Salesforce is eyeing a bigger slice of business with communications service providers (CSPs) after launching a new framework aimed at helping companies shift their critical systems into the cloud.
The cloud-computing pioneer already sells its CRM (customer relationship management) software to CSPs but sees bigger opportunities in the business-to-consumer (B2C) market if it can remove some of the obstacles in its path.
According to Andy Baer, Salesforce.com Inc. ‘s senior vice president of global communications and media, CSP customers including Liberty Global Inc.(Nasdaq: LBTY), Italy’s Fastweb SpA (Milan: FWB) and Sky Italia have been struggling to integrate different cloud apps and use these alongside their legacy systems.
By addressing the pain points, Salesforce clearly hopes to provide a spur to its own CSP business as well as those of partners and affiliates.
A prime example is the recently announced partnership between OSS/BSS player Matrixx Software Inc. and Vlocity Inc. , a cloud software company that uses the Salesforce platform and counts Salesforce as one of its key investors.
Announced in January, that partnership unites Matrixx’s real-time engine and digital commerce functionality with Vlocity’s omnichannel and CRM capabilities and has been “well received by the industry,” according to Baer.
“The whole initiative already takes advantage of this communications framework and is 100% compliant with it,” he says.
Light Reading had originally reported that Salesforce might be looking to play a bigger role in the communications space with a B2C offering following a conversation with Jennifer Kyriakakis, Matrixx’s vice president of marketing, in March. As noted at the time, the tie-up between Matrixx and Vlocity has even raised the possibility of Salesforce investing in or acquiring the former as a means of building up its B2C capabilities. (See Matrixx Lines Up New Customers, Funding.)
“I won’t speculate,” says Baer when asked if Salesforce is considering takeover moves in this area. “What we’re doing is partnering with as many of the companies already mentioned and others that may become interested to create a model the industry can rely on.”
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