Analyzing the Opportunity - and Living It

Director of Platform Research at Salesforce.com Peter Coffee (who was also previously at eWeek for 18 years as a leading technology pundit) made some great points in his recent blog about the opportunity for "analytics everywhere" and the hurdles to realizing it.

As a firm that lives and dies by helping more people and companies have "analytics everywhere", Tableau Software can appreciate those hurdles. But using on-demand platforms like Salesforce with analytics that anyone can use truly does mean organizations can be stunningly smarter and far more effective. Tableau itself is a case-in-point. I’m still pretty new to the company so I’ve seen it first-hand with a bit of an outsider’s perspective.

Peter had a chance to meet some of Tableau's internal team whose jobs are virtually defined by Salesforce.com. What he may not have seen is how deeply many more people at Tableau live and die by Salesforce.com with Tableau analytics laid on top. Tableau eats its own dog food.

The marketing team and I don’t have to make marketing decisions without knowing how our pipeline is developing and how our marketing decisions affect it. Because of Tableau's "analytics everywhere" software on top of Salesforce.com, day 2 on the job here I was already seeing and understanding how Tableau brings in new leads and nurtures them. I can rapidly look at detailed Salesforce.com data the way I want to – no predefined reports, no manipulating in Excel. And the amazing thing is that every executive at Tableau accesses the same Salesforce.com data using Tableau. So we always have meaningful conversations based on the same set of facts. No way have I had that kind of visibility or level of discussion in any previous job – and it wasn’t from lack of trying or wishing.

So, Peter, amen to your post. It’s way past time to make more of the capabilities of on-demand platforms by layering in analytics everywhere.