Appirio Rides Wave of Cloud Computing to Expand its Vision for Success
Success is oftentimes born out of a pure vision. In the case of Appirio, that vision is the opportunities created by salesforce.com’s cloud-computing platform business model.
Based in San Mateo, Calif., Appirio is a thriving startup that marries consulting and product development with cloud computing technologies to help customers successfully deploy Salesforce.com and Google Enterprise applications. Narinder Singh, the company’s chief marketing officer, and Chris Barbin, Appirio’s CEO, first realized the power of cloud computing during an Appirio implementation of Salesforce CRM service and support applications at Borland.
The Dawn of Exploding Business Opportunities
“Actually, I had almost accidentally become the CIO of Borland. I was running a line of business and became involved in IT and operations because of an acquisition we did. When I saw first hand how salesforce.com could impact IT and the business, I knew there was an opportunity to do what I began at Borland, for an entire industry,“ explains Barbin. “After starting at Appirio, we oversaw the deployment of SSS and it gave us a hint of what was to come from Salesforce regarding the platform,” Barbin explains. “We knew once salesforce.com figured out how to extend the capabilities we used with service and support and apply it across the enterprise as a platform, the opportunities for our business would just explode.”
In fact, Appirio not only helps customers leverage salesforce.com’s cloud-computing model, but it runs its own business on the Force.com platform. “We were adamant about starting a new kind of business,” says Singh. “We don’t own a single server in our company, only laptops on which we access Google Apps and Salesforce. We grew from 3 to 65 people with no change in infrastructure—because there is no infrastructure.”
The Force.com 'Wow' Moment
With such impressive customers as Dolby, Qualcomm, and CRC Health, the company is confident in its revolutionary stance against what it regards as the conventional wisdom of traditional software. A true believer who regards traditional software as a barrier to the main goals of IT organizations, Singh lays out his philosophy:
“We’re not confused on the vision. Some partners work with cloud computing and on-premise software—they feel that there’s some due to be paid to the history of technology—but we don’t work that way.” Singh adds, “When conventional wisdom goes against what’s good for the customer, we serve the customer and find something different.”
The fervor behind such conviction is attributed to the significant cost savings and scalability the Force.com platform provides. Working with CRC Health, which chose the Force.com platform to streamline operations across multiple business functions, Appirio quickly moved the company from a small-scale 12 person deployment to a 500 -user roll out for managing patient intake. It is just one more example of the way the Force.com platform provides IT organizations with a radically unified approach to myriad business problems.
With zero start up costs, the Force.com platform cuts the development time and operational costs so dramatically that customers often don’t believe it until they see it.
“Right out of the gate we do strategy exercises that involve building a proof of concept, helping them connect the vision to how it will impact their business,” says Barbin. “There’s a 'wow' moment with the customer when they see that the solution we just created can be scaled across their entire organization.”
Web 2.0: The Consumerization of the Enterprise
The value, however, goes beyond dollar figures or time-to-market in a way that positively impacts the core business. Appirio sees a parallel between the dramatic shift that took place with the advent of personal Web use in daily life and what Barbin calls the ‘consumerization of enterprise technology.’
“For years, enterprise customers had been locked away from the advances of the Internet: the consumer Web 2.0 model just did not catch on in the enterprise—until now.” Barbin continues, “Today more people are free to think about innovation, about solving business problems without worrying about their technology infrastructure. Before as a CIO, too often we had to worry about counting servers instead of thinking ahead.”
Salesforce CRM and Google: Connecting the Clouds
It is that freedom to create and the unique opportunities afforded by the cloud-computing model that enables the company to step outside the bounds of a traditional consulting company to build its own products.
“We would just be another consulting company without Force.com,” says Singh. “All of sudden it became not only feasible but advantageous to create products. Our development time is cut by an order of magnitude compared to what it would have built on top of an on-premise solution.”
Because Appirio works with both Salesforce CRM and Google Enterprise, it was a key player in the partnership between the two companies through its introduction of five applications that connect the two leaders. Working with both companies also uniquely positions Appirio to bridge the natural similarities of each offering to create synergistic apps.
“It’s really exciting to create products that illuminate how different parts of the cloud work together to create something even more substantial than either piece,” adds Singh.
The fact that salesforce.com announced its partnership with Google and made products—built by Appirio—available that day characterizes the difference between the old and new world of technology. It’s this speed to market that allows partners on the front lines of this revolution to reap the benefits.
“By providing a platform on which anyone with the skills can innovate, Force.com levels the playing field,” notes Barbin. “The partners that can create cool innovations first are the ones who will prosper most in this ecosystem.”
Not Without Fun
As one of the the first salesforce.com partners to utilize Force.com's pages (Visualforce)—a feature that easily enables personalized user interfaces on Salesforce CRM or any custom application—Appirio set the standard as an innovative member of the salesforce.com ecosystem.
“Visualforce truly embodies the power and fun of the Force.com,” Singh says. “A couple lines of code changes can change the entire interface experience. It’s a tremendous tool to generate excitement in the customer.”
Salesforce.com IdeaExchange, a community idea application, is another offering that Appirio finds stimulates the process of innovation both within his company and with customers.
“We see a dramatic benefit of building new solutions using the concepts discussed on the IdeaExchange,” states Singh. What IdeaExchange does is create an environment in which ideas are sent out into the community to be judged so the best ones rise to the top.”
Playing in the Big Leagues
While Force.com lays the foundation for Appirio to help its customers achieve success, Salesforce CRM and the platform play a different role when it comes to winning those customers in the first place.
“At the end of the day, with only 75 people, they look at us as a small company,” Barbin says. “But the fact that we’re building with saleforce.com and Google means we’re playing in the big leagues. And because the Salesforce infrastructure is our infrastructure, we boast the same market leading security and reliability they do. This gives us the credibility required to stand in a room with the largest companies in the world and win their business. Even better because our operations run on the platform we know we can scale to a 1000+ people organization.”
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