Salesforce.com makes financial services push

Article

Salesforce.com makes financial services push

Salesforce.com yesterday embarked on a major push toward the financial services industry, signing up 25,000 subscribers at Merrill Lynch and releasing a new wealth management edition.

Speaking to press, analysts and customers in New York, Marc Benioff, the San Francisco-based company's CEO, laid out the strategy bluntly as Salesforce.com prepares to take on Bloomberg, which provides real-time news, market data and analysis to financial advisors.

"We think it's an industry ripe for change," Benioff said, pointing to what he called the museum of financial services in the corner -- an abacus, an adding machine and a Bloomberg workstation. "We're evolving to focus on the financial services industry."

Salesforce.com calls the new edition "the next-generation desktop" for financial advisors. Its CRM technology is combined with mashups from management and financial services partners and offers client tracking information, team calendaring, client action plans and household management tools to understand the household profile of clients in a single view.

    Requires Free Membership to View

    When you register, you'll begin receiving targeted emails from my team of award-winning editorial writers on the latest customer relationship management (CRM)and call center technology issues today. Our goal is to keep you informed on the hottest issues facing this fast-changing industry.

    Hannah Smalltree, Editorial Director

    By submitting your registration information to SearchCRM.com you agree to receive email communications from TechTarget and TechTarget partners. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy which contains important disclosures about how we collect and use your registration and other information. If you reside outside of the United States, by submitting this registration information you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Your use of SearchCRM.com is governed by our Terms of Use. You may contact us at webmaster@TechTarget.com.

For more on SaaS CRM
Check out our SaaS CRM Learning Guide

Learn how to build a business case for SaaS CRM

See what happened to Siebel OnDemand

The service is a direct shot at Bloomberg, which charges $1,500 per month for a terminal and data services. Salesforce.com Wealth Management costs $500 per month.

The Wealth Management edition becomes Salesforce.com's first industry-specific application. To date, the company had let customers and partners on its acquired by RightNow, introduced vertical on-demand editions for insurance, high tech, automobile, communications and media.

Financial services has been an early adopter and big spender when it comes to CRM technology. Salesforce.com has obviously seen some opportunity there, releasing a tool from Okere as part of its Related Topics: SaaS CRM and CRM on demand vendors, VIEW ALL TAGS