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Salesforce AppExchange Unveils New Ecosystem Insights (SCN)

Salesforce announced the launch of new ecosystem insights on Salesforce AppExchange. Rapidly-changing customer expectations in the Fourth Industrial Revolution are accelerating demand for technology expertise and new innovation within Salesforce’s growing ecosystem. These new AppExchange insights bridge this supply and demand—enabling customers to easily identify the consulting experts and business solutions best suited for their needs, and empowering partners with customer engagement analytics to more effectively build and market their solutions.

Today, AppExchange is home to more than 5,000 technology solutions ranging from apps, components, pre-built flows, industry-specific Bolt templates, data and more. In addition, there are more than 65,000 Salesforce-accredited consulting professionals who provide guidance on how to drive business transformation with Salesforce—and Salesforce aims to increase that number to more than 250,000 by 2022.

In that same timeframe, IDC1 predicts that Salesforce and its ecosystem of customers and partners will create 3.3 million new jobs worldwide.

“As the Salesforce economy and customer demand continue to grow, our customers and partners must have the right business solutions and technology experts at their fingertips,” said Woodson Martin, General Manager, Salesforce AppExchange. “AppExchange is bringing consulting partner services and technology solutions together in one marketplace while enabling all of our partners to harness data to power customer success like never before.”

Consultants on AppExchange—A New Way For Customers to Find and Connect with Salesforce Experts

Consultants on AppExchange is a new destination within the marketplace tailored for customers looking for personalized solutions and specific industry expertise. With Consultants on AppExchange, customers can now identify the best Salesforce experts for their business needs, from companies that include Accenture, Acumen Solutions, Appirio, Bluewolf, Capgemini, Cognizant, Deloitte, Magnet360 and PolSource.

Consultants on AppExchange includes:

Consultant Finder, a guided search engine that enables customers to connect with a consultant based on specific search criteria, such as preferred location, company size and product, and industry expertise. Customers can also filter their searches based on consultant ratings and language preferences.

Expertise Tab, which gives customers new insight into the areas that a consultant specializes in based on data populated via the Salesforce Partner Navigator program. Technology expertise can be found in the “Expertise” tab, highlighting which AppExchange solutions a specific consultant can implement to help customers transform their businesses.

“Magnet360 has long been dedicated to ensuring our customers can succeed on the Salesforce Platform, and as the Salesforce economy grows, so has the demand for implementation expertise,” said Matt Meents, CEO and Founder, Magnet360, a Salesforce Platinum consulting partner. “With nearly 90 percent of Salesforce customers using at least one AppExchange app, making our consulting services available and easily searchable through AppExchange opens the door for us to help more companies with their Salesforce needs.”

“Good Energy empowers customers to be part of the solution to climate change and in control of energy usage—we need technology to enable that, and that’s where Salesforce comes in,” said Mike Spencer, Technical Lead, Good Energy—a customer of Salesforce Platinum consulting partner PolSource. “PolSource quickly identified core Salesforce capabilities that gave us a single view of our customers, and developed a roadmap for how to achieve this goal. PolSource’s consulting services were instrumental in launching our Acquire Program for Domestic and SME Sales Apps. Giving customers access to consulting partners like PolSource through AppExchange is an exciting innovation.”

AppExchange Partner Intelligence—New Insights for Partners

AppExchange Partner Intelligence is a completely new set of analytics features for partners that delivers insights into how customers and prospects interact with their solutions. AppExchange solutions have been installed more than 6.5 million times by Salesforce customers. And in a growing marketplace, understanding the entire customer journey, from initial search to install, is crucial for partners to build better, differentiated solutions and listings. With Partner Intelligence, partners will be empowered with their tangible customer data. Partner Intelligence is composed of two analytics offerings:

AppExchange Marketplace Analytics, powered by Einstein Analytics, gives ISVs and consultants insight into how visitors get to and engage with their AppExchange listing. For example, within the dashboard, partners can see how many times resources within their listings (such as videos, demos or case studies) are viewed. Partners can also see how many times their high-conversion buttons such as “Save”, “Watch Demos”, “Test Drive” and “Get it Now” are clicked. Partners will be able to see the top AppExchange search terms that bring visitors to their listings, enabling them to match those terms to leads, installs and other activities. Partners will also have access to more traffic sources in addition to the added flexibility to filter their data by specific time periods.
AppExchange App Analytics enables ISV partners to track adoption and analyze usage data of their apps to uncover trends and influence roadmap decisions. With App Analytics, partners can understand user adoption across their customer base. They gain insight into the most (or least) commonly used features. Partners will be empowered to take insight-based action to optimize their apps across UI, features and overall performance.

“Knowing exactly how customers and prospects engage with our solutions fundamentally changes how we innovate,” said Simon Ejsing, Director of Analytics, FinancialForce. “Being able to uncover trends from our entire user base sheds light on how we can build solutions based on what customers actually want—not what we think they want.”