Andrew Pyle

January 14, 2020

Should Google Acquire Salesforce?

Andrew Pyle

January 14, 2020

Should Google Acquire Salesforce?

Rumors have been swirling about Google possibly acquiring Salesforce, which, if it takes place, would be one of the largest in tech history and could rock the cloud computing world. Business Insider has reported that Google is planning to acquire Salesforce, in a deal which RBC Capital Markets says would be valued at around $250 billion. The deal would move the needle for Google in terms of its cloud computing capabilities, giving it greater competitive footing alongside the cloud provider giants, Amazon and Microsoft Azure. In this article, we’ll look at some of the impetus behind Google’s possible acquisition of Salesforce. What would the tech giant stand to gain from such a deal, in return for paying such a high premium? Would the benefit of buying Salesforce offset the gigantic price tag? We’ll also talk about some of the possible changes that could take place at Salesforce, if the deal goes through, and we’ll look at how Salesforce users could be impacted.

Cloud Ambitions

Google has been very open about its cloud ambitions. At the close of 2019, the company announced that it plans to beat out its rivals, Amazon and Microsoft Azure, as cloud providers by the end of 2023. That’s no small feat, given that AWS currently controls 47 percent of the market share of the cloud computing market. Microsoft Azure holds a smaller but still respectable 16 percent of the market, while Google is limping along at just 4 percent. Google’s lofty ambitions for its cloud share have a lot of people wondering just how the company plans to make the jump to a larger market share. That’s why many people are speculating that Google may indeed be planning to buy out Salesforce – or Workday – or even acquire multiple companies in order to build up its share of the Cloud market.

Salesforce’s Cloud Share

An analysis of the leading Cloud Vendors by revenue put Salesforce at a very respectable #4, behind Microsoft, AWS, and IBM. Salesforce clocked in at $13 billion for the year, while Microsoft came in at $32.2 billion; AWS earned $25.7; and IBM weighed in at $19.2. Workday, which has also been mentioned as a possibility for acquisition by Google, came in ninth place on the list of cloud vendors by revenue. Workday earned $2.8 billion in the course of a year, which, while nowhere near the top of the pack, still made a decent showing.

Acquiring Salesforce

It’s no secret that Salesforce is a hugely popular and successful cloud-native product – it’s also no secret that Salesforce operates atop a powerful cloud platform, Force.com. And it’s very possible that Google believes that, by buying Salesforce, it will be cashing in on both the popularity of Salesforce, and the strength of its platform. Analysts at RBC Capital told Business Insider that if Google goes ahead and buys Salesforce, the company will skyrocket to at least second place in the market. That may not immediately fulfill Google’s ambition to lead the pack, but it would certainly be an improvement over the company’s existing position in distant third. However, some analysts are cautioning that it just might not be possible to get the kind of two-for-one that Google is going for. After all, Salesforce is, first and foremost, a CRM. It’s popular because of its business applications, not because of its cloud platform. If Google acquires Salesforce and then tries to re-imagine it as a cloud computing platform, customers might start to leave in droves. That’s because Salesforce’s customer base doesn’t care about cloud computing, per se. They care about the great things that Salesforce can do for them, as a CRM.

Other Options

Google’s Diane Greene, who has been tasked with expanding the tech giant’s cloud revenue, discussed her plans at a conference this fall. She confirmed that Google is looking for partnerships in the field of cloud computing and added that the company is also hiring sales representatives to help it expand. Greene stressed that Google is interested in “organic” growth; she also said that they are looking into major acquisitions. Google’s Cloud division has been facing enormous pressure from the company’s top brass to grow quickly and become competitive with AWS and Microsoft. That may be why Google is looking to move quickly to acquire Salesforce rather than focusing exclusively on organic growth. Rumor has it that leaders at Google and at its parent company, Alphabet, even considered leaving the cloud market altogether if they can’t get competitive with the market leaders. That idea has apparently been dismissed, at least for now – but it seems that the pressure remains on Google Cloud to make dramatic improvements. Google has also hinted that they might be interested in buying the cloud computing company Workday, and analysts are watching closely to see whether the company will try to acquire Workday or Salesforce.

Impact on Salesforce

The jury is still out on how Salesforce would be impacted if Google acquires the CRM. On the one hand, the move would bring in a huge cash influx for Salesforce, which could allow it to further expand its cloud capabilities and grow its infrastructure. On the other hand, Salesforce would lose its autonomy and would be managed by Google. It’s not clear how this would impact Salesforce’s existing staff, for example. Again, some analysts have expressed concern that Salesforce could lose its true direction as a CRM if it’s acquired by Google. The concern is that Google would “water down” Salesforce’s strength in order to capitalize on its cloud capabilities.

Impact on Salesforce Users

How would Salesforce’s users be affected if the CRM giant is acquired by Google? It’s too early to say, of course, and a lot would depend on the specifics of the deal, as well as Google’s management of Salesforce. It’s also not clear how the deal could impact Salesforce’s relationship with Microsoft. If Google takes a relatively hands-off approach, allowing Salesforce to progress as it has been, then of course Salesforce users can expect nothing but positive outcomes from the sale. Greater cash flow would allow Salesforce to expand and experiment, which is only a good thing. If on the other hand, Google wants to take over Salesforce for its cloud platform only, there’s a risk that the CRM could weaken its brand and could stop focusing on the innovation that it’s known for. This would leave it open to being eclipsed in the near future by one of its competitors.

Final Thoughts

It’s worth noting that there has been speculation about Google and Salesforce in the past, and it hasn’t led to anything actually happening. That’s why some people are cautioning that we shouldn’t be holding our breath to see whether anything actually comes of this. If the merger does actually take place, it will be fascinating to see how the tech landscape is reshaped. There are many questions remaining to be answered. Some of the questions are very big-picture: can a company like Google really improve its market standing by sheer buying power? Other questions are more nitty-gritty: how would a merger like this impact Salesforce and its users? For now, this is very much a waiting game; it’s time to watch and learn from whatever may happen.

Andrew Pyle

January 2, 2020

Salesforce

Using Gamification Apps to Make Salesforce Work for You

Andrew Pyle

January 2, 2020

Salesforce

You probably already know that gamification apps can make a huge difference when it comes to your personal life. Maybe you use apps like Habitica or ToDoIst to increase your productivity, or fitness apps like Qapital and Long Game to gamify your finances.

You might not realize that gamification can also have a huge difference when it comes to motivating your employees, especially when you’re working with a CRM like Salesforce. In this article, we’ll look at some of the best apps out there for gamifying Salesforce. We’ll also weigh the pros and cons of each of those tools.

What is Gamification?

Gamification is one of the hottest trends in workplace technology. When used correctly, gamification can boost employee engagement and overall productivity, all by tapping into your staff’s natural competitive energy. It’s a win-win situation; gamification leads to a happier workforce, and also to a more successful company.

In fact, experts say that gamification increases employee engagement by as much as 33 percent, while leading to an increase in social media sharing, online commenting, and content discovery.

Gamification and Salesforce

If you’re in sales, you probably use a CRM to manage not only your sales records, but a wealth of valuable information about your clients and their history with you. Having all of that information at your fingertips can make all the difference in the world when it comes to boosting sales.

Salesforce is far and away the most effective CRM, especially for small and mid-sized companies.

However, many companies report that there’s a big lag when it comes to user adoption of Salesforce. In many companies, employees are slow to log info into Salesforce; they’re taking a long time to adjust to the new platform.

This comes down to human nature. It’s normal to resist change, and that means resisting new software too, even when that software is actually beneficial to us. That’s where gamification comes in. Apps that turn using Salesforce into fun can dramatically increase adoption of the platform. They also boost overall sales, return on investment, and other indicators of success.

Is Gamification Right for You?

Gamification apps can be hugely beneficial for most companies. However, they can come at a cost, and some companies – especially smaller, newer companies – might be reluctant to sign up for them.

If you’re hesitating about whether to try a gamification app, it’s a good idea to consider the following questions.

Do you have a great employee roster, but sometimes have trouble convincing your staff to log information into Salesforce?

Do some members of your team struggle to work effectively without constant input from you or from their direct manager?

Do some members of your team struggle to maintain their focus throughout the work week?

Do some members of your team have trouble effectively communicating with you, and with each other?

Do you ever worry that your employee morale is sinking too low?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, then you would probably benefit from trying out one of the tried-and-true gamification apps designed to work with Salesforce. Here are a few of the most popular of those apps:

Level Eleven

Level Eleven is a cloud-based gamification app which was designed specifically for Salesforce. Like many of the other gamification apps, it targets people’s competitive natures by creating contests, leaderboards, and other indicators of excellence.

Level Eleven creates personalized scorecards for sellers; it also uses a proprietary pacing algorithm, a goal management system, and a warning system. Level Eleven even creates “activity snapshots” for employees, so that managers will have instant access to their work. The idea is to keep every employee actively engaged in the daily behaviors that have been proven to make a difference in terms of long-term sales.

Level Eleven also provides managers with an onboarding template, making for a smooth entry for new staff. The app also includes data-driven sales coaching and comes with configurable coaching templates, making it a breeze to train new staff or to help faltering employees on the road to improvement.

Level Eleven starts about $30 per user per month. It’s on the steeper side of Salesforce gamification apps, although users seem to believe that the high price is worth it. The app offers a discount to non-profits interested in signing on.

Hoopla

Like Level Eleven, Hoopla is an app designed to work seamlessly with Salesforce. Hoopla allows users to create leaderboards using virtually any metric that suits their needs. You can use it to rank employees by call time, conversions, or any other metric that works for you.

Hoopla takes the data from Salesforce and instantly broadcasts it onto leaderboards, which can be displayed anywhere.

You can also use the app to create tournaments or “face off” contests to boost motivation among your staff. Employee wins are celebrated with what Hoopla calls “newsflashes.” The “newsflashes” look like a traditional “breaking news” alert. They get broadcast on all the TVs in your workplace and are they are definitely going to get everyone’s attention. Before long, every employee in the office is going to want to win a contest, just so that they can be the subject of a newscast too.

Hoopla also makes it easy to directly engage with remote workers. Its mobile app is very intuitive and easy to use. You can easily challenge a remote worker to a “face off” contest, for example. The result? Using the mobile app makes it feel like the remote workers are right there with you, where you can keep an eye on their progress.

Centrical

Centrical used to be known as GamEffective, so some people still know it under that name. The app works on a few levels to try and incentivize employees to perform better and to implement Salesforce more fully.

The app gives you, the business owner, a great picture of how employees are performing at any number of different measures of success. In fact, the beauty of Centrical is that it lets you track employee goals right there inside the Salesforce window.

You can award points or badges to your most successful employees, and you can refer struggling workers for additional training sessions. You can also set up compeititons or challenges – there are plenty of different ways to set up competitions so that it never gets boring.

Centrical also has a strong focus on identifying areas for improvement. The app uses AI to automatically flag areas where individual employees have room for improvement. It then makes suggestions – both to the employees and to their managers – about means of training or coaching them. Centrical also has its own system of “microlearning” which, it says, works seamlessly with its gamification system.

Final Thoughts

Implementing Salesforce can be overwhelming, even for the most organized workplace. The platform can revolutionize your business, but there really is a steep learning curve involved.

As with any other new platform, the larger your workforce, the more intentional you’ll need to be about getting all hands on deck to implement the new tool.

Gamification apps, like the ones described in this article, can make a huge difference when it comes to implementing Salesforce. They really do inject a lot of fun into the workplace, and they do a lot to build a culture of hard work, camaraderie, and competition among the different members of your staff.

Even remote workers can benefit from using these apps, which tend to make people feel closer to each other, even when they’re physically far away from the office.

It can also be a good idea to talk to a professional Salesforce consultant. A good consultant will be able to talk you through any challenges that you may be facing; they will be able to give you solid advice based on experience and training.