Last week, our CEO Eric Berridge got on a global webcast and pronounced that “CRM as we once knew it is dead.” I’ve heard Eric say this before, but within the context of our webcast it could not have been more true. I am not saying customer relationships are dead, they are more valuable than ever, but the concept of customers being represented as “records” and “opportunities” is quickly becoming antiquated. Meaningful customer management is tied to driving engagement, and giving both employees and customers the solutions they need to conduct business in an effortless two-way relationship. Now, more than ever, the Salesforce1 Platform offers multiple ways to unleash this level of productivity and engagement within an organization. 

Our recent State of Salesforce report validates this shift. Organizations are making substantial commitments to the Salesforce1 Platform, seeing the Platform as the cornerstone in their ability to transform their business. What do I mean? 

The Salesforce1 Platform represents three growing opportunity areas for organizations: 

1. Cloud extensions from the Salesforce AppExchange
   
   One of the most powerful ways organizations can extend the value of the Salesforce Clouds is through point based business applications like the thousands that are available on the salesforce.com AppExchange. To quote from our report: “Being able to directly integrate with such a powerful operational tool is invaluable, and something other PaaS vendors cannot offer.”
   
   
   
   The strength and vitality of the Salesforce AppExchange as a public market represents a huge differentiator for salesforce.com. 29% of customers have five or more AppExchange applications installed in their instance, with 10% have more than ten applications installed.
   
   
   
   Internally at Bluewolf, we recently worked on a client engagement where our team integrated approximately 30 AppExchange applications into a single Salesforce instance. This capability serves clients in many unique and powerful ways. Clients can work with proven technology partners who are experts in business processes and key activities, integrating their functionality directly into their Salesforce org. Companies who aren’t taking advantage of this integration ability are missing a huge opportunity to extend the value of their Salesforce instance to both employees and customers.
   
   
   
   Organizations can see how global clients are making investments by visiting Bluewolf’s deep dive on “What’s Hot on the AppExchange.”
2. Mobile engagement for employees
   
   A second opportunity area to explore with the Salesforce1 Platform is the way to enhance your Salesforce instance through mobile. Gone are the days where employees sat at desks and could be easily reached through email. Now employees and customers are mobile, demanding solutions they can access anytime, anywhere.
   
   
   
   A great example of this was highlighted during Dreamforce by Bluewolf customer Stanley Black & Decker (minute 5:30):
   
   
   

    
   
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   Stanley’s retail representatives are an example of the modern workforce. They spend most of their days out of the office, visiting partner stores. Bluewolf built a state of the art iPhone application that extends the power of their Salesforce instance to their mobile phone. Stanley’s application helps manage their visits, report on displays and promotions, deploy surveys, and track all necessary activity with minimal clicks and input.
   
   
   
   When you rethink your business through a mobile lens, the concept of “traditional CRM” completely disappears. Customer data is transformed through an interface that is intuitive and designed around the user. With the launch of Salesforce1, mobile can be used with every Salesforce customer to engage employees. See how innovative companies are going mobile in our upcoming webcast: Salesforce1 Mobile: 5 Things You Need to Know.

3. Next-generation business applications on the Platform
   
   The final opportunity may be the most exciting, because the possibilities are endless. We are now seeing the ability of the Salesforce1 Platform to build non-CRM based business applications. Examples of these types of business applications are highlighted in salesforce.com’s Salesforce1 Platform Guide. As a marketer, I am particularly excited by the application called Projects App, where marketers can track campaigns and events right from their phone and ensure they never miss a deadline.
   
   
   
   This represents a non-CRM based business application that supports core functionality needed by users—in this case marketers. It drives transparency, collaboration, and productivity. Most clients are only starting to understand that these applications are possible through the Salesforce1 Platform, and seeing the business value it represents. 

Through this purview, the Salesforce1 Platform becomes the point of intersection for all sorts of new opportunities. It becomes the way to unlock your company information, whether housed in Salesforce or another business system, and expose it in safe and meaningful ways to any level of core constituents: employees, partners, and customers. The Platform becomes the technical anchor that moves and controls the data the drives your business. 

So, let’s return to the theory that traditional CRM is dead. If you are still thinking of Salesforce as a business application that reduces customers to data and fields you are missing the broader business opportunity. Like the evolution of the Salesforce1 Platform, clients need to evolve how they think of the Platform, and see the new business opportunities that exist. 

See how leading companies are innovating on the Salesforce Platform in our annual review, The State of Salesforce. Get the report