible to everyone in the organization and designed specifically to be used by end users (service managers, marketing, sales managers). In a way, Analytics Cloud frees up data from the data scientists and business analysts so the front-line can get actually work done on the spot.
More and more, managers are asking people to “show me the data” rather than rely on instincts and gut feelings, but people generally do not have access to the data. If front-line employees in sales, service, and marketing have access to data, can drill down into the details, and bring data to meetings, there is no telling how much more competitive they can become. No matter how an organization defines success, it cannot succeed without making good decisions and Salesforce Analytics Cloud is helping make those decisions easier to make by more people.
Call for Comments:
- Salesforce.com is selling Analytics Cloud as being so easy to use that normal end users can use it without relying on data scientists and business analysts. What does this mean for the training and support users will need?
- Will Analytics Cloud eliminate the need for data scientists and business analysts?
