Salesforce.com 2016 Annual Report Download - page 31

maintain and enhance our brands, we may be required to make substantial investments that may later prove to be
unsuccessful. In addition, positions the Company takes on social issues may be unpopular with some customers
or potential customers, which may impact our ability to attract or retain such customers. If we fail to maintain
and enhance our brands, or if we incur excessive expenses in our efforts to do so, our business, operating results
and financial condition may be materially and adversely affected.
We may lose key members of our management team or development and operations personnel, and may
be unable to attract and retain employees we need to support our operations and growth.
Our success depends substantially upon the continued services of our executive officers and other key
members of management, particularly our Chief Executive Officer. From time to time, there may be changes in
our executive management team resulting from the hiring or departure of executives. Such changes in our
executive management team may be disruptive to our business. We are also substantially dependent on the
continued service of our existing development and operations personnel because of the complexity of our
services and technologies. We do not have employment agreements with any of our executive officers, key
management, development or operations personnel and they could terminate their employment with us at any
time. The loss of one or more of our key employees or groups could seriously harm our business.
In the technology industry, there is substantial and continuous competition for engineers with high levels of
experience in designing, developing and managing software and Internet-related services, as well as competition
for sales executives and operations personnel. We may not be successful in attracting and retaining qualified
personnel. We have from time to time experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring
and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail
to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could be severely harmed.
In addition, we believe in the importance of our corporate culture, or Aloha spirit, which fosters dialogue,
collaboration, recognition and a sense of family. As our organization grows, we may find it increasingly difficult
to maintain the beneficial aspects of our corporate culture. This could negatively impact our future success.
Any failure in our delivery of high-quality technical support services may adversely affect our
relationships with our customers and our financial results.
Our customers depend on our support organization to resolve technical issues relating to our applications.
We may be unable to respond quickly enough to accommodate short-term increases in customer demand for
support services. Increased customer demand for these services, without corresponding revenues, could increase
costs and adversely affect our operating results. In addition, our sales process is highly dependent on our
applications and business reputation and on positive recommendations from our existing customers. Any failure
to maintain high-quality technical support, or a market perception that we do not maintain high-quality support,
could adversely affect our reputation, our ability to sell our enterprise cloud computing solutions to existing and
prospective customers, and our business, operating results and financial position.
Periodic changes to our sales organization can be disruptive and may reduce our rate of growth.
We periodically change and make adjustments to our sales organization in response to market opportunities,
competitive threats, management changes, product introductions or enhancements, acquisitions, sales
performance, increases in sales headcount, cost levels and other internal and external considerations. Any such
future sales organization changes may result in a temporary reduction of productivity, which could negatively
affect our rate of growth. In addition, any significant change to the way we structure our compensation of our
sales organization may be disruptive and may affect our revenue growth.
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