Salesforce Announces Blockchain Platform

Salesforce.com recently unveiled Salesforce Blockchain, a platform that brings blockchain and CRM together with the goal of allowing companies to create blockchain networks, workflows, and apps that deliver new customer experiences.

“One of the biggest benefits of blockchain today is how seamlessly it enables parties to work together while maintaining security. We’re laser-focused on enabling our customers to deliver connected experiences to their customers. In order to do this successfully, companies often need to work with a variety of partners and third parties, which is where blockchain comes in to create trusted networks of partners,” says Adam Caplan, senior vice president of emerging technology at Salesforce. “When blockchain is connected to CRM, customers are able to connect blockchain data with centralized Salesforce data, making that blockchain data much more actionable. Examples include running analytics across centralized and decentralized data, driving predictions with Einstein, triggering Service Cloud cases if there are issues, and bringing customers on marketing journeys. All the blockchain data is fully integrated with our processes and workflows inside Salesforce.”

The platform allows companies to do three key things: build networks with clicks, automate data with the Lightning platform, and easily engage with partners. Companies can easily build and maintain blockchain networks, apps, and smart contracts with Salesforce’s low-code capabilities. “We’re still in the early days of blockchain, and one of the biggest challenges so far has been adoption. Taking the same approach to technology that we have since our founding 20 years ago, we’re democratizing blockchain, abstracting all of the complexity so our customers can get up and running fast,” Caplan says.

Because Salesforce Blockchain is built on the Lightning platform, its data is natively integrated with Salesforce. “Companies are able to mix blockchain data with centralized CRM data like sales, service, or marketing,” Caplan elaborates.

As for easily engaging with partners, the platform aims to lower the barrier of entry for partners, distributors, and intermediaries to leverage blockchain technology. “Adoption by partners is a key benefit of our solution,” Caplan says. “We offer partners the ability to access blockchain data as a Salesforce customer or a non-Salesforce customers. They can leverage APIs to access the data and even access the blockchain through their infrastructure of choice.” The vendor’s Blockchain Connect, for instance, provides the user interface for customers and non-customers to access blockchain data, and its Bring Your Own Blockchain strategy enables customers to leverage other blockchain technologies, allowing them to connect those blockchains to Salesforce Blockchain, “with Salesforce acting as an engagement layer on top of them,” Caplan says.

“We believe that Salesforce Blockchain can help our customers adopt this new foundational technology quickly and drive business impact,” he adds. “Because Salesforce Blockchain takes a low-code approach, one of the biggest benefits out of the gate is the accessibility to blockchain technology. Companies will no longer have to stand up large teams to use blockchain; instead, they'll be able to focus on delivering innovative, connected experiences.”