Connect, discover and share

It's easy to become bogged down trying to deal with huge amounts of data and content. Add email volume into the mix and it's clear that a better way is needed to manage information and data.

Chatter, embedded within Salesforce.com, provides a number of tools to connect, share and discover. It's facebook-style interaction for the enterprise without the privacy concerns. Chatter brings social media functionality to the enterprise.

Within an instance of Salesforce.com users can follow other users, groups, data objects and other applications. For instance, if a User A updates a client record and User B happens to be following either user A or the client record then the update appears in User B's activity stream.

Organisations which have implemented Chatter cite the following benefits:

• Connections are exploding - more people are linking up and sharing information and expertise
• Apps are brought to life - for instance, as deals are closed, the entire organisation can be made aware of such successes
• Discovery unleashed - with increased visibility of updates, questions, etc the entire organisation is in a position to relate previously hidden information to existing challenges and opportunities
• Sharing content - users can post new content: manuals, presentations, proposals, etc which can be instantly reviewed by peers and other experts
• Actively engaging executives - it's easier to engage with execs and receive direct feedback

All of the above without having to send or receive one email.

Check it out, it's worth the effort...

Chatter - Facebook for the enterprise - launched

Following the announcement at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference last November Chatter is now generally available to subscribers.

This represents a significant step forward in enterprise collaboration given Chatter's tight integration capabilities with all things Salesforce.com. Some of the key features include:

• Profiles - users can create and maintain profiles including their expertise and current role, location, etc. Also useful for tracking new hires and transfers
• Status updates - enough said!
• Groups - create groups to collaborate on accounts, opportunities, projects, etc
• Feeds - subscribe to groups, projects, people and follow their enterprise exploits
• App updates - keep abreast of updates to application data: opportunities, accounts, contacts and even custom object data
• Document sharing - works with content so documents can be shared and updates monitored
• Security and confidentiality - works with existing data access & confidentiality rules
• Social networks - plays well with other social media like Twitter and Facebook
• Mobility - works on mobile devices as well

All in all, a very compelling offering!

Contact us if you'd like more insight

Force.com as a development platform

I recently had a discussion with attendees at a Salesforce.com administration module training course. It struck me that many of them commented on and were excited with the prospect of extending the CRM functionality or simply creating new custom objects for other purposes.

What was more surprising was that such a topic was discussed at an administration training session rather than a development course. This implies that extending the platform, at a basic level, can be relatively easily achieved at the admin level or through clicks rather than having to resort to code.

I wonder how this will play out at the interface between traditional IT teams and those business users who have knowledge of business requirements and processes? I think there is going to be a big shift towards business users doing rapid prototyping-type work while the formal implementation may be left to the developers. Having said that, a number of quick and dirty functional enhancements could easily remain as enhancements.

So it would appear that what is happening in the internet consumer space is beginning to happen in the internet business space on the back of the growth of cloud service providers. Platforms such as force.com are driving this shift in behaviour and are therefore exceedingly well placed to benefit from this including in regions such as South Africa and the rest of Africa.