Sales Force CEO Marc Benioff: Our business model has ‘resilience and sustainability’

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff used the company’s quarterly earnings call this week to detail a more “measured” customer buying environment, using it to drive interest at the DreamForce conference, hint at future acquisitions and maintain the “resilience and sustainability” of the company’s business. Model.

The San Francisco-based front-office software provider expects business-customers to benefit from the continued rush to use digital transformation tools, Benioff said — a trend that has benefited Salesforce and other software vendors’ partners.

“You saw the results for the quarter,” Benioff said on an earnings call Wednesday. “We have delivered very strong revenue growth, profitability and cash flow, re-demonstrating the resilience and sustainability of our business model in this economic environment.”

[RELATED: SALESFORCE CUTS GUIDANCE, REPORTS ‘MEASURED’ CUSTOMER BUYING AMID ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY]

What did Marc Benioff say on the Salesforce earnings call?

On the bright side, during the second quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal year — the quarter that ended June 30 — Slack’s total revenue was $381 million, better than expected. The “Professional Services and Other” segment beat expectations with $577 million. And Salesforce had its fifth consecutive quarter of 100,000-plus customers on Slack with 40-plus percent growth.

But Tableau has seen slower growth, sales force executives have cut their guidance on what revenue to expect this fiscal year, and customers say they’re in a “more measured buying environment,” with longer sales cycles, more layers to customer adoption, and deal compression. and weakness among small and medium businesses.

His words and Salesforce’s performance seem to have preserved the positive feelings some investment bankers have for the company.

“Front office software will clearly see some demand pressure through the macro and CRM (Salesforce’s) guidance will be scrutinized down the road as it could be the first shoe to drop in the broader software world slowdown over the next 6 to 9 months. Macro is a given,” investment bank Wedbush said in a report. “That said, we believe this is a more moderate reset from a macro perspective and a prudent approach given the backdrop of a potentially Rubik’s Cube from a conservative CRM perspective.”

According to a Morgan Stanley report, the investment bank’s second-quarter survey “supports the notion that digital transformation initiatives remain high on the CIO’s priority list (#4 overall), mostly focused on the front office and expected to be one of them.” The most resistant projects (#3 most resistant)”, good news for Salesforce and its partners.

According to a Morgan Stanley report, “This lends credence to Salesforce’s argument that demand hasn’t disappeared, but it’s taking too long to change.”

Similarly, Girish Sonad, CEO of New York-based sales force partner Silverline, told CRN in a recent interview that innovation in the media and entertainment industry and growth in Canada has led to 20-plus percent year-over-year sales growth for Silverline.

“We’re having a really good year of growth, which is exciting,” Sonnad said. “We’ve surpassed last year’s growth, which is exciting. And of course we feel like we’re coming off some of the stickers we’ve seen over the last couple of years, if you will, which was great.

Here’s more of what Benioff had to say on the call.