Salesforce is looking at new ways to cut costs as activist investors continue to put pressure on the company. Today, Insider was reporting that the company is implementing much stricter performance measurements for engineering, with some salespeople being put under pressure to quit or succumb to harsh performance policies of their own. This is consistent with what sources have been telling TechCrunch.

This could include performance reviews based on the quantity of code produced for engineers, a flawed way to measure engineering productivity, which encourages quantity over quality. While salespeople are being put between a rock and a hard place, being asked to choose between signing a strict one-month performance improvement plan or taking an exit package.

When asked about this, Salesforce responded with this comment: “Our performance management process drives accountability and rewards excellence.” The company did not elaborate or answer follow-up questions regarding the timing or details of this policy.

TechCrunch has also been hearing that the company is mandating a return to the office, and according to a Salesforce spokesperson, it’s now up to the managers to decide. “Our hybrid approach empowers leaders to make decisions for their teams about which jobs need to be in the office or remote.”

That’s an interesting attitude shift for a company has been promoting the idea of the “all digital, work-from-anywhere workplace” since the pandemic hit in 2020, something they call the Digital HQ. It’s a big part of why the CRM leader spent almost $28 billion to buy Slack in 2020.

But neither is it surprising since CEO and chair Marc Benioff practically telegraphed this at the end of last year, suggesting that folks working from home weren’t as productive.

All of this is probably related to the fact that activist investors -- including Elliott Management, Starboard Value, ValueAct and Inclusive Capital -- have been circling the company, undoubtedly putting tons of pressure on Benioff to increase productivity and cut costs. These firms are a big part of the reason Salesforce announced that it was cutting 10% of its workforce in January, a process that has been handled badly with layoff notices coming in dribs and drabs, leaving workers anxious and uncertain.

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Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research, blames Boston Consulting Group, which he says was brought in at the behest of the activists to deal with the cuts and implement new performance review policies. “From what we know, BCG made some significant recommendations on how salespeople and developers should be measured to Boost productivity,” Wang told TechCrunch. Update: BCG denies being responsible for the performance review policies.

Wang says that whether you think this approach is a good idea or not depends on your perspective. “If I was an investor, I would advocate for this approach, but if I was the owner-founder, I would want something less harsh and more nuanced,” he said.

Wang isn’t a fan of how the activists have handled this, calling them “vulture firms.” While he does agree with their assertion that Salesforce overpaid for bad acquisitions, he believes these firms lack an understanding of how to run a company like Salesforce, and they are ultimately doing more harm than good.

“The vulture firms do not have a good understanding of the investment levels in R&D that are needed for innovation to continue, nor did they understand what level of marketing spend Salesforce needs to remain top of mind for execs,” Wang said.

“They don’t add any value. They come in to just make money on the arbitrage and they leave the firms more damaged than when they were before they were taken over,” he said.

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.

Feb 16, 2023 (Heraldkeepers) -- New Jersey, United States,- The Global Salesforce Services Market Size, Scope, and Forecast 2023-2030 report has been added to the Market Research Archive of Checked Market Reports. Industry experts and researchers have offered an authoritative and concise analysis of the Global Salesforce Services Market with respect to various aspects such as growth factors, challenges, restraints, developments, trends, and opportunities for growth. This report will surely be a handy tool for market players to come up with effective strategies with the aim of strengthening their positions in the market. This report provides a pin-point analysis of changing dynamics and emerging trends in the Global Salesforce Services Market. Additionally, it provides a futuristic perspective on various factors that are likely to fuel the growth of the Global Salesforce Services Market in the coming years. Further, the authors of the report have shed light on the factors that may hinder the growth of the Global Salesforce Services Market.

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.

© 2023 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Salesforce has added new fields for gender identity and pronoun data across its product line, to help customers be more inclusive when it comes to collecting and using personal data.

The firm has launched two new fields across the Lead, Contact and Person Account objects on Salesforce. This opt-in addition lets customers and their users select, identify and capture pronoun options like he/him, she/her, they/them, and gender identity options like male, female, non-binary. Both fields also offer a ‘not listed’ option.

The fields are part of Salesforce’s core objects, which means they are populated through most of its products and available by default. 

Organizations from airlines to hotels, restaurants to government agencies and healthcare companies all need this type of personal data to be able to serve their customers accurately. Standardizing the fields removes the need for admins to create custom versions, so companies can capture more accurate customer data in a more efficient way. 

However, there is no pressure on customers to use the fields, as Salesforce's Chief Ethical and Humane Use Officer, Paula Goldman, explains:

We understand this data can be sensitive, so we've designed it with a walkthrough process for admins setting this up. There's guidance that says you don't always need to be collecting this data. In fact, there are some times when it may not be as appropriate to collect this data. Then admins would choose to include it or not include it, as they're setting up various instances of Salesforce.

Collaboration 

Salesforce worked in close contact with its Inclusive Language Steering Committee to develop the gender inclusive features. This included members of Outforce, the company’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group, and Out and Equal, an Oakland-based organization working on LGBTQ+ workplace equality. 

Working in collaboration with relevant groups is a standard approach at Salesforce’s Office of Ethical and Humane Use. One of its core pillars is ethics and inclusion in Salesforce products, so the Office works hard to ensure the products the firm delivers are inclusive and accessible to all. Goldman says:

A core way we do that is knowing that I as an individual and my team, we don't have all the answers, and nor necessarily do the teams that are working on these specific products. Participation and gaining insight from folks that live these experiences directly is very important. That's why we worked both with our Employee Resource Group to understand first of all - what's the problem; second - what's the right solution, what's the right language to learn, which of these terms are the most important to address. 

Similarly with outside experts, if our whole goal is inclusion in our product, then we need to be inclusive in the processes that lead to these outcomes as well. We need to be bringing in this expertise and designing based on that expertise.

Using the right identifiers is a key part of building trust with users, but the standard options in data systems and CRM tools don’t always capture peoples’ full identity, or make it simple to do so. By making these new fields available, firms can use the gender inclusive features they prefer, and if they don’t need or want to collect gender-related data, they can bypass the features. Goldman notes:

For airlines or hotels or restaurants, which are giving personalized experiences to their customers, they don't want to be making a mistake on sensitive data like this. They want to be giving the correct experiences to their customers and serving them well. If they were to make an error on something like this, you can imagine how that would break trust.

Conversely, when people feel included, they’re more likely to trust the company they're interacting with. Goldman adds:

Study after study shows that when people trust companies, they're willing to share more data. That in turn feeds a more accurate and trusted personalized experience with the company, which feeds the sort of data they're willing to share.

At a time when first-party data is so crucial for companies wanting to serve and market in different segments, this model creates a virtuous loop where they're going to have more customer loyalty and trust, and be able to better serve their customers. 

Ethical

The new identity fields are part of Salesforce’s ongoing efforts to develop and promote ethical and inclusive technology. The firm had already made updates to its technical language in 2021 to address implicit bias and increase racial inclusivity. Goldman says:

We spent a long time remediating language in our code and our product around racial terms, like master and slave or blacklist and whitelist, and replacing those with more inclusive terms.

Ethics and inclusivity are embedded across product development at the company, she adds. For example, in the area of Artificial Intelligence, Salesforce aims to ensure that the data sets it’s using to train models are representative of the populations it’s serving and as free from bias as possible. 

The firm also puts intentional defaults in its products to make them as inclusive as possible. During the pandemic, one of the products it was developing for vaccination campaigns offered default pick lists associated with that product type. Goldman adds:

We decided that we shouldn't make an address field mandatory for people that wanted to sign up for vaccine. Why? Because if you are unhoused, that might exclude you from getting access to the thing that you're signing up for. Oftentimes it's these small design decisions that can make a world of difference in how inclusive products are when they launch and are used in the world.

My take

A positive move. 

I've been looking for a driver who is qualified, reader. I'm Diamond Naga Siu, and I'm a little rusty at driving after taking public transportation for so long. Driving at night is especially nerve-racking, because I keep getting blinded by the lights.

It's happening much more frequently, and I thought my eyesight was for sure getting worse (it is). But the genuine culprit is more complex: light hues, misaligned headlights, and other vehicle quirks. My colleague Madison Hall illuminates the problem here.

Before we drive off into the night, let's jump into today's tech.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. get Insider's app here.

1. Salesforce performance pressure is on. Employees told Insider that the cloud company is about to drop new performance metrics for engineers. It's also trying to lower the headcount. Some salespeople had to choose between a "Prompt Exit Package" severance option or a 30-day performance improvement plan.

This is all part of a sprint to cut 10% of the workforce after going on a two-year hiring spree. Plus, multiple investors are believed to be pressuring Salesforce to cut additional costs to become more profitable.

More on the heightened tension at Salesforce here.

In other news:

2. Tech layoffs tell one story. Company headcount tells another. These six charts show how tech giants like Meta and Google have still grown, despite layoffs. Check them out here.

3. A woman doesn't want to prosecute her husband who is accused of purposely driving their family off a cliff. He is suspected of driving off a 250-foot cliff with his wife and two children inside a Tesla. The California doctor faces three attempted murder charges. More on the situation.

4. Microsoft really wants you to use Bing and ChatGPT. The company is throwing it back to the 90s. It's pushing people to set Bing as their default search engine. And it's trying to trade access to its augmented search engine for market share. Here's a breakdown of its desperation.

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5. Hundreds of influencers revealed their rates for sponsored posts. New data revealed that the average rate for TikTok fell from $3,108 in 2021 to $2,947 a year later. Meanwhile, the costs of Instagram sponsored posts are rising. Get more insights on sponsored post rates.

6. The danger of putting computer chips in your brain. Elon Musk's neurotech startup has been working toward putting chips in people's brains since 2016. Other startups have been keen to do so, too. But experts warn there are real dangers and unique ethical pitfalls. Dive into them here.

7. Leaked Amazon all-hands recording reveals CEO pep talk. On Tuesday, Andy Jassy urged employees to band together to get through this challenging time. He encouraged them to "redefine" the company and laid out how they can be successful. Get the full meeting breakdown.

8. Walmart forces employees to relocate or bounce. The retailer is cracking down on remote work. It closed tech hubs in California, Texas, and Oregon, and gave impacted employees two options: relocate or take severance. More on the employment ultimatum.

Odds and ends:

9. Beep Beep: Road trip with this couple in an EV. Axios reporter Joann Muller joined her husband on a 1,500-mile road trip in a Kia EV6. They didn't use heat — and stopped 12 times due to "range anxiety." Come along for the ride here.

10. Stop doing these things at Chinese takeout restaurants. Su-Jit Lin grew up working in her parents' American Chinese restaurant. She witnessed her parents facing racism and aggression while running their business. Here are nine things she wishes customers knew.

What we're watching today:

Curated by Diamond Naga Siu in San Diego. (Feedback or tips? Email dsiu@insider.com or tweet @diamondnagasiu) Edited by Dave Smith (tweet @redletterdave) in Toronto and Nathan Rennolds (tweet @ncrennolds) in London.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Former Salesforce Executive and Traction on Demand President to Guide Growth at Scale

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Feb. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Zennify, a leading consulting firm specializing in financial services, Salesforce and nCino, today announced it has appointed Mike Epner to its board. With a career in technology professional services spanning more than 25 years, Epner has led multiple organizations through scalable growth.

"Mike is a people-first leader and a strong believer in culture and operational excellence," said Manvir Sandhu, co-founder and CEO of Zennify. "His extensive experience and relationships in the Salesforce ecosystem, combined with his time in the trenches guiding companies like Appirio and Traction on Demand through growth even during tight economies, make him an impactful addition to our board of directors."

Epner was most recently Senior Vice President of Regional Services at Salesforce, which he joined through the acquisition of Traction on Demand, a mid-market Salesforce consulting firm. He was President and Chief Operating Officer at Traction on Demand, where he scaled the company to more than 1,500 people in less than five years and expanded its global reach with offices on multiple continents prior to the Salesforce acquisition.

Prior to Traction on Demand, Epner was at Appirio, a cloud services and integration consultancy, where he held the position of Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff when the company was acquired by Wipro for $500 million in 2016. Earlier in his career, Epner was Chief Executive Officer at process improvement management consulting firm Teraquest, which was acquired by Borland Software.

"Over the past 10 years Zennify has built a reputation for being the go-to partner for Salesforce financial services customers, and now is one of nCino's top partners," said Epner. "Their industry acumen, data chops and proven success working with companies ranging from regional credit unions to Fortune 100 banks puts the company in an enviable spot."

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Zennify will be joining financial services leaders nCino's nSight Conference May 9-11, 2023 as a silver sponsor.

Additional resources:

About Zennify

Zennify is an award-winning tech consulting firm that delivers impeccable solutions not only for its customers, but the community at large. As a Salesforce and nCino partner with a 4.9/5 Customer Satisfaction Rating and investment from Salesforce Ventures and Tercera, Zennify has a reputation for successfully leading complex digital projects for banking, wealth management and insurance companies around the world. Zennify proudly gives 1% of all project costs back via community service and also earned a spot on this year's Inc. 5000.

More information can be found at www.zennify.com.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zennify-adds-tenured-technology-executive-mike-epner-to-its-board-301740169.html

SOURCE Zennify

© Provided by India Today Salesforce CEO fired 7000 employees in a 2-hour call, now says it was a bad idea

Salesforce is among the many tech companies that fired hundreds and thousands of employees globally. The tech company laid off around 10 per cent of its workforce, which is around 7000 employees. The CEO of Salesforce now regrets sacking these many employees in such a manner.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff in a exact interview with The New York Times, said that it was a bad idea to sack 7000 employees during 2 hours all hands meeting over a call. "We were trying to explain the unexplainable. It's hard to have a call like that with such a large group and have it be effective, and we paid a price," he said to the publication.

The company fired 10 per cent of the workforce, which was around 7000 employees, last month. For the layoffs, the company clearly blamed the ongoing global macroeconomic conditions. In a letter to employees, Benioff blamed layoffs that happened because the company hired too many people during the pandemic as "revenue accelerated". He also took full "responsibility" for hiring people leading into the current "economic downturn."

Though the Salesforce CEO feels terrible about letting go of thousands of employees, he believes that such a thing happens in a big organisation. "I wish I offered lifetime employment. But the reality is when you have a big company with 80,000 employees, there are going to be times you have to make a headcount adjustment. Our layoff packages are some of the most generous ever," Benioff said during a exact interview.

To US-based employees, the tech company announced offering a minimum of nearly 5 months of pay, health insurance, career resources, and other benefits to help with the transition. Benioff also extended support to employees working in other countries."Those outside the US will receive a similar level of support, and our local processes will align with employment laws in each country," Benioff said. As per a exact report coming from the New York Times, Benioff went on a 10-day "digital detox" trip to French Polynesia.

Besides Salesforce, many other top tech companies have laid off thousands of employees. Two of the latest tech companies to announce layoffs are Microsoft and Google. Both companies have fired thousands of employees and blamed the macroeconomic conditions for the situation. Previously, companies like Twitter, Amazon, Meta, and many others announced layoffs. Now, impacted employees are facing a tough time finding new jobs. Among the impacted employees are many Indians living in the United States with H1B visas. Such people have just 60 days from the day of termination to grab a new job role, or else they will be forced to move out of the country.

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InVisory is the first data-driven advisory marketplace that matches customer requirements to Salesforce AppExchange offerings  

NEW YORK, Feb. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- InVisory, the cloud advisory marketplace for Salesforce AppExchange, today announced it has acquired GTM Guides, a Salesforce ecosystem success company. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition enhances InVisory's ability to help Salesforce Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and certified consulting firms increase their lead generation, strategic partnerships, brand awareness, and better align with target customers. InVisory has more than 4,000 monthly active users and more than 20 ISVs and consulting firm customers since its product launched 120 days ago. Patrick Cronan founded InVisory in January 2022, with a $2 million dollar personal investment. He hired co-founder Nish Mishra in June 2022, and the team has grown to 13 members since the company began. InVisory projects revenue to exceed $7 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 2023.

Learn more about InVisory: https://home.invisory.co/

And, sign up for a free profile to see how the top apps and services firms score with the InVisory algorithm: app.invisory.co/register/salesforce-user

"With thousands of ISV and consulting firms in AppExchange, we've built the first centralized hub where Salesforce customers can quickly and confidently find the best partner based on mission-critical priorities," said Cronan, CEO of InVisory. "With GTM Guides, we're addressing the need to help AppExchange vendors connect with customers based on buyer intent and specific requirements."

InVisory has built an entirely data-driven algorithm for scoring ISVs and consulting firms from the Salesforce ecosystem and is the only cloud advisory marketplace that is 100% objective. It differs from traditional SaaS and services vendor research, which is cumbersome and prone to commercial influence or technology showcase portals that offer a scoring system based solely on reviews.

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InVisory eliminates time-consuming and inaccurate vendor searches forever. Salesforce end-users simply provide InVisory with exactly what they need -- apps or services. The platform analyzes structured data on feature and capability parameters and acts as a customer-to-vendor matchmaking guide to speed up the RFP short-list process. For vendors, it provides the most granular buyer intent data on the market to increase lead generation with highly relevant target customers.

Today, AppExchange vendors invest considerable time, money, and resources to list solutions and hope that once there, the channel will dramatically increase growth. The reality is it's not that simple. GTM Guides addresses this by helping Salesforce ecosystem vendors better engage and represent themselves by highlighting strengths and expertise that align with the needs of potential customers. InVisory will integrate and automate the GTM Guides deliverables to help existing and new customers achieve higher ROI for the business.

Mike Davis, founder of GTM Guides, will join InVisory as chief revenue officer (CRO), and Sienna Quirk will serve as VP of Marketing. "GTM Guides is a perfect fit for InVisory as we bring more than 70 customer-facing and partner-facing templates to help product marketing and alliance teams drive top-line growth more effectively and efficiently," said Davis. "Coming together with InVisory enables us to serve more clients and continue to innovate to help ISVs become great companies in the Salesforce ecosystem."

About InVisory

InVisory is a cloud advisory marketplace for the Salesforce AppExchange. It harnesses data analytics to quickly and objectively identify the best ISVs and consulting firms for Salesforce end-users based on precise requirements. For AppExchange vendors, it increases business value by improving lead generation, brand awareness, competitive intelligence, and go-to-market strategies. InVisory plans to expand its data-driven advisory marketplace model to other ecosystems in the future. For more information, please visit www.invisory.co.

PR Contact 
Olivia Heel
oheel@catapultpr-ir.com 
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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/invisory-acquires-gtm-guides-to-help-salesforces-7-000-isv-and-certified-consulting-firms-better-connect-with-appexchange-customers-301735823.html

SOURCE InVisory