Cloud Wars
  • Home
  • Top 10
  • CW Minute
  • CW Podcast
  • Categories
    • AI and Copilots
    • Innovation & Leadership
    • Cybersecurity
    • Data
  • Member Resources
    • Cloud Wars AI Agent
    • Digital Summits
    • Guidebooks
    • Reports
  • About Us
    • Our Story
    • Tech Analysts
    • Marketing Services
  • Summit NA
  • Dynamics Communities
  • Ask Copilot
Twitter Instagram
  • Summit NA
  • Dynamics Communities
  • AI Copilot Summit NA
  • Ask Cloud Wars
Twitter LinkedIn
Cloud Wars
  • Home
  • Top 10
  • CW Minute
  • CW Podcast
  • Categories
    • AI and CopilotsWelcome to the Acceleration Economy AI Index, a weekly segment where we cover the most important recent news in AI innovation, funding, and solutions in under 10 minutes. Our goal is to get you up to speed – the same speed AI innovation is taking place nowadays – and prepare you for that upcoming customer call, board meeting, or conversation with your colleague.
    • Innovation & Leadership
    • CybersecurityThe practice of defending computers, servers, mobile devices, electronic systems, networks, and data from malicious attacks.
    • Data
  • Member Resources
    • Cloud Wars AI Agent
    • Digital Summits
    • Guidebooks
    • Reports
  • About Us
    • Our Story
    • Tech Analysts
    • Marketing Services
    • Login / Register
Cloud Wars
    • Login / Register
Home » Salesforce Co-CEO Taylor Puts Bullseye on Small CRM Competitors
Cloud

Salesforce Co-CEO Taylor Puts Bullseye on Small CRM Competitors

Bob EvansBy Bob EvansSeptember 1, 20224 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email
Salesforce Co-CEO discusses CRM
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email

Saying that vendor consolidation has become a top priority for cloud buyers, co-CEO Bret Taylor said Salesforce is encouraging customers to “take out some point solutions” and replace those with Salesforce products.

When I first heard Taylor make that comment on Salesforce’s August 24 fiscal-Q2 earnings call, I was a bit puzzled — after all, Salesforce didn’t get to $30 billion in annual revenue in a wickedly competitive market by being passive in its pursuit of market share.

So why, I wondered, was Taylor using the high-profile earnings call to highlight Salesforce’s eagerness to help customers “take out some point solutions”?

I realized that the big point Taylor was making was this: because of the recession and the renewed scrutiny customers are devoting to all business expenses, the impetus to narrow down the number of tech suppliers buying is coming not from Salesforce but from business customers themselves.

Plus, this aggressive posture from Salesforce is coming to light just as we’ve analyzed an extraordinary achievement from Salesforce that shows its power in the marketplace: Salesforce Leapfrogs SAP as World’s Largest Enterprise-Apps Vendor.

In that context, Salesforce is looking to leverage that momentum in every way possible—and the effort to cut back on tech-vendor sprawl could be enormously beneficial for Salesforce if it can convince business leaders that such a shift is in their best interest.

As Taylor put it, “I think you’re seeing an increased focus on three things: One is time to value.

“Another is ensuring that these projects drive cost-savings in addition to customer satisfaction and topline growth.

“And then the third is reducing complexity and vendor consolidation.”

Taylor then expanded on his perception of what he described as a rising trend toward “vendor consolidation.”

“If you look at some of the innovations we’re bringing out like our Sales Cloud Unlimited edition or Salesforce Easy, which I mentioned earlier, they’re really efforts to enable our customers to do more with less and to enable them to use Salesforce as their sole vendor and take out some point solutions that perhaps aren’t getting the return on investments our customers are looking for,” Taylor said.

“So we’re sort of taking advantage of this opportunity to be the most-strategic vendor for our customers right now as they look to really hold their technology to high standards, which is to drive topline and bottom-line performance.”

Hmm — where have we heard this “it’s time to boost our market share” call to action before? That would be from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who used his company’s late-July earnings call to emphatically state that Microsoft would use the current gloomy economic environment to “take share.” I dug into the implications of that in a piece called Microsoft Losing Cloud Share to Amazon and Google—Q2 Results Prove It.

As is the case with Salesforce, Microsoft is not exactly known as a kumbaya competitor who’s happy just to dip its beak every now and then — by my estimates, Microsoft Cloud will reach $100 billion in revenue this calendar year.

So, when Microsoft CEO Nadella and Salesforce co-CEO Taylor make a point of publicly declaring that they’re going to intensify their market-share initiatives, then we can probably expect that the results won’t be subtle.

For business customers, this presents an interesting dynamic: on the one hand, Taylor is indicating that Salesforce wants its customers to toss overboard some “point solutions” and go wall-to-wall with Salesforce, which could give those business customers some excellent negotiating leverage.

On the other hand, some of those point solutions might be in place precisely because they’re more capable than the competitive offering from Salesforce. So, I’d recommend that business customers think long and hard about these two options — each has its pluses and minuses.

But the big story for CXOs is that a couple of the world’s largest, most successful, and most powerful cloud vendors are making it clear that they’re in a mood to deal — and I would urge you, buyers, to take full advantage of the hunger that Salesforce and Microsoft are displaying via their CEOs by letting them know that you’ll be happy to help ease their hunger provided they’re willing to deliver exceptionally high value to you.

Because in the Cloud Wars, the ultimate winners are always the customers.


Cloud Wars Cloud Wars Archive CRM Earnings Call featured Salesforce
Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email
Founderuser

Bob Evans

Founder
Cloud Wars

Areas of Expertise
  • AI
  • Cloud
  • Digital Business
  • Innovation
  • Leadership
  • LinkedIn

Cloud Wars Founder Bob Evans actively analyzes the Cloud and AI categories through video reports, in-depth analyses, and interviews with the Cloud and AI market’s leaders and innovators. He’s also the creator of the Cloud Wars Top 10, a ranking and ongoing analysis of the world's most influential tech companies driving digital business and the digital economy. Bob is recognized as a world-class strategic communicator focused on emerging business strategy, disruptive innovation, and forward-looking leadership.

  Contact Bob Evans ...

Related Posts

Microsoft Adopts A2A Protocol, Agentic AI Era Begins

May 9, 2025

AI Agent & Copilot Podcast: Finastra Chief AI Officer Lays Out Range of Use Cases, Microsoft Collaboration

May 9, 2025

IBM Launches Microsoft Practice to Accelerate AI, Cloud, and Security Transformation

May 9, 2025

AI Agent & Copilot Podcast: JP Morgan Chase CISO Publicly Pushes for Stronger Security Controls

May 8, 2025
Add A Comment

Comments are closed.

Recent Posts
  • Microsoft Adopts A2A Protocol, Agentic AI Era Begins
  • AI Agent & Copilot Podcast: Finastra Chief AI Officer Lays Out Range of Use Cases, Microsoft Collaboration
  • IBM Launches Microsoft Practice to Accelerate AI, Cloud, and Security Transformation
  • AI Agent & Copilot Podcast: JP Morgan Chase CISO Publicly Pushes for Stronger Security Controls
  • ServiceNow Re-Invents CRM for End-to-End Enterprise

  • Ask Cloud Wars AI Agent
  • Tech Guidebooks
  • Industry Reports
  • Newsletters

Join Today

Most Popular Guidebooks

Accelerating GenAI Impact: From POC to Production Success

November 1, 2024

ExFlow from SignUp Software: Streamlining Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations and Business Central with AP Automation

September 10, 2024

Delivering on the Promise of Multicloud | How to Realize Multicloud’s Full Potential While Addressing Challenges

July 19, 2024

Zero Trust Network Access | A CISO Guidebook

February 1, 2024

Advertisement
Cloud Wars
Twitter LinkedIn
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Get In Touch
  • Marketing Services
  • Do not sell my information
© 2025 Cloud Wars.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

  • Login
Forgot Password?
Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.