Submitted by

M.SAIADITHYA
13022
ASB





































1.) Vision Statement of Salesforce.com
We deliver indispensable value, to our customers, that enables them to prosper by integrating with our
cutting edge cloud computing solutions and will compel them to foster long term relationship with us.
Our Value will propel mutual growth and help our efforts in serving the society by all means.






















2. Why do customers do business with sale force?
Sale force delivers cloud based CRM that helps the customers to connect to their clients, leads, contacts
etc.. In entire new ways. Sales force organizes information and customizes it for its customers.
Existing CRM software requires massive investment in Infrastructure .Additional challenges like training,
servicing etc. Is great concern to companies considering the risk of its failure.
Also, due to emergence of Social media, A solution needs to dynamic rather than static.
Hence, Sales force is essentially delivers solution to its customers that is affordable and dynamic along
with providing Realiable and contemporary, high quality CRM.
other factor for consideration for our customers is Salesforce scale of operations ,growth and
credibility that was achieved over the years.

2 (a) what business is this company really in?
Ans) Sales force is leading provider for enterprise cloud computing solution with strong focus on CRM.
( refence : Annual report 2014 Saleforce )














3. Strategic Intent of the company?
The strategic intent of Sales force is to be the key catalyst that will empower its clients to connect to
their customers in entirely new ways. This can be attributed to its hassle free, firm ware free, reliable
and affordable cloud based product and service offerings.
(Reference: annual report 2014)





















4. Core competence of company?
The 4 basic product offerings are as follows :
Sales Cloud: The Salesforce1salescloud is a sale force automation tool that enables to organize
customized information of its clients and helps them communicate with customers in contemporary
way.
Sale force customers can use the Sales Cloud to access accurate customer and prospect information,
track leads and progress, forecast opportunities and collaborate around closing a sale on any device. The
Sales Cloud also encompasses partner relationship management functionality and real-time customer
and contact information.
Service Cloud: The Service Cloud is a platform for customer service and it enables companies to connect
with their customers in effective way.
Service Cloud subscribers can connect to their customer service agents with customers on a multitude of
devices and across every channelphone, email, chat, self- service web portals, social networks.
Marketing Cloud: the Salesforce1 ExactTarget Marketing Cloud is a platform for one-to-one marketing
that enables customers to access information from any source and deliver personalized interactions
(digital marketing) to any customer across any channel.

Salesforce1platform: This enables developers to build apps on its platform without the need or
necessity of any additional hardware and software.

The core competency of Sales force lies in delivering Rapid, Reliable, low cost customized product
offerings.
( reference : annual report 2014)






5. SWOT of salesforce.com
Reference: ( annual report 2014)
STRENGTHS
1.Low priced Service
2.Brand
3.Scalability
4. Innovation
5. Low switching costs
WEAKNESS
1. Service delays and disruption
2. Product diversification
3. Corporate privacy can be breached due to services like Chatter
which is inbuilt social networking app.
4. High capital expenditure of IT Infrastructure at Salesforce end.
OPPURTUNITY
1. Geographic Expansion.
2. SMEs can look forward.
3. Big companies can tap this for
low cost advantages.
4. Integration with Big data
analytics firms for advisory
consultancy option for
premium subscriber.




THREATS
1. Companies currently hosting CRMs may be unwilling to migrate.
2. Oracle and Microsoft are working on cloud based CRMs.
3. High attrition of customers.
4. General Economic scenario may affect subscription as well sales of
every industry.
5. Business model ,attributes ,products etc..can be easily emulated by
competitor for example Sugar has already implemented a tool similar
to chatter.
6. Breach of security, salesforce already experiences phising attacks









6. Activity Diagram
The following is the activity diagram of salesforce.com















7. What areas can you envision where Strategic Fit will benefit this company?

a)
A strategic fit is the degree to which an organization is matching resources and capabilities with
opportunities in external environment. ( reference : Wikipedia)
According to study done by Merkle group, 63 % of CRMs initiatives fail this is based on survey of more
than 352 companies. (http://www.dmnews.com/63-of-crm-initiatives-fail/article/303470/)
With subscription rate starting as low as 5 dollar per user, cloud based CRM vendors are next big thing.
Besides, even if most reputed and old companies have already installed CRMs in office there still huge
chunk of Small and medium enterprises that are yet to be catered with low cost solution and hence,
volume of sales will increase in near future.
Also, Sales force has lead in European market hence, Expansion in such market is surely a good
positioning and strategic fit.
(http://www.rudebaguette.com/2014/06/26/salesforce-step-investments-france/)















8. Apply Porters Five Forces to the company and the industry this company does business in.
Explain with diagram
Threat of New entrants( barriers to enter)
IT infrastructure ( HIGH)
High Investment ( High)
Technology ( Medium)
Product Differentiation ( medium)
Economies of Scale ( High)
Customer switching costs ( low)



Industry Rivalry
1. Microsoft dynamic and
oracle cloud platforms ( high)
2.Sugar CRM ( high)



Bargain power of buyers.
1. Company bargaining in terms of subscription rates
( medium )
2. Demand for company data privacy when accessing
Barging power of suppliers
1. Third party software and hardware
developers ( high)
2. Infrastructure construction activities and
products ( high)
3. Social Media ( low)
Threat of substitutes
1. Enhanced mail and video
conferencing facility ( high)
2. Applications with enhanced
data organization features ( high)


chatter ( medium)


9. What Generic Strategy or Combination of the Generic Strategies should this company
pursue and why?
Sales force .com being cloud based solution provider can be a significant force in providing low-cost
CRM for customers. Since, Sale force does not require any kind of installation and relies on subscription
this can help to breach into mass market of SMEs.






















10. What is the trade-offs that this company will have to accept in order to implement
its strategy?


A) A trade off is a comprise that a company has to make during decision making .If Salesforce purses a
vigorous ambition of keeping low cost to attain high user base then , it may have to comprise on
quality of service to keep its operations cost low , In worst scenario a poor investment in
operations may lead to comprise on security ,that may expose all companies connected.


































11) Perform the Value Chain Analysis for this company, draw the diagram, clearly
indicate primary and secondary activities of the company







( REFERNECE : google Images)
Inbound logistics : Customer information

Operation : data storage and transmission

Outbound logistics : data transmission from salesforce to clients customer . Clients information
retrival from central database.

Marketing and sales : promotion ,branding ,marketing

Service : Application,features ,customer service.

Secondary Activities :

Procurment : IT infrastructure component procurement

Technology : IT cloud based software as service

HRM : Personel management

Firm Infrastructure : office buildings , Data storage and processing center





12 ) Describe one recent strategic challenge this company faced
Sales force is facing serious losses ever since it started out on GAP basis . Though its one of the worlds
top 10 software company and rose it a respectable brand ,of late the company hasnt seen profits on
GAAP basis .
The revenue growth is 30 % ,but like amazon ,salesforce is operating on very thin margin ,Salesforce
gives employee stock option as part of its compensation package . These stock option is considered to
be expense in GAAP basis but sales force markets it non GAAP numbers which will result in higher
Monterey resource absolute value.
The non-GAAP operating profit is $249.1 million. The net loss considering GAAP again is $249.6 million,
on revenue of $2.22 billion.
(Refernces: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/11/why-salesforcecom-may-be-a-house-
of-cards.aspx
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ycharts/2012/12/14/salesforce-com-22-billion-market-cap-no-profits-
nice-place-to-work-especially-for-ceo-benioff/ ).















14 ) Propose a few Simple Rules for this company

A) Basically there 5 simple rules that can be adopted by company ,as far as salesforce is concerned ,it
can implement the following :
1) Priority rules: sales force may have to adopt a good priority based rule that can enable to
allocate resources effectively.
For instance, salesforce needs to test market and substantiate its presence by investment. One
such example is salesforce investment in france where it felt the need to consolidate European
market.
Salesforce needs to invest in china and India on priority basis considering SMEs in both
countries.
2 ) Timing rules : salesforce can improve its operational efficiency of reaching to client by keeping
the customer response within limited time of 1 hour . Prompt response will add value .

3) Exit rules: It should have a simple rule of plugging services off the industry or market if for record 6
month ,that segment or industry is not performing then plugging may be option.














15) Draw the Strategy Map for the company reflecting the strategy you are
proposing























16 ) Draw a Balanced Scorecard for this company and describe between 15 and 20 parameters that the
company should track on the Balance Scorecard (remember to customize the parameters to ensure that
your strategy is being reflected)























17 ) Take one of the industry segments this company is involved. What stage of
lifecycle is this industry in?

A) Salesforce is catering to Media Industry , on website salesforce.com Some of most famous clients
are as follows :
1) NBC
2. Financial times
3. Face book
NBC is pvt television network that has reached maturity and is facing heavy competition from rivals and
social media.
The newspaper industry is declining due to advent to internet .
Facebook as application is seeing a decline in teenage regristrations as people are preferring watsapp
and snap chat etc..
So overall the media industry is instage of maturity in lifecycle .
( reference : http://www.salesforce.com/industries/media/)













18) How should the company implement Strategic Control and Behavioral Control
























19 ) What should be the global strategy of this company? If this company is notan international
company, how do you propose this company become globalor international? Support your
response with analysis
A)
The global strategy of this company should be retaining its low cost high quality structure and reach out
to SMEs based in china and India.
Since, both countries have huge population.
In order for global packages to work out, Local language customization needs to be available .
Mergers and acquisition across the be needs to be done.
Acquisitions of Companies similar to simply 360 , Bangalore based social media monitoring firm needs
to be done .since, it gives salesforce wider scope of expanding into consulting to sales teams and helps
in targeting customer better .
(Reference : cglohttp://simplify360.com/)












20) Identify a potential acquisition target for this company. Analyze and
propose if this acquisition would be useful (use the financial analysis,
decision tree etc. to support your recommendation)

A) Salesforce.com should enhance and diversify its product base by venturing into marketing consulting .
So it make acquire marketing consulting companies like Copernicus .
It can have JV with Nielsen as well for Market research facility .
It needs to pick up a few analytics companies to give greater customer insight and richer content that
gives a competive edge .
The CRM tool is highly dynamic and enriches itself with the help of social media hence, a social media
monitoring or social media analytic company like simplify 360 would be a good company to invest upon.
Sales force should cut its reliance on third party software for its infrastructure and start developing in-
house software hence, acquiring a small IT company will also benefit though its need not be priority.















21) What type of diversification can you suggest for your company?

A) Salesforce should change the product offering by offering enhanced services like consulting ,social
media monitoring .
A sales representative may be given the access of advisory and consulting services ,which enables to
make decision and target his clients .
Hence, A company of salesforce stature needs to invest in this sector as marketing advisory, sales or
consulting advisory will reap huge profits.
By acquiring a considerably big Cloud based analytics company, current clients may get benfit of analtics
that help them target better.
















22) Give examples of this Companys Intellectual Capital?
What should the company do to guard this Intellectual Capital?

A) Salesforce.com has Enhanced brilliant the fact that it It is currently ranked the most innovative
company in America by magazine, as well as number 7 in Fortune magazine's 100 Best Companies to
Work For in 2014 .
( reference : Wikipedia)
Itself proves that knowledge and IC the firm is possessing .



















23 ) Give examples of tacit and explicit knowledge that may be found in your company
Answer)
Explict Knowledge : salesforce has huge explicit knowledge in terms of data , literature ,patents dealing
with networking etc..
Tacit Knowledge: Mark Benioff sales force founder became youngest VP in oracle when he was working
there.
Mark benioff has great experience in product development, this demonstrates the tacit knowledge the
company is possessing.




















24 ) What functions of this company can be outsourced? What are the advantages of the outsourcing
you are proposing?

Answer) The Software or firmware for IT infrastructure can be outsourced to India to gain low cost
competitive advantage .
The data centers of primarily location may be strategic placed in areas across world so that a credible
back up is build on and local Government land , tax ,power incentives can be utlizied.



















25 ) What type of activities should the company do to engage its employees? (do not describe rewards)?

Answers ) There a lot of activities that company can venture into although it has been in some of them
already like stock options. Others, Company can provide performance based financial, travel incentives
.It may also involve employee by engaging them in communicating its vision like volkswagen in brazil did
that is by banners, postings ,contests etc..
Company can engange employees in fun activites and providing holiday options during
vacation,maternity etc..




















26) What type of reward structure should the company implement?
A) The company should device a performance based incentive that gives rewards to highly performing
teams . The company should also identify potential individuals who posses leadership skills and can
provide incentive,stock optins etc..





















27) Can this company benefit from the Bottom of the Pyramidstrategy? How?
Suggest product modifications if any
Provide data to justify your answer

Answer) The company is high technology driven company that has no direct impact on stakeholders of
bottom of pyramid . But the company also has sustainability and community service as its key value ,
Mark benioff has been committed to underprivileged .
So, The company can involve in community service activites in place like Mumbai and organize charity
events , these help the brand to promote in India that is a major IT driven Market.
This can be part of Its branding and Public relations,Small and Medium IT companies in India when
confronted with CRM services based cloud may directly approach salesforce.com .
Salesforce may have fund raising ceremony for promoting awareness of company.















28 ) What should this company do to demonstrate its corporate social responsibility? Note: It has to
make business sense, and should be a profitable activity for the company?
Answer )
As mentioned earlier the company is already committed to CSR and its embedded in its value s. One
thing the company is advised to do is adopting green practices and reducing environmental pollution
this will save energy , gain incentive and is a cost cutting measure .Example : solar and wind energy
adoption.
Company can do charity events etc.. for promotion of brand and PR.