Salesforce has been recognized as a Leader in the inaugural Gartner Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms. The company was evaluated for Salesforce Data Cloud. 

Why it matters: Gartner defines customer data platforms (CDPs) “as software applications that support marketing and customer experience use cases by unifying a company’s customer data from marketing and other channels. CDPs optimize the timing and targeting of messages, offers and customer engagement activities, and enable the analysis of individual-level customer behavior over time.” In addition, Gartner points out “[w]hile CDPs originated to serve marketing use cases, interest from data management roles, IT and other customer-facing roles (e.g. sales, service and support) is on the rise.” 

• Developed as the hyperscale data engine that is native to Salesforce’s Einstein 1 Platform, Salesforce Data Cloud enables all employees to quickly access and easily act on real-time information about their customer across the world’s #1 AI CRM applications including Sales, Service, Marketing, and Commerce. 
• With Data Cloud, companies can now bring together all of their enterprise data across Salesforce applications, cloud providers like AWS, Snowflake, Databricks, and Google with zero-ETL, and all 3rd party systems with MuleSoft and our out of the box connectors to build a comprehensive view of their customers to drive faster insights, predictions, and automated actions across the entire customer experience. 

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Zoom out: The amount of customer data that companies collect has grown exponentially with the rise of digital products and services and customers have come to expect exceptional experiences based on the data collected about them. But data silos with trapped data in different data platforms and systems stand in the way. While nearly 70% of companies say their customer interactions are now purely digital, only 26% of organizations report providing a completely connected experience across all channels. And 81% of IT leaders report that data silos are hindering their digital transformation efforts. As an example, FedEx is improving the customer experience through recent investment in Salesforce Data Cloud by integrating customer service, marketing and sales giving the customer a more informed, efficient and personalized experience.

The Salesforce Perspective: “Customers recognize that the transformative power of a CDP goes beyond marketing. Salesforce’s Data Cloud is enabling organizations to unlock the power of their customer data across the world’s #1 AI CRM. Data Cloud makes all your data natively available across all Salesforce applications to power insights, automation and business processes to deliver exceptional customer experiences across every touch point,” said Rahul Auradkar, EVP & GM, Unified Data Services and Einstein. “We believe Data Cloud being recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant within a few years of launching the product attests to the power of hyperscale data combined with Salesforce’s metadata and leading CRM applications. With our open and extensible ecosystem and partners, we are enabling customers to maximize the value of their trapped data from their existing tech stacks in service of delivering better customer engagement across every touchpoint.”

The customer perspective: 

• Gartner Peer Insights™ is a public platform that offers verified, first-hand reviews of enterprise software and services from experienced IT professionals.
  • “I have had the privilege of utilising Salesforce Data Cloud for over a year now and it has been an absolute game changer – I hugely recommend Salesforce Data Cloud as it’s significantly improved our customer relationship management and also processes in data driven decision making.” – IT Analyst
  • “Overall, my experience with Salesforce Data Cloud has been outstanding. The Platforms offers a powerful and versatile solution for harnessing and utilizing customer data across various Salesforce applications” – Customer Success Manager

Customers recognize that the transformative power of a CDP goes beyond marketing. Salesforce’s Data Cloud is enabling organizations to unlock the power of their customer data across the world’s #1 AI CRM. Data Cloud makes all your data natively available across all Salesforce applications to power insights, automation and business processes to deliver exceptional customer experiences across every touch point.

Rahul Auradkar, EVP & GM, Unified Data Services and Einstein

Additional information:

• Download the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Customer Data Platforms report here
• Learn more about Salesforce Data Cloud

Gartner® disclaimer

Gartner®, Magic Quadrant™ for Customer Data Platforms, 14 February 2024, Lizzy Foo Kune | Benjamin Bloom | Rachel Smith | Adriel Tey | Suzanne White | David Walters

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