Looking back on one year of partnership with Salesforce

August 1 marked the one-year anniversary of the start of our journey together with Salesforce. In lieu of an anniversary celebration, we are honoring the values and generosity that are hallmarks of our two communities by making a donation to the World Food Program, to help in their fight against hunger.

As I look back over these past 12 months, I can say with sincerity that the highs and lows of this time have been—and I’ve never uttered this word as often—“unprecedented”!

We were able to start the process of bringing together our teams one week before the biggest data event of the year, Tableau Conference. And two weeks before one of the biggest business conferences on the planet, Dreamforce. Marc Benioff and I were determined to take advantage of the opportunity to introduce our companies to one another's respective communities, and our teams raced to insert each of us into both keynote addresses.

Over the two weeks with the Tableau #DataFam and the Salesforce Trailblazers, Marc and I were struck by how familiar each felt, with the palpable energy and excitement in the air and the many conversations we had with customers creating impactful change with help from our platforms.

It also sparked incredible excitement about the potential to drive even greater value for our customers. Every digital transformation is driven by data, after all, and we see so much room to help Salesforce’s customers deliver the customer-centric journeys that are more important than ever these days. As for Tableau customers, we’re already seeing how aligning with Salesforce is helping to turbo-charge analytics innovation that will benefit our whole community. To that end, in February, we added 400 brilliant, passionate analytics minds to the Tableau employee family when Einstein Analytics officially joined forces with Tableau and became part of our organization. I’m so excited about what we’re already seeing from these two teams working together and how it’s going to help our customers push new boundaries in seeing and understanding data.

But even as we celebrated these new members of the Tableau employee family, we had a wary eye on early news of a virus that would reshape all our lives. As the COVID-19 pandemic progressed, we realized that accessing reliable, updated information about what was occurring in different areas across the globe was a challenge for everyone, from families to business leaders to governments. A team of driven, passionate employees and Community members quickly pulled together the first pieces of what would become our COVID-19 Data Hub. With the help of the incredible Tableau Community, we’ve helped the world visualize the pandemic with more than 20,000 vizzes attracting millions of views. Not long after, we heard our Community’s call to respond to the other crisis facing our nation: the brutal cost of systemic racism. With partnership and guidance from respected leaders in the field of racial justice, we launched the Tableau Racial Justice Data Initiative. Through all of these crises, we’ve benefitted from a strong partnership with Salesforce, marshalling the best of what we all have to offer.

After this whirlwind of a year, we are honored to receive GeekWire’s “Deal of the Year, IPOs and Acquisitions” award a couple weeks ago. When I think about everything the Tableau and Salesforce teams have accomplished together over the past year I’m filled with pride in the resilience, creativity, and tenacity of our employees. I’m humbled by what our customers are able to accomplish with our product.

I’m immensely excited to see what the next year brings. With this Community, these employees, and a parent company like Salesforce, I am more confident than ever that the best is ahead of us. And that–together with large enterprises, small businesses, government agencies, educational institutions, non-profits, analysts, IT professionals, and the rest of our Community–we can all help to make the world a better place, through data.

Onward,
Adam