Salesforce.com Inc., the multinational cloud company, is looking to nearly double its research and development operations in Israel by 2022, according to Elad Donsky, Salesforce’s Vice President of Engineering who spearheads the company’s cloud development in Israel.
The Israeli operations of Salesforce, the world’s number 1 customer relationship management (CRM) organization, is already more than 600-people strong and is bolstered by a slew of acquisitions in recent years. In the recent past, workforce management software company Clicksoftware Technologies Ltd. was bought for $1.35 billion. Out of the 700 employees of the Massachusetts-headquartered company, 200 are based in Israel and have joined the local operation of Salesforce. Donsky himself joined Salesforce in 2016 when the organization bought his data-mining and insights startup Implicit Insights Ltd.
Israel is viewed by Salesforce as a strategic locale, especially when it comes to the recruitment of big data, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity professionals.
The Salesforce’s Vice President of Engineering added that Salesforce is in the midst of an extension hiring in the Asian country, actively recruiting for dozens of positions. Donsky, as part of his role, and his team is meeting with local organizations scouting for technologies and potential acquisitions. The Salesforce’s Vice President of Engineering oversees the development of products for Einstein, the Salesforce’s system of AI-based offerings. In particular, his Tel Aviv team emphasize on AI-based products that are designed to enhance sales. Donsky is also the binding force behind many of the new conversational AI technologies of Salesforce that were presented at the Dreamforce 2019 event.
Donsky added that the demand for voice-based features in the past year or two has been coming in steady from customers from all parts of life. The Salesforce’s Vice President of Engineering commented he is of the view that voice is the natural next step following the transition to the cloud and the introduction of AI to many areas of the organization. Donsky further commented that each interaction with a client will need to be documented and analyzed, and voice conversations are a large part of customer communications.
Donsky also said that AI-based recommendations and insights have an immediate impact on the bottom line of a client. It was also remarked by Donsky that Salesforce can generate recommendations that tell organizations which deals have a good potential to close and which deals don’t. Donsky also said that the focus of Salesforce is on how sales representatives work together with AI because we do not intend to replace them, we help them do a better job as Einstein is like another person in the room, giving strategic advice.
Donsky was hosted by Salesforce at this year’s Dreamforce event.
