If your business or employer has a sales function, then chances are they either use Salesforce already or have seriously considered it. Around the world, Salesforce is the number one ‘CRM’ – Client Relationship Management – software solution. Highly active within the cloud computing space, Salesforce has grown rapidly to become one of the 200 largest American companies by revenue and is a constituent stock of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Founded in 1999, Salesforce was struck almost instantly by the dot-com crisis, only weathering the storm by firing 20% of its workforce in 2000. Fortunately, the next two years saw more positive developments for Salesforce. With major press coverage and the opening of international offices in Ireland and Japan, the company passed the barrier of 3,000 clients. In the run-up to Salesforce’s 2004 IPO, the company expanded globally, ran its first major conference, and crossed $100 million in annual revenue.

Salesforce’s 2004 IPO, launching on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ‘CRM’ marked the opening of a high-growth period that saw the integration of third-party apps and the acquisition of wireless start-up Sendia. On the development side, Salesforce has a product offering that includes automated marketing solutions and analytics, and a proprietary programming language, similar to C#, called Apex. Its main competitors are Microsoft and Oracle. More recent major acquisitions include Tableau, a data visualization company, and the messaging client Slack, acquired in 2021 for just under $28 billion.

Salesforce listed on the NYSE in 2004 at $11 per share. CEO and co-founder Marc Benioff remains a major shareholder with around 3% of total shares, but the largest shareholders are major institutional investors such as Vanguard.