Salesforce, one of the leading companies in the customer relation management (CRM) space, has sharpened its India focus in the financial sector, while it has been witnessing a double digit growth year-on-year in the Indian market.
In an exclusive interaction with Business Today, Sunil Jose, Senior Area Vice President and Country Leader, Salesforce said that financial services industry (FSI) is an area that requires focus. "We will soon have a dedicated vertical in this segment. As part of our industry strategy, Salesforce will focus on delivering new social, mobile and connected cloud solutions with an end-to-end and 360-degree transformation in the FSI," Jose elaborated.
Even though the company did not specify the number, it said, currently a significant number of customers and revenues in India comes from the FSI vertical such as Jana Small Finance Bank, Edelweiss Wealth Management and Home First Finance, among others. Heading the Financial services vertical, Vikrant Chowdhary, Regional Vice President, will focus on executing growth and people strategies for SalesForce in India. "Our solution engineering team and ignite team consisting of consultants, design thinkers are telling clients how to transform their organisations to meet future needs," said Jose. Ignite is an elite team of strategists focussed on the digital transformation of large businesses in digital technologies such as cloud computing, data analytics and mobile devices.
The company in May this year unveiled its Artificial Intelligence-led platform Einstein Analytics for FSI. In the earnings call post Q2 results, Keith Block, Co-Chief Executive Officer had said that Einstein Analytics would empower wealth advisors, managers and retail bankers with AI-powered insights to better serve customers and grow their business. Jose says this will form a critical part in growing the dedicated vertical in India as well. "Indian organisations have lot of data," says Jose. He argues that organisations such as Salesforce are picking up all data and solutions that have been enriched with AI. It allows them to do real-time discussions on costs and other process efficiencies. With an aim to create 1.1 million direct and indirect jobs in India by 2022, Salesforce is focussing on small and medium-sized business (SMB) segment as well as penetration into Tier-II cities. Starting its operations in India in 2005, Salesforce today employs over 1000 people across four cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. The Centre of Excellence in Hyderabad is the largest engineering and customer service centers outside its headquarters in San Francisco.
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