Salesforce.com 2013 Annual Report Download - page 24

necessary to allow our customers to use our service effectively. Even the perception of privacy concerns, whether
or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our service in certain industries.
In addition to government activity, privacy advocacy groups and the technology and other industries are
considering various new, additional or different self-regulatory standards that may place additional burdens on
us. If the gathering of personal information were to be curtailed in this manner, CRM solutions would be less
effective, which may reduce demand for our service and harm our business.
Our continued success depends on our ability to maintain and enhance our brands.
We believe that the brand identities we have developed have significantly contributed to the success of our
business. Maintaining and enhancing the salesforce.com brand and our other brands are critical to expanding our
base of customers, partners and employees. Our brands will depend largely on our ability to remain a technology
leader and continue to provide high-quality innovative products, services, and features. In order to maintain and
enhance our brands, we may be required to make substantial investments that may later prove to be unsuccessful.
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 service
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.
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.
We may not realize any benefits in connection with our purchase of undeveloped land in San Francisco.
If we do not realize any benefits, our financial performance may be negatively impacted.
In November 2010, we purchased approximately 14 acres of undeveloped real estate in San Francisco,
California, including entitlements and improvements associated with the land. We may not realize any benefits
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