Salesforce.com Lobbies to Support Cloud Computing for Sales Force Automation

Any company relying on their sales team to drive revenue understands the value of sales force automation. Salesforce.com is certainly a leader in this space, especially when the enterprise is seeking to move to a cloud-based approach to managing sales processes.

While it is understandable for a company to be concerned over security when moving to a cloud-based sales force automation platform, bigger issues can arise when an entire government is warning companies to be careful. Such is the case in Australia and Salesforce.com is planning to send a senior public policy executive to help ease concerns.

Daniel Burton, a senior vice president of global public policy at Salesforce.com, plans to have a serious conversation with the Australian government regarding the promise – and risks – associated with cloud computing.

Salesforce.com, known for its CRM, sales force automation, collaboration and software development tools, first became concerned over the reading of an open letter sent by the financial regulator APRA to the banking sector in Australia. The letter warned organizations to exercise due diligence before considering cloud computing.

This is not bad advice and Salesforce.com views the letter as a very positive sign that cloud computing is gaining ground in Australia. The company welcomes the scrutiny as it meets all privacy laws in Australia. Concerns over data sovereignty, however, are truly what caught the attention of Salesforce.com.

The debate centers on whether or not data on citizens should rest in its country of origin. If Australia was to uphold such a standard, Australians could only rely on cloud computing providers within Australia. Burton believes that international data flows are key to productivity, performance, competitiveness and price advantages and plans to argue such points while in Australia.