With the latest shift towards a hybrid work model, the business landscape is witnessing the introduction of new workloads — both remote and in the cloud. In addition to traditional data center workloads, we’ve seen a significant increase in the adoption of SaaS applications among small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and mid-market enterprises (MMEs). SaaS applications have quickly become vital to an organization’s daily operations.

This blog highlights why a proper backup and recovery process for your SaaS data and applications is the need of the hour and how Spanning Backup enables seamless, on-demand data recovery.

SaaS applications on the rise

A recent survey found that many popular SaaS applications (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Salesforce) are considered the “most essential” solutions for an organization’s day-to-day operations.

Which essential SaaS solutions does your organization use? *
	SMB (<1,000 employees)	MME (>1,000 employees)
Microsoft 365	71%	78%
Google Workspace	25%	29%
Salesforce	16%	32%

*Respondents were asked to select all tools in use. The above values cite total responses for each solution category. Percentages will exceed 100%.

What was previously an intriguing alternative to traditional software installation in business environments, SaaS applications are now becoming mainstream. The transition from on-premise legacy systems to cloud-supported technology makes SaaS an ideal fit for today’s hybrid environments. SaaS applications have enabled much greater collaboration and connectivity through platforms that are scalable, flexible, and easy to deploy and use. SaaS nurtures innovation and evolution, enabling organizations to easily adapt to changing times.

Data loss in the cloud is inevitable

Despite all the benefits of SaaS, you can still lose data in the cloud. According to a latest study, 89% of the organizations surveyed mentioned storing sensitive data in the cloud. A data loss incident, given the large volumes of data hosted in the cloud, could have a catastrophic effect on an organization.

Deletion is the leading cause of SaaS data loss (45% of incidents), with most deletions being accidental in nature. This is because data protection under the shared responsibility model doesn’t extend to the deletion events that occur due to either intentional or unintentional actions performed by authorized users.

Your SaaS data is your responsibility

Under the shared responsibility model, SaaS vendors like Microsoft, Google and Salesforce are responsible for application uptime and availability while you are liable for the protection of your data as well as account and access management. In essence, it is a partnership between you and your cloud service provider.

Unfortunately, many businesses wrongly assume that SaaS data backup is not their responsibility but that of their solution providers. While SaaS providers can take care of issues arising from inadequacies on their end to ensure application uptime and availability, data loss or downtime due to human error, program glitches, insider activities or cyberattacks is your own responsibility.

Self-recovery is the best policy

A data loss incident can have a ripple effect across an organization, costing money, time and resources to remediate. An organization’s typical response in the wake of a data loss event is to start rebuilding the lost data from scratch or open a ticket with the IT team. This wastes valuable time and resources and lowers employee productivity within the organization. A prolonged wait for a help desk response can adversely impact the SaaS email and file recovery process. Moreover, it can increase the IT burden and impact productivity since locating and restoring files is a typically costly and time-consuming task.

Although such a scenario is common among organizations that have suffered data loss, it doesn’t have to be the same for your organization. With Spanning Backup End User Self-Service, your end users can quickly and seamlessly find and restore files while reducing the burden on your IT help desk.

Spanning Backup End User Self-Service

A quick and seamless recovery from a data loss incident minimizes downtime and plays a critical role in keeping a business moving forward. Traditionally, the responsibility for data restoration lies solely with the IT department. However, Spanning Backup allows admins to grant end users the capability to restore emails, files and more directly from the backups of their account on either Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace tenants.

Once configured by administrators, end users can launch the Spanning Backup application directly from Spanning.com or via the Microsoft App Launcher or Google Marketplace Apps. This helps them perform non-destructive restores of their backup data into their own account, including:

Microsoft 365: Mail, Calendar, Contacts, OneDrive
Google Workspace: Mail, Drive, Calendar, Contacts

Spanning Backup offers two ways for users to locate the items they want to restore quickly:

Point-in-time: With this method, end users can choose a specific backup date using the calendar date selector feature.

Search: Here, end users can use the search bar to search emails by “Author” or “Subject,” and Spanning will automatically populate the panel with a list of matches.

Reduce the costs of data loss incidents with Spanning Backup

End-user self-service is a great way for organizations to minimize the direct and indirect costs of data loss incidents and maximize employee productivity while reducing the burden on the help desk. Self-service restoration of data, coupled with proper employee awareness training, plays a significant role in saving IT time as well.

The costs associated with data loss incidents and noncompliance vary, making it impossible to provide an average cost of data risk. That’s where our ROI model comes in handy. Our calculator accounts for several cost factors of SaaS data loss (direct, indirect and noncompliance) to provide you with a quantification of the value of a SaaS backup solution.

If you’re still not convinced, see how much your organization can save with our Spanning Backup ROI calculator.

Calculate Your Savings

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Spanning authored by Spanning Cloud Apps. Read the original post at: https://spanning.com/blog/data-restoration-end-user-self-service/

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 08:09:00 -0600 by Spanning Cloud Apps on December 8, 2022 en-US text/html https://securityboulevard.com/2022/12/saas-data-restoration-made-easy-with-spanning-backup-end-user-self-service/ Killexams : Databook Launches CRM Application with Salesforce

New integration brings strategic enablement capabilities directly into existing sales workflows to uplevel the success of enterprise and strategic sales team

PALO ALTO, Calif., December 06, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Databook, a revenue technology company, today announced a new application that embeds Databook’s strategic enablement capabilities within Salesforce Sales Cloud. The integration empowers sales teams to quickly and easily translate financial data and business insights into winning sales strategy and execution — directly within the tools and workflows they live in every day.

Now, with Databook and Sales Cloud, sales reps have instant access to personalized, real-world insights and recommendations into which companies are likely to buy; who to connect with and when; and how to move the needle with executive buyers. These insights are immediately actionable through one-click dynamic downloads that automatically generate the strategic content required to create and win large enterprise deals in today’s competitive sales environment.

"Now, more than ever, sales reps need to hone strategic acumen to drive executive relationships and effective sales execution," said Anand Shah, CEO of Databook. "Databook’s new CRM application combines essential external context about a company’s business objectives, financials, and budget cycles with the internal account and opportunity information within Sales Cloud to create a new level of intelligence and customer understanding. Now any rep can have an executive-level conversation aimed directly at the business problem they solve in order to repeatedly grow and close deals."

Early adopters of the CRM integration have researched 157% more accounts than those who only access through the web application. Researching accounts on Databook is correlated with increased pipelines.

Faster, Larger Deals with Databook CRM Integration

The new integration extends Databook’s platform to ensure sales teams can successfully craft strategies that engage executive buyers in value-based sales conversations. Fueled by more than a dozen quality financial and business data sources, Databook leverages proprietary automation and expertise to provide objective insights into executive priorities and business needs uniquely tailored to each account and opportunity. On average, sales teams using Databook insights achieve 3x more pipeline, 2.5x larger deals and 1.5x faster cycle times.

By embedding Databook within Sales Cloud, joint customers gain an enhanced, repeatable, and scalable way to turn every sales rep into a strategic consultant. This streamlined view of Databook insights, visible under CRM "account" and "opportunity" tabs sales reps utilize daily, helps sales representatives immediately focus on their strongest opportunities. Sales reps can instantly access strategic insights, recommendations, and downloadable executive decks and point-of-views that align to corporate priorities, market conditions, fiscal year timing, and financial case for change. In addition, users are automatically notified with recommendations when key account changes occur to ensure they’re always one step ahead and no opportunity is lost.

Reps can also easily move from the CRM dashboard into the Databook platform for a deeper dive. Within Databook, sales teams can surface deal expansion opportunities by highlighting use cases purchased by similar companies that might be relevant. Strong-fit use cases are supported with relevant proof of success and value-driven vision for the future to create the strongest possible pitch that resonates with executive buyers.

For more information on the new CRM applications, please visit https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=a0N3u00000PsM7UEAV.

Salesforce, Sales Cloud, AppExchange, and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.

About Databook

Databook is the world’s first consultative sales intelligence platform. The company was founded in 2017 to provide enterprise sales representatives and go-to-market teams a differentiating advantage. Today, leading enterprise companies like Salesforce, Microsoft, and Databricks rely on Databook to help their teams engage as experts – improving the buying experience for customers and accelerating revenue acquisition.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221206005202/en/

Contacts

databook@bradypr.com

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:17:00 -0600 en-US text/html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/databook-launches-crm-application-salesforce-140000150.html Killexams : Is Salesforce Stock a Buy Now?

Salesforce (CRM 1.89%) posted its latest quarterly report on Nov. 30. For the third quarter of fiscal 2023, which ended on Oct. 31, the cloud-based software company's revenue rose 14% year over year (and grew 19% in constant currency terms) to $7.84 billion and surpassed analysts' estimates by $10 million. Its adjusted earnings increased 10% to $1.40 per share and also cleared the consensus forecast by $0.18.

Salesforce's growth rates seemed stable, but they didn't impress the bulls. Its stock remains down nearly 40% this year and continues to trade at a discount to many of its cloud-based peers. Is it finally time for investors to take the contrarian view?

People in street outside building at Salesforce's Dreamforce 2022 event.

Image source: Salesforce.

Why is Salesforce's growth cooling off?

Salesforce operates the world's largest cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform. It also provides additional cloud-based marketing, commerce, analytics, and data visualization services.

For many years, Salesforce benefited from the digitization of large businesses. It locked in its customers with sticky subscriptions and its own proprietary apps, and it repeatedly expanded by gobbling up smaller companies. Its business model remained resilient during the pandemic, which drove companies to accelerate their digital transformations and accommodate the shift toward hybrid and remote work.

That's why Salesforce's revenue and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) rose 24% and 65%, respectively, in fiscal 2021 (which ended on Jan. 31, 2021). In fiscal 2022, its revenue grew another 25%, but its adjusted EPS dipped 3% against its bigger investment-related gains in the previous year.

However, Salesforce's year-over-year revenue growth decelerated throughout the first three quarters of fiscal 2023 as it faced two major challenges.

First, macro headwinds caused large companies to rein in their spending and postpone big software deals. Second, the rising dollar -- which was bolstered by higher interest rates -- generated tough currency headwinds.

As a result, Salesforce expects its reported revenue to only rise 17% for the full year, as its adjusted EPS grows 3%. That slowdown isn't disastrous, but it raises some questions regarding the company's long-term goal of generating $50 billion in annual revenue in fiscal 2026. To achieve that goal, it would need to grow its top line at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17% between fiscal 2023 and 2026 -- which assumes its deceleration this year won't lead to a deeper slowdown.

Why aren't investors excited about Salesforce?

But analysts aren't as optimistic. They expect Salesforce's revenue to rise 17% in fiscal 2023, 14% in fiscal 2024, and 16% in fiscal 2025. We should be skeptical of those expectations, but that slowdown could certainly occur if the current macro headwinds lead to a full-blown recession.

The bears will also point out that Salesforce still faces lots of competition from Microsoft's (MSFT 1.75%) Dynamics CRM, as well as Adobe's (ADBE 1.27%) e-commerce and marketing tools. They'll also claim that Salesforce's heavy dependence on acquisitions could "diworsify" its business and squeeze its margins. Co-CEO Bret Taylor's latest decision to leave Salesforce, which will leave founder Marc Benioff as the only CEO, raises additional questions regarding its future.

However, the bulls will argue that Salesforce's latest acquisitions -- including Tableau, Mulesoft, and Slack -- have increased the overall stickiness of its cloud-based ecosystem. They'll also claim that economies of scale are boosting its margins as it expands: Salesforce expects its adjusted operating margin to expand 200 basis points to 20.7% for the full year, and to exceed 25% by fiscal 2026.

Lastly, Salesforce's stock looks fairly cheap at 31 times next year's earnings and four times next year's sales. Its smaller healthcare-oriented CRM peer Veeva (VEEV 3.12%), which is growing at a similar rate, trades at 40 times forward earnings and 12 times next year's sales. ServiceNow (NOW 3.62%), the cloud-based digital workflow company which is growing slightly faster than Salesforce, trades at 43 times forward earnings and 10 times next year's sales. That's probably why the value-oriented activist hedge fund Starboard Value acquired a significant stake in Salesforce this October.

So is Salesforce worth buying right now?

Salesforce will likely remain in the penalty box until the macro situation improves and its revenue growth accelerates again. That said, I'm still optimistic about Salesforce's long-term prospects as large companies continue to digitally optimize their operations.

Therefore, I believe Salesforce is still a good long-term investment at these levels -- but investors shouldn't expect the bulls to rush back until some of these near-term headwinds dissipate.

Leo Sun has positions in Adobe, Salesforce, and Veeva Systems. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Veeva Systems. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2024 $420 calls on Adobe and short January 2024 $430 calls on Adobe. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Sun, 04 Dec 2022 00:28:00 -0600 Leo Sun en text/html https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/12/04/is-salesforce-stock-a-buy-now/ Killexams : Salesforce is losing the key execs behind some of its biggest and most expensive bets at a critical moment

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, Salesforce co-CEO Bret TaylorNOAH BERGER/AFP via Getty Images, Salesforce

Salesforce is losing a number of key execs in the wake of Bret Taylor's departure.
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield is also departing, along with some other product-focused execs.
The departures come as Salesforce's growth has slowed and it's facing tough questions.

Salesforce is in the midst of a serious brain drain at the highest levels. Last week, co-CEO Bret Taylor made the surprise announcement that he'd be departing the company.

Shortly afterwards came the news that Mark Nelson, the CEO of Salesforce subsidiary Tableau, and Steven Tamm, a CTO at the cloud tech giant, are also departing. In November, the company also said Gavin Patterson, the company's chief strategy officer who had previously been its chief revenue officer will depart at the end of January.

Then, earlier this week, Insider reported that Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack — the workplace chat app that Salesforce acquired in 2021 for $27.7 billion —will be leaving the company in the new year. Tamar Yehoshua, Slack's chief product officer, is also resigning, as is Slack senior VP of communications Jonathan Prince.

It's not clear if the timing of all these departures is anything more than coincidence: In a memo to employees, Butterfield wrote that his plans to depart have nothing to do with Taylor's, as Insider earlier reported.

Still, it comes at a critical moment for Salesforce and its now-sole CEO Marc Benioff. The company's stock is down some 48% from the beginning of the year, as the larger tech downturn takes its toll on the markets. Salesforce has warned investors that a slowing economy is making it more difficult to close deals as IT spending stalls out, even as investors push Benioff to demonstrate a commitment to improving its profit margins.

And the specific executives who are hitting the exits represent some of Salesforce's biggest bets on the future. Taylor himself was seen as a product visionary who would help Salesforce break into new markets, as seen when he masterminded the Slack acquisition. Indeed, Slack and Tableau represented Salesforce's two largest acquisitions in its history, as it invested in new lines of business.

The departures of Taylor, Butterfield, and Nelson come as Salesforce's strategy comes under the microscope on Wall Street.

With Slack and Tableau, Salesforce already had a lot to prove. Wall Street thought that the $27.7 billion it paid for Slack and the $15 billion for Tableau was far too steep given the company's financial situation. The scrutiny hasn't stopped.

"Growth has been slowing for years," Bernstein analysts wrote in a latest note to clients. "But that has not been readily apparent due to the cadence of large acquisitions which generate a multiyear tailwind to growth due to acquisition accounting."

Taylor, who had been COO of Salesforce before becoming co-CEO in 2021, championed the two as key to a strategy of building the company's platform into an all-in-one tool for sales, to service, to marketing and commerce, to data analysis. Slack would be the "digital HQ" where work gets done, while Tableau helps customers crunch the massive amounts of data stored in the Salesforce platform and turn it into useful insights.

Neither Slack nor Tableau is going anywhere. Salesforce has already said that Lidiane Jones, an executive VP, will take over for Butterfield as Slack CEO. She'll be working with Cal Henderson, Slack's CTO and cofounder, who remains in his role. And Salesforce has said that in the wake of Nelson's departure, Tableau will be rolled more closely into Salesforce's engineering organization.

What it does mean, however, is that Salesforce, Slack, and Tableau are all losing the biggest champions of the integrated product strategy right as the company faces hard questions.

Amid the chaos, however, some on Wall Street thinks there may be an opportunity.

While some of Salesforce's most experienced execs remain on Benioff's leadership team, including CFO Amy Weaver and COO Brian Millham, analysts think Benioff needs to recruit new leadership.

Now could be a good time to recruit talent from a smaller rival or startup, Jaluria told Insider. The relative stability of Salesforce compared to a smaller startup during an uncertain economic environment would be a major draw.

"You need leadership that's focused on the next chapter of Salesforce and the way things should be done, not necessarily the way things have been done from the get go," RBC analyst Rishi Jaluria said last week at the time of Taylor's announcement.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 16:48:00 -0600 en-US text/html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/salesforce-losing-key-execs-behind-172135199.html Killexams : Three Ways Businesses Can Help Prevent Phone Spam And Scams

Rich Rosen is the Founder & CEO of Fastcall—a leading Salesforce native app for phone, SMS and video. Rich has two phone-related patents.

getty

Workers have adjusted to remote work and limited person-to-person interactions, but they still need to communicate with customers and co-workers. How do they communicate in 2022? Email, send a text? In fact, many businesses still use voice phone calls to resolve customer service issues, close sales and make appointments. It’s immediate, available and personal.

It may not seem evident that consumers prefer a phone call and that the usage of phone calls continues to grow. Among business professionals, according to a latest Hiya survey of 12,000 consumers and 1,800 businesses across the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France and Spain, 90% of survey respondents indicated that their use of voice calls increased or stayed the same over the past 12 months. The survey also found that consumers and businesses prefer voice phone calls over email, text, video call and chatbot.

These preferences for voice phone calls are important for businesses to recognize. When apps are replacing some brick-and-mortar spaces, the phone call delivers a human connection between the business and its customers. Due to the familiarity of the phone, consumers may also be more willing to discuss financial transactions and health issues over the phone than through other channels.

Companies must learn to protect themselves against phone scams.

Now, the bad news. Phone scams are cheap and easy for fraudsters. A latest study showed that Americans received an average of four spam phone calls a day, and each of these has the potential to result in financial losses. You should not be surprised that scammers are becoming more sophisticated and are spoofing legitimate businesses. In 2021, 62% of survey respondents said they had received a call they believed to be a scammer impersonating a business, according to the Hiya study cited above.

To ensure that their businesses are protected against these threats and their calls are getting through to customers, business leaders should brush up on the following best practices.

STIR/SHAKEN

STIR/SHAKEN is a new registration process that was introduced by the FCC to prevent spam phone calls and verify caller ID. Caller ID can be faked or “spoofed,” allowing spam callers to have the call appear as a legitimate caller.

With STIR/SHAKEN, the caller ID is examined on the outbound call, and the phone provider attaches an encrypted certificate with an identity and trust value. The phone provider on the receiving end of the call then checks the authenticity of the call.

STIR/SHAKEN is an ongoing process with the FCC, which has required registration for many voice providers as of June 2021. As a business, you can work with your phone provider to ensure your calls are STIR-registered and the caller ID name (CNAM) is accurately updated.

Free Caller Registry

Free Caller Registry is a free website for businesses to submit their registration details to phone carriers. In my experience, it is easy and takes only a few minutes. Three industry players—First Orion, Hiya and Transaction Network Services—formed a partnership to provide the service. By submitting your company details and some data about your company’s outbound phone calls, you acknowledge that the numbers are not being used to make calls that violate consumer protection laws or other applicable laws or regulations.

International Regulations

Countries around the world are enacting similar registration requirements. Work with your phone vendor to review the specific guidelines in each market where you operate. You can also ask communications platform-as-a-service providers if they can help you manage these requirements.

Conclusion

When I started working for my first “dot com” in 1996, email marketing was on the rise, as was email spam, and it was something I wrote about back then.

Over twenty-five years later, many companies are still busy working to keep their emails out of the spam folder. That work is important, but businesses shouldn’t forget about managing their phone security and registration. In both cases, both consumers and businesses benefit by getting rid of spam.

Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 23:29:00 -0600 Richard Rosen en text/html https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/11/30/three-ways-businesses-can-help-prevent-phone-spam-and-scams/ Killexams : Slack CEO leaving Salesforce

Nearly a decade after releasing the business-friendly instant messaging platform Slack, founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield is leaving the company.

A spokesperson for Salesforce, which purchased the platform in 2021, confirmed Butterfield is departing and will be replaced by Lidiane Jones.

“Stewart is an incredible leader who created an amazing, beloved company in Slack,” the spokesperson said. “He has helped lead the successful integration of Slack into Salesforce and today Slack is woven into the Salesforce Customer 360 platform.”

Prior to developing Slack, Butterfield co-founded photo-sharing website Flickr before it was sold to Yahoo.

Monday’s announcement, which was reported earlier by CNBC, comes one week after Salesforce Co-CEO and Vice Chairman Bret Taylor announced he will leave the company early next year.

Taylor ran Salesforce as it announced plans to acquire Slack in late 2020 before closing the deal for nearly $28 billion the following July.

“Thank you Stewart for what you&#8217;ve built and for trusting me with the most important role of my life,” Jones wrote on her LinkedIn profile.

“Simply put, there would be no Slack without Stewart,” she continued. “He&#8217;s built an incredible company that has redefined modern collaboration with a team grounded in humility and innovation. As we look forward, we are grounded by Slack&#8217;s mission to make people&#8217;s working life simpler, more pleasant and more productive.”

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 07:47:00 -0600 en-US text/html https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3762611-slack-ceo-leaving-salesforce/ DEV-401 exam dump and training guide direct download
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