New Metrics Offering Combines Automated Discovery Tools, Benchmarks and Expert Analysis To Improve the Architecture of Salesforce.com Deployments
Offers Free Automated Report for Salesforce Customers
San Francisco, Calif. - September 18, 2012 - Appirio, a cloud solution provider, today announced a new Cloud Metrics offering to help CIOs and CRM directors measure and benchmark the performance, configuration and complexity of their Salesforce environments. Designed to complement Salesforce’s personalized account review reports, this new offering helps companies better understand a wider variety of system metrics - from code and test coverage, to security and visibility models, to overall user adoption - and compare those to other Salesforce environments.
The announcement was made today at salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2012 in San Francisco, the world’s largest cloud computing and enterprise technology event. To introduce customers to the service, Appirio is offering a free Cloud Metrics report to qualified customers attending Dreamforce 2012. To sign up, visit Appirio booth #701 or our website.
Appirio’s Cloud Metrics for Salesforce.com gives those overseeing and directly managing Salesforce applications an objective measure of their technical health. By having insight into issues around security, configuration complexity, custom code sprawl and inadequate test coverage, IT managers can quickly and easily identify any technical issues and maximize the business’ return on investment.
Cloud Metrics provides IT executives and administrators alike with concrete data they need to assist in making trade-off decisions on feature requests, or to help determine where to fund necessary platform investments to ensure the environment is cost-effective and agile enough to keep pace with the speed of business change.
Appirio’s Cloud Metrics offering pulls data from across more than a thousand Salesforce-related projects, captured in the Appirio Cloud Enablement Suite by the company’s 500 cloud experts. Appirio’s Cloud Enablement Suite is an integrated suite of applications, assets, analytics and intelligence that helps Appirio’s cloud experts and our customers implement, manage and measure enterprise cloud initiatives.
Comments on the News:
“We use the Appirio Cloud Metrics tool internally, and get amazing, real-time insight into the health and complexity of all of our Salesforce orgs, including our development and QA sandboxes. It’s become an invaluable tool for IT to manage our increasingly complex, 100% cloud-based software architecture. It’d be hard to imagine giving it up now - it’d be like flying blind in a plane with no instruments.”
- Glenn Weinstein, CIO, Appirio
“Salesforce.com has led the charge in helping companies measure the health of their CRM processes for years. It’s great to see an experienced partner like Appirio provide services that can measure the health of a given deployment.”
- Ross Piper, senior vice president, Enterprise Strategy & Alliances, salesforce.com
"Appirio’s cloud metrics data, combined with their expert consultation, gave us the actionable insight we needed to see what we were managing effectively and where we could improve. We don’t have access to as many orgs as Appirio does, so their data-based analysis was very helpful to validate some assumptions, to correct others, and to better engage with our business stakeholders.”
- Dianne Conley, VP of Marketing Systems, K12
Dreamforce 2012 is the industry’s largest cloud computing and enterprise technology event, welcoming more than 70,000 registered attendees to experience the power of the social revolution. With more than 750 sessions and 350 cloud companies in the expo, attendees can participate in interactive sessions, hands-on training with cutting-edge technology, thousands of live demos and unparalleled networking. In addition, Dreamforce welcomes special guests Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group; Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Eletric; Gen. Colin Powell, former Secretary of State; Tony Robbins, Entrepreneur, Author & Peak Performance Strategist; and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Dreamforce 2012 offers attendees everything they need to connect with customers, partners and employees in entirely new ways, under one roof.
Useful Links:
Read: Datasheet on Appirio’s Cloud Metrics for Salesforce.com
Visit: Appirio’s website for more information about Cloud Metrics
Watch: ChalkTalk about Appirio Cloud Metrics
View: Video on Appirio’s Cloud Enablement Suite
About Appirio
Appirio accelerates the cloud-powered business, helping enterprises achieve significant results from cloud applications and platforms like salesforce.com, Google and Workday. Appirio has worked with more than 300 enterprise customers including organizations like City of Los Angeles, Facebook, Flextronics, International Hotels Group, Japan Post Network, Ltd., L'Oreal, NetApp, NYU, Starbucks, Thomson Reuters and VMware. Appirio's technology-enabled professional services are supported by a team of nearly 500 cloud experts and CloudSpokes, a more than 50,000 person-strong global cloud developer community. The company's expertise and innovative brokerage technology have been recognized by organizations such as the World Economic Forum, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, InformationWeek, and IDC. Appirio has offices that span the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific, and is backed by Sequoia Capital, GGV Capital and General Atlantic.
Press Releases
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
New Research Shows Social Tools and Processes Making Progress in Business, But Still Early Days
Appirio Survey Showcases High User Demand for Social Investment, But That Company Culture and Ownership Remain Barriers to Adoption
San Francisco, Calif. - September 11, 2012 - Appirio today announced the results of its first international survey on "The State of Social @ Work," highlighting users' demand for increased investment in social tools and processes but also how far companies still have to go before social makes a broader and more significant impact on the business.
The survey of more than 300 managers and employees from across the U.S. and U.K. was conducted by independent research firm, iTracks, on behalf of Appirio, a technology-enabled services firm that helps companies power their business with the cloud. Respondents covered a wide range of roles, industries and company size, and were not limited to social or executive decision makers, to better understand how social people are on the job. Click here for full demographics.
"As business and technical advisors, we know social tools and processes can have a significant impact on a company's brand, relationships and bottom line," said Narinder Singh, Chief Strategy Officer at Appirio. "But to be truly successful with social, companies must listen to the actual users of those tools and processes rather than force something from the top down. Whether it's politics or technology, we all too often forget to consider the people's perspective and fail because our strategies are based on false assumptions."
Users Say Companies Are Still in the Early Stage of Social Adoption
There's no question that people are becoming increasingly social in their personal lives. A 2011 study from Pew Internet Research indicates that 65 percent of online adults are active users of social networking sites - a statistic reinforced in Appirio's own survey results. In Appirio's survey, that number jumps to nearly 90 percent when you add in other social tools like video, photo sharing and microblogging sites. However, people are not as experienced when it comes to social use at work - only 57 percent of respondents use social tools to do their job.
Companies today are even less far along when it comes to social adoption. Thirteen percent of respondents would go as far as to label their company "anti-social," saying there is no investment in social at all. Forty-four percent say their company is still just researching or testing social tools or strategies, and 43 percent are using one or more social tools.
While social adoption in the enterprise might be in the early stages, users say investment is happening. More than 35 percent of respondents said their companies had set aside budgets or resources to make business processes more social. The top three areas of investment were "establishing social media policies" (47 percent), "building out a presence on social sites" (37 percent) and "adding social features to existing internal applications (31 percent)."
Demand For Social Investment Is High, Based on Real and Perceived Benefits
According to users, their companies' current investments in social tools and processes isn't enough. More than 40 percent of respondents say their company should invest more time and resources in becoming a social enterprise compared to other business priorities.
This demand isn't surprising when you look at the positive impact that social investments can have on a business. Various studies have highlighted a wide range of internal and external benefits, including McKinsey's comprehensive study of 3,249 executives that shows companies that are more advanced in using social and collaborative Web 2.0 technologies reported improved market share and higher profit margins.
Users have their own perceptions. When asked where in the company improved social tools and processes would have the biggest impact, more than half of all respondents cited customer-related benefits. Specifically they called out:
U.K. respondents were twice as likely to select employee engagement as those in the U.S., while U.S. respondents were 1.5x more likely to select attract new customers,
Compared to small companies, large companies put half as much importance on attracting new customers and were at least 1.5x more likely to value employee engagement.
Company Culture and Strategy Ownership Are More Important Than Budget
Even if a company invests more in social tools and processes, according to users, some changes need to happen to have a bigger impact. When respondents were asked the biggest change their company could make to become a more social business, nearly 30 percent said shifting the company culture. That was the top choice across regions, industries and company size. Designating a person or group responsible was second on the list with 20 percent of respondents. Setting aside budget for social technologies was only selected by 15 percent of respondents.
To see full survey results and implications of this data, check out Appirio's "State of Social @ Work" eBook.
About Appirio
Appirio accelerates the cloud-powered business, helping enterprises achieve significant results from cloud applications and platforms like salesforce.com, Google and Workday. Appirio has worked with more than 300 enterprise customers including organizations like City of Los Angeles, Facebook, Flextronics, International Hotels Group, Japan Post Network, Ltd., L'Oreal, NetApp, NYU, Starbucks, Thomson Reuters and VMware. Appirio's technology-enabled professional services are supported by a team of nearly 500 cloud experts and CloudSpokes, a almost 50,000 person-strong global cloud developer community. The company's expertise and innovative brokerage technology have been recognized by organizations such as the World Economic Forum, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, InformationWeek, and IDC. Appirio has offices that span the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific, and is backed by Sequoia Capital, GGV Capital and General Atlantic.
San Francisco, Calif. - September 11, 2012 - Appirio today announced the results of its first international survey on "The State of Social @ Work," highlighting users' demand for increased investment in social tools and processes but also how far companies still have to go before social makes a broader and more significant impact on the business.
The survey of more than 300 managers and employees from across the U.S. and U.K. was conducted by independent research firm, iTracks, on behalf of Appirio, a technology-enabled services firm that helps companies power their business with the cloud. Respondents covered a wide range of roles, industries and company size, and were not limited to social or executive decision makers, to better understand how social people are on the job. Click here for full demographics.
"As business and technical advisors, we know social tools and processes can have a significant impact on a company's brand, relationships and bottom line," said Narinder Singh, Chief Strategy Officer at Appirio. "But to be truly successful with social, companies must listen to the actual users of those tools and processes rather than force something from the top down. Whether it's politics or technology, we all too often forget to consider the people's perspective and fail because our strategies are based on false assumptions."
Users Say Companies Are Still in the Early Stage of Social Adoption
There's no question that people are becoming increasingly social in their personal lives. A 2011 study from Pew Internet Research indicates that 65 percent of online adults are active users of social networking sites - a statistic reinforced in Appirio's own survey results. In Appirio's survey, that number jumps to nearly 90 percent when you add in other social tools like video, photo sharing and microblogging sites. However, people are not as experienced when it comes to social use at work - only 57 percent of respondents use social tools to do their job.
Companies today are even less far along when it comes to social adoption. Thirteen percent of respondents would go as far as to label their company "anti-social," saying there is no investment in social at all. Forty-four percent say their company is still just researching or testing social tools or strategies, and 43 percent are using one or more social tools.
While social adoption in the enterprise might be in the early stages, users say investment is happening. More than 35 percent of respondents said their companies had set aside budgets or resources to make business processes more social. The top three areas of investment were "establishing social media policies" (47 percent), "building out a presence on social sites" (37 percent) and "adding social features to existing internal applications (31 percent)."
Demand For Social Investment Is High, Based on Real and Perceived Benefits
According to users, their companies' current investments in social tools and processes isn't enough. More than 40 percent of respondents say their company should invest more time and resources in becoming a social enterprise compared to other business priorities.
This demand isn't surprising when you look at the positive impact that social investments can have on a business. Various studies have highlighted a wide range of internal and external benefits, including McKinsey's comprehensive study of 3,249 executives that shows companies that are more advanced in using social and collaborative Web 2.0 technologies reported improved market share and higher profit margins.
Users have their own perceptions. When asked where in the company improved social tools and processes would have the biggest impact, more than half of all respondents cited customer-related benefits. Specifically they called out:
- Attracting new customers (26 percent)
- Engaging and servicing existing customers (25 percent)
- Improving collaboration and information sharing (15 percent)
- Engaging employees and increasing job satisfaction (12 percent)
- Attracting new employees (9 percent)
- Improving business operations (7 percent)
U.K. respondents were twice as likely to select employee engagement as those in the U.S., while U.S. respondents were 1.5x more likely to select attract new customers,
Compared to small companies, large companies put half as much importance on attracting new customers and were at least 1.5x more likely to value employee engagement.
Company Culture and Strategy Ownership Are More Important Than Budget
Even if a company invests more in social tools and processes, according to users, some changes need to happen to have a bigger impact. When respondents were asked the biggest change their company could make to become a more social business, nearly 30 percent said shifting the company culture. That was the top choice across regions, industries and company size. Designating a person or group responsible was second on the list with 20 percent of respondents. Setting aside budget for social technologies was only selected by 15 percent of respondents.
To see full survey results and implications of this data, check out Appirio's "State of Social @ Work" eBook.
About Appirio
Appirio accelerates the cloud-powered business, helping enterprises achieve significant results from cloud applications and platforms like salesforce.com, Google and Workday. Appirio has worked with more than 300 enterprise customers including organizations like City of Los Angeles, Facebook, Flextronics, International Hotels Group, Japan Post Network, Ltd., L'Oreal, NetApp, NYU, Starbucks, Thomson Reuters and VMware. Appirio's technology-enabled professional services are supported by a team of nearly 500 cloud experts and CloudSpokes, a almost 50,000 person-strong global cloud developer community. The company's expertise and innovative brokerage technology have been recognized by organizations such as the World Economic Forum, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, InformationWeek, and IDC. Appirio has offices that span the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific, and is backed by Sequoia Capital, GGV Capital and General Atlantic.
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