It was in November 2008 that Salesforce.com first began discussing openly its entry into the Indian market. The initial plan was to focus on select cities viz Hyderabad, Bangalore, Gurgaon and Mumbai. Since then Salesforce.com has steadily seen phenomenal growth in users, developers and revenue. Hence India has rapidly climbed the charts in Salesforce.com’s global expansion plans.
Salesforce.com has attempted to make a significant impact on empowering small and medium sized enterprises and individual developers. The major problems faced by these businesses are high cost of software, poor power infrastructure and an unreliable broadband infrastructure. The lack of infrastructure was initially cited as a roadblock to Salesforce.com’s growth also but the company is working to find innovative solutions to circumvent the chronic infrastructure problems in India.
According to Doug Farber, Vice President of Salesforce’s Asia Pacific operations,” Yes bandwidth is a problem in India. But we have found out ways to work around it. For example, one of the things that we have done is something called offline PDA. A person is connected through his iphone or laptop in which the data is stored and synchronized as and when the device gets the connection back and on. So, there are mechanisms to work around such problems.”
Some analysts have gone as far as to say that Cloud Computing is better suited for India than the traditional software solutions. It will help Indian businesses, burdened by the unreliable power and broadband infrastructure, to compete well in this global economy.
Salesforce.com has leveled the playing field for developers in India. Now a developer sitting in a rural village in India can compete with a developer working from Starbucks in Seattle. Infact few companies like Compro technologies and Softsquare have formed dedicated teams specializing in Salesforce.com deployment and consulting.
The seriousness of Salesforce.com can be gauged from its announcement in November 2009 of launching Salesforce.com Foundation in India. The Salesforce.com Foundation is an independent nonprofit organization that partners with salesforce.com helping to leverage the resources of the company (people, products and resources) to make a positive impact in the communities in which it operates. “We believe that you cannot be a leader in your industry without being a leader in your community.” said Lindsey Armstrong, executive vice president, international enterprise sales, salesforce.com.
The future for Salesforce.com looks positive but some analysts have also pointed out that the company will have to change its pricing strategy for India. There are a few other CRM (customer relationship management)apps already in the market which are better priced.
Post Author – Aaksha Meghavat
A well written blog highlighting the importance of the fast emerging field of cloud computing. Expect similar stuff from WATBlog.com on a regular basis. Cheers!
SaaS based offerings e.g. Salesforce.com have seen a lot traction in India market over the last few quarters. With improving net connectivity and increased skill set pool, the adoption of Salesforce will increase. Definitely SaaS is the way forward.
Look forward to more articles on SaaS and Cloud computing on WAT.