On Monday, Bluewolf released our fifth annual The State of Salesforce Report. With over 110,000 data points gathered from more than 1,700 Salesforce customers, it’s our longest, most comprehensive report, and the first we’ve produced as a part of IBM iX. In the five years since we began publishing The State of Salesforce, a lot has changed—trends have shifted, products have multiplied, and more users than ever before are relying on Salesforce to power superior customer moments. Let’s look back at past reports and see how the state of Salesforce has changed over the past five years.

2012-2013

In our first annual The State of Salesforce Report, 29% of companies surveyed said they planned to increase their Salesforce budgets in the coming year. 36% of companies were focused those investments on integrating data cleaning tools into Salesforce.

Now: With so many new clouds and products, companies are adding on to their Salesforce instances, and 58% have integrated or plan to integrate Salesforce clouds. To manage this, 63% will increase their Salesforce budgets next year, and 13% will do so by more than 50 percent.

2013-2014

56% of companies surveyed said they saw substantial innovation potential with Salesforce. Data was the #2 issue keeping companies awake at night.

Now: An overwhelming 96% of companies see innovation potential in Salesforce, but 77% still think their company could be doing more with its Salesforce investments. Data is still preventing many from getting the most out of Salesforce, but the best companies aren’t letting imperfect data slow innovation.

2014-2015

71% of companies reported increasing investments in analytics to put actionable insights in front of their employees.

Now: For three years, the percentage of companies increasing their investments in analytics has remained stable. As companies prepare for a new era of cognitive applications, they are focusing on translating overwhelming collections of data into intuitive, automated employee experiences that can power incredible customer moments.

2015-2016

Companies turned their focus on the employee experience. While only 59% of Salesforce users say it’s easier to use their company’s Salesforce org today than it was 12 months ago, over one-third of companies named an employee-facing initiative as a top objective of 2016.

Now: The best companies are continuing to focus on user experience design for employees, ensuring that they can do their jobs from anywhere, anytime, on any device. As a result, 69% of companies today say it’s easier to use their Salesforce instance today than it was 12 months ago.

Get your copy of the fifth-annual The State of Salesforce Report for over 50 pages of data and insights.

Attending Dreamforce? Learn from two Bluewolf experts who will unpack the key trends and uncover how the best companies are getting the most out of Salesforce now. Register for the session.