Alibaba to help Salesforce locate and sell in China – TechCrunch



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Salesforce A 20-year-old leader in customer relationship management (CRM) tools, he made a foray into Asia by collaborating with one of the country's largest technology companies, Alibaba.

Alibaba will be the exclusive Salesforce provider to corporate customers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Salesforce will become the exclusive customer relationship management software suite sold by Alibaba, the two companies announced on Thursday.

The Internet has been dominated for years by consumer services, such as Tencent's WeChat. Alibaba's messenger and Taibao market, but enterprise software is starting to attract keen interest from businesses and investors. The start-up Laiye, for example, recently closed a $ 35 million round of financing led by Cathay Innovation, a growth fund that believes "business software is about to grow. quickly "in China.

Partners have something to gain from each other. Alibaba does not have Salesforce equivalent to serve a multitude of small and medium businesses selling via its e-commerce marketplaces or using its cloud computing services. The alliance with the American cloud giant will fill this gap.

For its part, Salesforce will gain sales opportunities in China via Alibaba, whose cloud infrastructure and data platform will help the US company to "deliver localized solutions and better serve its multinational customers," said Ken Shen , vice president of Alibaba Cloud. Intelligence, in a statement.

"More and more multinational clients are asking us to support them wherever they operate around the world. That's why Salesforce today announced a strategic partnership with Alibaba, "Salesforce said in a statement.

Overall, approximately 10% of Salesforce's revenues in the three months ended April 30 came from Asia, compared to 20% from Europe and 70% from the Americas.

In addition to acquiring customer acquisition channels, this agreement also allows Salesforce to store its data in China on Alibaba Cloud. China requires all foreign companies that they work with a national company to process and store data from Chinese users.

"This partnership ensures that Salesforce customers with Greater China operations have exclusive access to a locally hosted Salesforce version of Alibaba Cloud, which includes local business, culture and regulations," said a spokesman. Alibaba's word to TechCrunch.

The cloud has been a major growth area at Alibaba and finding a heavyweight ally will only strengthen its anchor as the leading cloud services provider in China. Salesforce advanced in Asia last December by setting up a $ 100 million fund to invest in new Japanese companies. The latest partnership with Alibaba will allow the San Francisco-based company to attack its customers in Asia.

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