Salesforce.com 2016 Annual Report Download - page 45

ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND
RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
The following discussion contains forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, our
expectations and statements regarding our outlook and future revenues, expenses, results of operations, liquidity,
plans, strategies and objectives of management and any assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Our actual
results may differ significantly from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking
statements and factors that might cause future actual results to differ materially from our recent results or those
projected in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the section titled
“Forward-Looking Information” and “Risk Factors” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Except as required by
law, we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements or our risk factors for any reason.
Overview
We are a leading provider of enterprise cloud computing solutions, with a focus on customer relationship
management, or CRM. We introduced our first CRM solution in February 2000, and we have since expanded our
service offerings with new editions, solutions, features and platform capabilities.
Our mission is to help our customers transform themselves into customer-centric companies by empowering
them to connect with their customers in entirely new ways. Our Customer Success Platform, including sales force
automation, customer service and support, marketing automation, community management, analytics, application
development, Internet of Things integration and our professional cloud services, provide the next-generation
platform of enterprise applications and services to enable customer success. Key elements of our strategy
include:
• strengthening our market-leading solutions;
• expanding strategic relationships with customers;
• extending distribution into new and high-growth product categories;
• expanding our world-class sales organization;
• reducing customer attrition;
• building our business in top software markets globally, which includes building partnerships that help
add customers; and
• encouraging the development of third-party applications on our cloud computing platforms.
We believe the factors that will influence our ability to achieve our objectives include: our prospective
customers’ willingness to migrate to enterprise cloud computing services; the availability, performance and
security of our service; our ability to continue to release, and gain customer acceptance of, new and improved
features; our ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses and technologies; successful customer adoption
and utilization of our service; acceptance of our service in markets where we have few customers; the emergence
of additional competitors in our market and improved product offerings by existing and new competitors; the
location of new data centers; third-party developers’ willingness to develop applications on our platforms; our
ability to attract new personnel and retain and motivate current personnel; and general economic conditions
which could affect our customers’ ability and willingness to purchase our services, delay the customers’
purchasing decision or affect attrition rates.
To address these factors, we will need to, among other things, continue to add substantial numbers of paying
subscriptions, upgrade our customers to fully featured versions or arrangements such as an Enterprise License
Agreement, provide high quality technical support to our customers, encourage the development of third-party
applications on our platforms and continue to focus on retaining customers at the time of renewal. Our plans to
invest for future growth include the continuation of the expansion of our data center capacity, the hiring of
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