Salesforce Unveils Lightning Partner Community-A New Way For Companies to Empower Their Partners to Sell Faster and Smarter

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM company, today announced Lightning Partner Community—a fast and intelligent solution for companies looking to accelerate sales from their partner ecosystem. With Lightning Partner Community, companies can arm resellers, franchisees, channel teams and more with the same tools that make their own direct sales force successful.

Partner ecosystems are imperative to helping companies scale and drive growth. In fact, according to Accenture, an average of 70 percent of high-tech sales come from channel partners[1]. However, many partners are hampered by the solutions that connect them with vendors today—archaic systems that are difficult to navigate, fragmented and impossible to access from a mobile device—limiting the potential of what their sales could be.

Introducing Lightning Partner Community: Supercharging your Partner Ecosystem

The new Lightning Partner Community enables companies to turn partners into an extension of their own direct sales team by giving them a single place to identify opportunities, track progress and close deals. The new Lightning Partner Community includes:

• Lightning Partner Experience: Featuring a new, mobile-first design, the Lightning Partner Experience allows companies to easily deliver an intuitive, personalized and branded user experience across any device. For example, an insurance agent now has access to all of the policy and pricing information they need to answer any question that comes up during a meeting, even in a client's home.
• Integrated CRM for Partners: Now including Sales Path, Kanban View, Lightning Dashboards and Salesforce CPQ, Integrated CRM for Partners extends CRM records—including leads, opportunities and accounts—in an intuitive workflow that provides partners with everything they need to close deals in a single location. For example, a technology reseller can now easily track their deals from lead-to-cash—identify opportunities, update deal progress and configure the best solution—enabling them to close more deals faster.
• Salesforce Einstein for Partner Community: Now with recommended answers, knowledge articles and experts, Salesforce Einstein for Partner Community enables partners to sell faster and smarter. For example, if a franchise owner is looking to expand their restaurant business, they're bound to encounter a few questions along the way—everything from distance between locations to promotional offers and staffing ratios. Salesforce Einstein is able to recommend articles and experts in the community who can answer their questions, enabling the franchisee to grow their business as seamlessly as possible.

Comments on the news:

• "Companies have the ability to accelerate growth if they create a partner ecosystem that can act like an extension of their sales team," said Mike Micucci, GM & SVP, Salesforce Community Cloud. "With the new Lightning Partner Community, companies can now arm partners with the world's smartest CRM, helping them close more deals faster."
• "With Lightning Partner Community, we will be able to more effectively capture the information related to our collective infrastructure and as a result provide better, more proactive support to our franchise community," said Adrian Butler, CIO, DineEquity, Inc. "The ability to access critical information and communities across our system is an excellent enabling platform for DineEquity's global growth."
• "At Zurich, our priority is delivering fast, personalized service for our customers," said Marc Fabris, Head of Digital at Zurich Australia. "Our continued development for Advisers using the Lightning Partner Community will enable them to work faster, smarter and build deeper relationships with our mutual customers."

Salesforce Community Cloud enables companies of all sizes to integrate business data and processes with their communities, creating a seamless customer, partner and employee experience. Built on the Salesforce Platform, Community Cloud is part of Salesforce CRM, and easily connects to third-party systems and data sources, so companies can access the tools and information they need to be successful. With Community Cloud, companies have experienced a 46% increase in partner engagement and a 43% increase in sales[2].

Pricing & Availability

• Lightning Partner Community is generally available today with the Partner Community Cloud License.
• Salesforce CPQ for Lightning Partner Community will be generally available in early 2017.

Additional Information

• Learn more about the Salesforce Community Cloud here: http://www.salesforce.com/communities/overview/
• Learn how to get started with Salesforce Community Cloud here: http://trailhead.salesforce.com/community_cloud_basics

Connect with Salesforce

• Like Salesforce and Salesforce Community Cloud on Facebook.
• Follow @salesforce and @communitycloud on Twitter.

About Salesforce
Salesforce, the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM, empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

[1] Accenture, Improving the ROI of Indirect Channel Incentives 2015, https://www.accenture.com/us-en/~/media/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Technology_1/Accenture-Improving-The-ROI-of-Indirect-Channel-Incentives.pdf

[2] Salesforce Customer Relationship Survey, conducted March 2015 - May 2015 by an independent third-party, Confirmit Inc., on 4,600+ customers randomly selected

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SOURCE Salesforce

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