Scheduled to be officially launched on June 22, 2010,
Salesforce.com’s business social platform, Salesforce Chatter
is creating a buzz in the industry. Indian customers who are part
of the company’s private beta program are experiencing a
boost in productivity due to the platform’s ability to
integrate social networking features with business systems.
“By stitching together information against the fabric of
relevance, Salesforce Chatter has redefined the world of
collaboration,” says Jeremy Cooper, VP, Marketing, APJ,
Salesforce.com. Cooper says that Chatter is an example of the next
cloud computing paradigm, Cloud 2, where information can be updated
and exchanged in real-time.
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"Salesforce Chatter is disruptive as it allows business
users to collaborate like never before. If Facebook made sure that
social users don’t use e-mails, Chatter makes sure that
business users don’t use e-mails”
- Sumeet Vaid, Founder and CEO, Ffreedom
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Similar to social networking websites, users can decide to
follow people, documents and applications. This capability enables
enterprises to easily follow changes in status of key projects,
documents or deals. For example, service agents can stay on
top of high priority cases, updates to critical knowledge articles,
and the latest product updates. Similarly, sales personnel can post
status updates to share their communications with respect to a
sales deal. This capability is being used by more than thousand
sales personnel in Tata Communications.
Another case in point is Ffreedom Financial Planners, a
financial planning firm. The firm is using the platform in
functions such as client servicing and customer acquisition.
“Salesforce Chatter has been of great help as we have
clients all across the globe. When our financial planners are
traveling, it becomes very convenient to just open Salesforce.com
and update the conversation that a planner has with the client.
Since this information is shared real-time, it enables us to act
quickly,” says Sumeet Vaid, Founder and CEO, Ffreedom.
Similarly, Janalakshmi Financial Services, a player in the
Indian microfinance services market, uses Salesforce Chatter to
communicate internally within departments. For example, the IT
function uses Salesforce Chatter to discuss software installations
or software testing. Different departments also use the
collaboration platform to discuss and share information on specific
customers – as compared to the earlier method of e-mails.
More importantly, the microfinance firm has set trigger points
which enables the application to send out information alerts.
“We have set our watch points on specific fields such as
‘loan status’. When the status changes, Chatter gives
out information on who triggered the change. It also gives us
information on the current status of the loan,” explains
Dasarathy Ramaswami, IT & Special Projects, Janalakshmi
Financial Services. The biggest pull for the firm is its simplicity
and ease of usage.
“The user who has exposure to other social networking
sites can easily adapt to Chatter,” says Ramaswami.
For users who have been used to traditional forms of sharing
content, Chatter has been a revelation. “Salesforce Chatter
is disruptive as it allows business users to collaborate like never
before. If Facebook made sure that social users don’t use
e-mails, Chatter makes sure business users don’t use
e-mails,” says Vaid.
While it is too early to say that enterprise collaboration tools
like Chatter will signify the death of e-mail, Salesforce is
clearly offering a powerful alternative. Unlike other enterprise
collaboration platforms, the beauty of a SaaS offering like Chatter
is that enterprises can quickly start using enterprise social
networking functionalities, as against spending considerable amount
of time, energy and investment in configuring and implementing the
software. This means that when Chatter is formally available on
June 22 this year, every Salesforce.com customer in India can
instantly deploy its social, collaborative and real-time
capabilities as part of their existing Salesforce CRM or Force.com
applications. With a huge customer base in India, the Chatter wave
could rise to a new crescendo.