Salesforce to productise politics

NOT CONTENT with hypergrowth in the business world, ubiquitous on-demand software pioneer Salesforce.com is moving into politics after providing the underlying CRM program for US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s ComMitt fundraising efforts.

Political campaigns have traditionally been concocted using a ham-handed combination of chewing gum and string but the face of the Salesforce platform probably fits for anybody seeking a highly distributed and shareable programme that is accessible over the web.

Having done the deed for Romney, Salesforce wants to productise its work in a programme called CampaignForce that will be distributed on the AppExchange trading site for Salesforce-compatible programs. It won’t have escaped Salesforce’s attention that this could also act as a jemmy to bigger deals in the lucrative government market, of course. Well, CEO Marc Benioff has admitted that his favourite book is that how-to book of cunning stratagems, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

Of course, the flip side of getting involved in politics is that people will try to tag you with a bias one way or the other and keep a careful eye on where you’re spending your money. µ

As a techie and political junkie it has astonished me how far behind the times campaigns were in data-mining, CRM (customer relations management/voter or donor management)
I've heard really good things about Romney's program. I hope the other campaigns get on this.

2 posted on 04/06/2007 10:29:02 PM PDT by rmlew (It's WW4 and the Left wants to negotiate with Islamists who want to kill us , for their mutual ends)

I was recently asked to evaluate SalesForce’s capabilities in my capacity as a marketing consultant for a small company. SF’s offerings are uniquely well suited to an operation where field sales folks are computer dopes.

Sounds like political campaigns to me...

3 posted on 04/07/2007 1:27:34 AM PDT by earglasses (...whereas I was blind, now I hear...)

I use an excellent Open Source “copycat” that in some ways exceeds Salesforce.com capabilities - sugarcrm www.sugarcrm.com

Downside for campaigns - how safe is your data hosted on someone elses platform and systems?

4 posted on 04/08/2007 12:14:31 PM PDT by GovernmentIsTheProblem (Capitalism is the economic expression of individual liberty. Pass it on.)

As a current Salesforce.com client, all I can say is...no comment. My mother always told me that if you don’t have yadda yadda yadda...don’t say them.

5 posted on 04/09/2007 4:07:46 PM PDT by Clemenza (NO to Rudy in 2008! New York's Values are NOT America's Values! RUN FRED RUN!)

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