We understand that making the transition from on-premises to cloud-based solutions can be stressful and daunting. Our annual State of Salesforce report, features data gathered in collaboration with the MIT Sloan School of Management, to provide an unbiased and unique perspective into how organizations are deriving value from their Salesforce instance.

Now in its third year, the State of Salesforce 2014-2015 has been expanded to feature a specific financial services report edition. This is part of our continued effort to bring forth clarity and industry specific insights within the Financial Services vertical. We hope this report provides value to your organization. We’d like to outline some key takeaways you’ll find from the Financial Services Edition of the State of Salesforce:

46% of financial services customers are using two or more Salesforce clouds (Tweet this)

Salesforce has matured from a sales application into a customer engagement platform for financial services companies. 

• Financial services companies are aggressively re-working internal structures to increase collaboration, productivity, and focus on customer engagement. Salesforce’s flexibility and extensibility makes it the ideal technology for companies to reduce the amount of time it takes to achieve success.
• Shared data across departments is becoming increasingly important: 46% are integrating core applications for a single view of their customer data and to provide real-time insights to their end users.
• Current adoption of Service Cloud and AppExchange is 44%, and 88% respectively, with use of both expected to increase significantly in the next year.

52% of Salesforce’s financial services customers are building mobile apps on the Salesforce1 Platform (Tweet this)

Salesforce is helping financial services respond more effectively to customers’ and employees’ digital expectations.

In today’s customer-driven economy, customers, employees, and partners crave deeper relationships and seamless interactions with their financial institutions. Financial services companies are turning to the Salesforce1 Mobile App and Platform to kickstart their enterprise mobile strategies. Additionally, they are increasing their investment in marketing automation, Salesforce Communities and Salesforce Service Cloud to simplify customer experiences and increase customer engagement across channels.

Data is at the very heart of digital transformation.  With the explosion of channels and devices, more data is being captured about customers than ever before.  Through the promise of analytics, financial services companies are racing to transform data into consumable insights that drive actions aligned to their business objectives. 71% of financial services customers will increase their investments in analytics in the coming year, 23% substantially. 

 

74% of financial services customers see great innovation potential with Salesforce, yet only 32% believe they have achieved it (Tweet this)

A profile of how the best financial services companies use Salesforce is emerging.

While financial services customers see the potential for Salesforce at their companies, bridging the gap between innovation potential and reality is where the work begins. 

• Focus on Business Outcomes
  
  Financial services companies adopt Salesforce to impact top line growth and bottom line savings: acquisition, expansion, cost reduction, and retention. 61% site top line growth and bottom line savings as direct impacts of implementing Salesforce.
• Invest in Employee Engagement Over Adoption
  
  The majority of customers deriving value from Salesforce are shifting the focus from technology adoption to employee engagement strategies. 57% of financial services customers are investing in employee engagement. Why, because the more value employees can provide to their customers, the more engaged they become.
• Overcoming Security and Regulatory Challenges
  
  Well-planned implementation, governance, and application lifecycle management strategies are crucial to maximizing Salesforce ROI — 61% of customers with a governance strategy perform releases at least monthly.  

Download the full Financial Services report, or join our live webcast on November 13th for more insights.