There's no doubt that Salesforce will use this event to
showcase some exciting new developments. A question we pose is
whether those announcements will elate current users. Analyzing in-depth reviews of Salesforce users in TrustRadius two principal wants stand out:
1. Enhanced reporting & trending analysis capabilities within Salesforce
Users consistently mention that the native reporting capabilities in Salesforce don’t fully meet their needs. In particular, they would love to have the ability to snapshot and warehouse data for
reporting and trend analysis. While Salesforce does have some ability to
capture trend data, it’s difficult to expose it and use through standard
reporting templates. Most users are left with the option of exporting their snapshot data to either Excel for manual analysis, to a database for more structured querying, or to an Analytics platform such as, C9, Birst, GoodData, or Tableau. While some of these tools support out-of-the-box packaged analyses and visualizations of sales and marketing performance, they still require configuration and customization not to mention the monitoring or another periodic data integration. Moreover, many organizations have already committed to more general purpose Business Intelligence platforms and are faced with the choice of building and maintaining visualizations from scratch in their existing platforms or introducing another purpose-built BI platform into the mix. Expect to see users
attending the analytics sessions hoping for good news in this area.
2. Stronger integration of Salesforce's acquired companies and their products
Salesforce has expanded its reach from sales into functions like
marketing and support, through product development and acquisition of complementary products. Users
have reported limitations with native capabilities such as email marketing or
modules like Content. The recent acquisition of ExactTarget (and by extension Pardot)
should help to reduce some of that concern but M&A brings its own set of concerns. Users have expressed concern with the lack of investment and integration of prior acquisitions
such as Radian6 and Buddy Media. These concerns range from a desire for enhanced technical integration of the acquired products to Salesforce's core platform itself, integration among the acquired products, and consistency and clarity in packaging and licensing of these products as part of an integrated offering. Expect
to see users ask hard questions about specific integration plans, time-frames and future product roadmaps.
Are
you attending #DF13 next week? We'd love to hear what product announcements
you want to hear at the conference. In
the meantime, make sure to check user reviews from the vendors you plan to meet with in the Cloud Expo. These reviews will help you assess where you best spend your time, and give you ammunition to ask good questions.
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