Salesforce.com 2008 Annual Report Download - page 8

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Table of Contents
since they pay for the service on a per subscriber basis for the term of the subscription contract. All upgrades are included in our service, so
customers are not burdened or disrupted by the periodic need to perform system upgrades. Because we implement all upgrades on our servers,
new features and functionality automatically become part of our service on the release date and therefore benefit all of our customers
immediately.
• Driving innovation. By providing infrastructure and development environments on demand, we provide developers the opportunity to create new
and innovative applications without having to invest in hardware and distribution. A developer with an idea for a new application can log onto
our platform, develop, host and support their system on Force.com and make the application accessible for a fee to our 55,400 customers.
• High levels of user adoption. We have designed our service to be easy to use and intuitive. Since our service contains many tools and features
recognizable to users of popular websites such as those of Amazon, eBay, and Google, it has a more familiar interface than typical enterprise
CRM applications. As a result, our users do not require substantial training on how to use and benefit from our service. We conduct extensive
surveys of our users to gauge their experiences with our service so that we may determine potential areas of improvement. In addition, because of
the nature of our service, we receive constant, automated feedback as to which features customers use or don't use, allowing us to improve our
service based on this information.
Our Strategy
Our objective is to be the leading provider of CRM application services. We also want to be the leading platform on which our customers and partners
build SaaS applications. Key elements of our strategy include:
• Strengthening our existing CRM applications and extending into new functional areas within CRM. We designed our service to easily
accommodate new features and functions. We intend to continue to add CRM features and functionality to our core service that we will make
available to customers at no additional charge. We offer advanced modules for an additional subscription fee to customers that require enhanced
CRM capabilities. Our growing portfolio of applications includes: Salesforce CRM Automation, Salesforce CRM Marketing Automation,
Salesforce CRM Partner Relationship Management, Salesforce CRM Call Center Management, Salesforce CRM Content Management and
Salesforce CRM Ideas. We also evaluate acquisition or investment opportunities in complementary companies, services and technologies in an
effort to strengthen and extend our service CRM offerings.
• Pursuing new customers and new territories aggressively. We believe that our SaaS and PaaS offerings provide significant value for businesses
of any size, from small businesses to the largest Fortune 500 corporations. As a result, we will continue to aggressively target businesses of all
sizes, primarily through our direct sales force. We have steadily increased and plan to continue to increase the number of direct sales
professionals we employ, and we intend to develop additional distribution channels for our service. We have created several editions of our
service to address the distinct requirements of businesses of different sizes. We also believe that there is a substantial market opportunity for our
service outside of North America. We plan to continue to aggressively market to customers outside of North America by recruiting local sales
and support professionals, building partnerships that help us add customers in these regions and by increasing the number of languages that our
service supports.
• Deepening relationships with our existing customer base. We believe there is significant opportunity to leverage our relationships with existing
customers. As the customer realizes the benefits of our service, we try to sell more subscriptions by targeting additional functional areas and
business units within the customer organization and pursuing enterprise-wide deployments. We also want to provide professional service
offerings that are complementary to our service and enable us to sell subscriptions to larger customers who require assistance with complex
integrations and customizations. In addition, by continuously enhancing the functionality of our service, we believe that customers will find more
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