A new study on the growth of Salesforce and its partner ecosystem has been released today by IDC. This latest study comes with the wave of monumental change that continues to see businesses revolutionise their operations for a digital-first, work—from—anywhere new normal and reveals the Salesforce partner ecosystem is on track to become nearly six times larger than Salesforce itself by 2024.
We’ve pooled the highlights from the study, which you can access in full here.
Cloud growth driven by digital transformation needs
IDC cites digital transformation urgencies as catalyst for the rapidly expanding cloud computing market, and therefore, Salesforce’s continued growth. Cloud computing has quickly become a vital ingredient to any enterprise’s digital transformation strategy, especially with the spike in remote work and contactless customer engagement. The study forecasts that cloud—related technologies will make up 27% of digital transformation spending in 2021 and will rise to 37% by 2026.
Greater than 75% of all relevant decision makers said that the pandemic either accelerated or had no impact on cloud deployments. Fifty—one percent of enterprises that boast official digital transformation strategies rate cloud ecosystems as a “very important” part of the equation.
Partner ecosystem thrives alongside Salesforce
The study predicts a glowing future for Salesforce’s partners: “taking the overall economic benefits of cloud computing and winnowing them down to those tied to Salesforce and its ecosystem yields an impressive picture”.
As mentioned, the global ecosystem of companies that support Salesforce client implementations is currently five times larger than Salesforce itself, and set to grow to more than six times larger by 2026.
It’s predicted that between 2021 and 2026, the Salesforce economy will create new revenues that total $1.6 trillion USD ($2.19 trillion AUD/2.29 trillion NZD) globally – a jump of more than 350% over that period. Australia’s portion of that total will sit at around $35.53 billion USD ($48.6 billion AUD) and New Zealand’s will hit $6.82 billion USD ($9.71 billion NZD).
Millions of new jobs set to stem from the Salesforce economy
As these Salesforce economy revenues continue to grow, IDC says that so too will the demand for relevant talent. For Australians and New Zealanders in 2026, this means 104,400 and 26,000 new jobs respectively (9.3 million worldwide).
Which is why Salesforce empowers anyone to learn the skills needed for these 1.06 million jobs in Australia and New Zealand with Salesforce’s free online learning platform Trailhead – so that this demand for talent can be met with pathways to new skills, to therefore satisfy new jobs within the ecosystem. Today, over 3.6 million people use Trailhead, compared to the 1.7 million only two years ago (October 2019) and the Trailhead Community has helped 3 in 5 members get a new job.
Here in Australia, Trailhead has supported many people to help not only themselves, but also the community. Jessica Macpherson, founder of St Kilda Mums and Blaze Your Trail, leveraged Salesforce’s digital learning platforms to empower mothers returning to the workforce, job seekers, and ailing charities.
Outside of creating new technologies around digital skills, Salesfoce also supports creating more equal pathways to these new jobs. Recently, Salesforce New Zealand partnered with TupuToa to create employment pathways by ensuring corporates took on paid Māori and Pacific interns. One of many such interns, Mikara Hendry, has since joined Salesforce as Solutions Engineer..
Then there’s Dooley Whitton, a 23—year-old Kamilaroi man who in May 2021 became the first Indigenous Salesforce intern. New doors opened for Dooley after he took advantage of the CareerTrackers program, which matches Indigenous students with paid internships.
Through Trailhead, other empowerment platforms, and partnerships, Salesforce is always looking for new ways to equip people from all walks of life with invaluable skills for the modern, digital—first sales world.
All this growth supports sustainability and work-from-anywhere
Customers are looking to Salesforce to help facilitate both new work flexibility and a more sustainable future, the study reveals. When companies work with Salesforce to enable a from—anywhere system, populations that would usually struggle to operate from a physical office are presented with new and exciting opportunities.
Environmentally, the rapid migration to work—from—anywhere will foster an ongoing cut back on carbon emissions. Another study by IDC reveals that from 2021—24, cloud computing could lead to a reduction of up to one billion metric tonnes of C02.
These advancements, combined with tools such as Sustainability Cloud and Salesforce’s ongoing environmental commitments, make it easy to see why 28% of surveyed customers have turned to Salesforce for support on sustainability strategies.
Methodology
Findings in this study come primarily from two sources:
- An internal model maintained by IDC, fueled by both IDC’s market research and external sources.
- An online survey conducted in August 2021 of 525 decision makers familiar with their organisation’s cloud deployments across Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, the UK, and the US.
Source: IDC White Paper, sponsored by Salesforce, “The Salesforce Economic Impact,” doc #US48214821, September 20, 2021
