New technological advances and developments will always prod human innovation. Sometimes, though, if we’re always looking forward, we forget to pay attention to the present that is exposing the future of things that is developing right now before our eyes.
Cloud-based technology has been growing and unfolding at a minimum over the last few decades. Salesforce, the exemplar of cloud-based tech companies, launched its customer relationship management (CRM) under a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model in 2000. In 2005 the company went public and reported around $176 million in annual revenue. Five years later, in 2010, it reported $1.3 billion in annual revenue. In 2020, revenues grew to around $17 billion.
Salesforce now provides more functionality than just the initial CRM they originally delivered, including tools like Tableau, Mulesoft, and others solutions for developing and integrating with other, third party cloud-based software. As a pure SaaS play from the start, Salesforce serves as a good barometer for the adoption rate of cloud-based solutions in general.
Don’t miss the future that’s been unfolding in front of your eyes.
Developing The Infrastructure
Much like planning a city's roadways, companies today often utilize a suite of cloud-based technologies as means to navigate to solutions for their business operations; they can pair and integrate these technologies at the infrastructure or application layer.
For example, organizations can integrate our INTOUCH® solution directly within the Salesforce CRM web application user interface and user experience. However, another application on a different cloud-based system can also make “calls” to INTOUCH. This level of integration and compatibility between software and technologies enhances your organization's cloud-based communications strategy. Additionally, these innovations make it easier to streamline and customize various aspects of individual customer journeys that help maximize business value for your organization.
Additionally, one of the significant benefits of utilizing a suite of cloud-based technology is that it empowers your organization to develop the business applications and tools your organization requires to optimize workflow and scale upward on demand, as needed.
Development: Internal or External?
Every organization is going to ask itself this is question at one point or another. And it’s a question that pervades outside the context of cloud-based communications and solutions.
The most common answer is to utilize a combination of both. Factors such as staffing, your organization's needs and size as well as a number of other variables will greatly influence the development projects that you’ll want to keep in house and the ones you’ll bring in outside resources. In most cases of collaboration, such as one of our current projects, both development teams usually end up working together to ensure that both sides of the cloud-based communications solution build in the appropriate APIs and functionality the final solutions (and collaborative partner) require.
Organizations that use customer communication management (CCM) solutions today often decide just how much of that CCM’s functionality they want to use. Most times, companies pick and choose from a suite of services and options offered by one CCM to pair with a different cloud-based system or application. This ‘a la carte’ capability allows an organization more control over their digital workplace technology, ultimately leading to a more efficient people and processes overall.
A Quick Summary
Moving workloads and applications to the cloud is old news. Using cloud-based technologies; developing in-house; collaborating with vendors like Topdown; having an integrated suite of applications: this is the new normal for businesses looking to stay competitive in the modern marketplace.
As a result, forward-thinking companies are now partnering with software vendors to build custom, cloud-native solutions. You too should learn more about the INTOUCH architecture and the microservices we’ve built to empower your development efforts. Read, download and check out our technical white paper and take advantage of true cloud-native CCM solutions.
Photo by Taylor Vick on Unsplash
