Salesforce Canada
The Canadian economy has been built on the backs of driven, savvy and determined entrepreneurs. Industry Canada indicates that small and medium-sized enterprises (fewer than 500 employees) make up 99 per cent of business in Canada and employ 64 per cent of workers in the private sector.
Over the next few days, 160,000 registered attendees and media from around the world will be learning about Salesforce’s customers, solutions and vision at Dreamforce. But for 70 international journalists, the event started a day early with an exclusive tour of some of San Francisco’s most innovative and revered companies.
Some people count the days to the start of hockey season. Others count down the shopping days before the holidays hit. But for the more than 150,000 people who make the trek to San Francisco from 78 countries around the world—and another 10 million who join via live streaming—the countdown is on for Salesforce’s Dreamforce, the largest software conference on Earth.
A few weeks ago, the Financial Post published a story that spoke directly to a potential threat facing many Canadian businesses. In “How to stay one step ahead of disruptors in the app economy,” the newspaper looked at how companies like Uber are competing with the taxi industry, and Airbnb is shaking up the hospitality sector. The Post suggested the stakes are high if Canadian firms don’t want to get left behind.
Amid the day-to-day challenges of running a company, like trying to grow sales and delivering customer service, it may be easy to forget how cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) can help contribute to key business outcomes. In that sense, there’s no time like now to look at what the business community has learned about CRM and cloud computing, and then apply it to your organization. Think of it as a grown up version of practicing your A, B, Cs.
The Internet is filled with advice on how to help parents and children adjust to the back-to-school transition. Some of these tips make just as much sense for those selling products and services as it does for those learning the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic.
Three years ago, the federal government published a report called “The State of Entrepreneurship in Canada,” and while it showed a surge of people launching small businesses at the time, it also indirectly helped explain why customer relationship management (CRM) has become such a vital contributor to their success and survival in 2015.
There’s no question that Canada is producing a slew of startup success stories. Entrepreneurs here have created innovative products and services to revolutionize analytics, wearable computing and the way businesses use video, among many other examples. Yet there’s also no question that Canadian startups and entrepreneurs need to work to cultivate an environment for long-term growth.
Tweeting or sharing an update on LinkedIn may not seem as productive as cold-calling or attending customer events, but a recent podcast from the Canadian Marketing Association suggests more companies need to embrace “social selling” if they don’t want to miss out on many potential opportunities.