All you need is an internet connection

Formed at the turn of the new millennium, Salesforce.com, an on-demand CRM solutions company, hopes to implement change by turning the traditional way marketers use CRM products on its head. Debbie Cai braves the unknown.

Companies can often be resistant to change but these days innovation has become such a relevant buzzword, we can no longer ignore it. Salesforce.com, by addressing the real software issues companies' face, has come up with solutions which could indeed replace traditional enterprise technology.

"A company would typically have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on software whether it is CRM or ERP or whatever else it may be. And then they were required to go and manage their own IT environment. By taking the IT department out of an organisation, particularly sales organisations, they are able to focus much more around business agility, innovation and look much more at the way that they actually utilise software around than how they're actually managing it," Jeremy Cooper, VP marketing of Asia Pacific and Japan for Salesforce.com said.

Advocates for change are always faced with the challenge of converting non-believers, and in this instance, Cooper says his challenge is getting people to be aware that there is a better way to do things.

The task of communicating or marketing a programme downloading approach to CRM has led to some unique if not controversial viral marketing campaigns. One of which included a staged anti-software protest involving 60 protestors all dressed in ‘no software' T-shirts carrying placards and chanting, "It's time for change".

"We try to excite the markets by creating tremors - last year in Singapore we had our CEO talk at the D&AD event and one of the things that we wanted to do was send a clear message that we're not a software company and we're arriving at a period where it's going to be the end of software."

"We held the demonstration at the Pan Pacific - we knew that there were going to be competitors in the room so they got the message," he said.

That protest generated at least 120 articles across regional markets including Australia. Cooper believes that it was not only "fun to do but had a tremendous benefit" and was a break away from the traditional software industry which "has become unbelievably sort of conservative and caught up in masking the reality of what you use rather than chasing what could be".

Other marketing stunts include last year's time capsule idea where people from all over Singapore were asked to place their old software into a time capsule, which was later launched at an event with over 450 people at the Ministry of Sound. The company also uses blogs to communicate transparency in consumer dialog resulting in ‘idea exchange' which is an online Salesforce.com initiative allowing customers to nominate on the productisation of development efforts.

"If you look at the way software's usually being developed, it's typically been US companies working with US product development teams to deliver a product for customers in Singapore."

"With ‘idea exchange', suddenly the smart manufacturing or financial services company in Singapore can say ‘Wow, wouldn't it be great to have this?' And then there's an awakening within our community and everyone's like, ‘Yeah yeah I want that!' and you see people vote in real-time," he said.

Of course, Singapore marketers have never fully trusted blogs but Cooper admits being transparent is "what differentiates us from our competition" and helps salesforce.com to nip growing consumer concerns in the bud.

"Blogs and open dialogue are a great way not only to identify people with concerns but also gauge whether or not those are common concerns because if they're common and they're shared then the immediacy of response to a community is just as powerful as the immediacy of response to an individual".