IT spend on digital transformation – the adoption of digital technology to improve business processes - is overtaking traditional IT expenditure and is likely to continue to enjoy attractive growth.
At the centre of this is investment in customer experience management (CXM) software solutions; Salesforce.com (‘Salesforce’) dominates in this product category. Salesforce’s CXM products enable companies to have a ‘360-degree view’ of their customers, whereby they better understand their needs, can discern intent, understand where they go to consume information, know which channels they use to communicate, how and when they purchase products, and how they prefer to be engaged with brands both online and offline. Salesforce not only provides solutions for CXM but also for sales, marketing, digital commerce, HR, financial management and many of other functions making it a behemoth of the software industry.
Although revenue growth for Salesforce has consistently been strong, concerns remain over its profitability versus peers, given the growth at all costs attitude pursued by CEO Marc Benioff, which has often led to large and expensive acquisitions.
