Salesforce Extends Its Cloud To The Internet of Things

Salesforce has revealed its (internet of things) IoT Cloud, the first of two big announcements from its Dreamforce event in San Francisco this week.

The platform is designed to connect the billions of events triggered by devices and machines with Salesforce’s other clouds (there are seven of them now), and more importantly offering insights from all the data created and collected.

For cloud software vendors like Salesforce, Oracle and Adobe, the IoT is a natural extension to platforms that are designed to help companies understand their customers and the world they operate within.

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McKinsey and Company for instance suggest that the oil and gas industry only uses about one per cent of the all the data it collects, according to Tod Nielsen, EVP Salesforce App Cloud.

“IoT cloud will enable and transform the way companies engage with customer and process data,” he said. “They will be able to apply business rules to the data and wash it against their Salesforce contacts.”

According to Salesforce chairman CEO Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive officer, “The IoT Cloud will allow businesses to create realtime 1:1, proactive actions for sales, service, marketing or any other business process, delivering a new kind of customer success.”

Commenting on the announcement Gary Barnett, chief analyst, Ovum said, “IoT deployments only bring value when organizations are able to act on the information that their IoT networks generate. The ability to make sense of that data by connecting it with existing customer information will be a key factor in turning data into action.”

The combination of mobile, social, sensor, wearable and cloud technologies has triggered a deluge of data, with more than 90 percent of the world’s data generated over the last two years.

The number of connected devices projected to reach between 20 billion and 75 billion by 2020, depending on whose numbers you believe. But even at the lower end of expectations the data generated by these devices will grow exponentially.

Managing, and more importantly, understanding that data will become a critical differentiator for businesses.

One of Salesforce’s goals, said Nielsen, was the democratisation of the data with the goal being to make is easily accessible and understandable through the platform.

In addition to the Internet of Things, connecting to phones, wearables, windmills and industrial turbines and other devices, IoT Cloud connects data from websites, social interactions and more to Salesforce.

By connecting the billions of realtime events and digital content with Salesforce, the company says the IoT Cloud brings customer context to transactional data.

Among the advantages it lists;

Triggering actions with realtime rules: With IoT Cloud, business users can use intuitive, point andclick tools to define, modify and set rules and logic for events that can trigger actions across Salesforce.
Providing one to one proactive engagement through Salesforce: IoT Cloud works across the Salesforce Customer Success Platform to surface insights and trigger realtime 1:1, personalized actions for sales, service, marketing or any other business process.

The company also announced SalesforceIQ, which is describes as the future of selling for every business. It says the solution which is powered by Relationship Intelligence technology utilizes advanced data science to analyze company relationships with prospects, customers and partners.

“The digital universe is doubling in size every two years, providing companies with the raw material to sell smarter. Yet, companies are still struggling to extract the right data and deliver the datadriven insights that help employees sell more effectively.”

“With SalesforceIQ, companies can leverage datadriven insights to deepen customer relationships and accelerate deals through the pipeline,” according to a statement accompanying the release.

This article originally appeared on B&T’s sister digital business site www.which-50.com

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