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BizVoice/Indiana Chamber – May/June 2016
Salesforce is intentional about
culture. Bryan Wade can attest to
that.
“At our company-wide 2016 kickoff
event, I had the honor of presenting the
customer success story of Mattel,” explains
the Salesforce Marketing Cloud chief product
officer. “When I arrived at the venue, they
had a full Mattel-branded NASCAR racing
suit and a Hot Wheels race car to ride onto
the stage. So I rode out and presented to our
entire company (globally), dressed head to
toe in racing gear. That’s what makes
Salesforce such an exciting place to work –
employees here are always ready to have fun.”
An upbeat, collaborative atmosphere is
evident the moment one steps into the
Salesforce Gibson Building on Capitol Avenue
in downtown Indianapolis. The brand new
space on the first floor is a hive of activity
with Salesforce employees breaking for a
game of ping pong, working out in the gym
or sharing ideas over a “cup of joe” from the
on-site coffee shop.
“Aloha,” alluding to the strong Hawaiian
theme running through the company’s
culture, is written on a chalkboard wall. Leis
adorn offices and cubicles, and “Ohana”
defines the close-knit ecosystem – employees,
customers, communities and partners.
While Salesforce Marketing Cloud CEO
Scott McCorkle acknowledges that
ExactTarget (which was acquired by
Salesforce in 2013) is a large part of the
Indianapolis legacy, the transition is opening
the door to further success.
“When companies come together, it’s
for a reason,” he declares. “We’re trying to
take all this value and make it work together.
We’ve done that and it’s exciting, and I think
that’s why you see all this new energy.”
‘Drinking our own champagne’
Cultivating an internal social network in
your business? There’s a Salesforce product to
assist.
Tracking employee volunteer time or
wellness goals? There’s technology for that too.
“We call it ‘drinking our own champagne’
rather than ‘eating our own dog food.’ It
sounds better,” chuckles Meghann York,
director of product marketing, about how the
company utilizes its own products internally
for employee engagement.
Its V2MOM management model (vision,
values, methods, obstacles and measures), for
instance, is an annual goal-setting exercise. It
works this way: CEO Marc Benioff releases
the company-wide V2MOM, and then down
through the layers of management, each
employee drafts his or her own to outline
priorities. All V2MOMs are accessible to
employees via Chatter, Salesforce’s enterprise
social network.
“The transparency is good to say, ‘This is
what’s important to me and these are the
things I’m going to do,’ ” York explains. “It
provides a level of personal accountability so
that people can see what you’re planning to
accomplish that year.”
FunForce
From team volunteer events to office
tournaments, there is no shortage of fun.
FunForce is the committee that plans
activities for employees to participate in
together.
• Keeping in line with the craft beer boom in
Indiana, the company recently hosted a
home brewing contest (“I am not a brewer,
Salesforce
Culture Here ‘Not Just Lip Service’
By Katie Coffin
2016 RETURNEE
The coffee shop on the first floor of the Salesforce Gibson Building is just one of the amenities in the
brand new space. Salesforce employees take advantage of volunteer time-off benefits, serving together
at Gleaners Food Bank.