Greta Roberts, CEO, Talent Analytics, Corp.
20 December 2011

We believe the most important aspect of Salesforce.com’s plan to acquire Rypple is the statement it makes for linking performance to people. With this acquisition Salesforce focuses on strengthening the people themselves.

1. Many of Salesforce’s prior acquisitions (thinking Jigsaw)  focus on improving sales tools for the sales rep to use.

• The Rypple acquisition focuses on the “salesperson as a device” that can be tuned to be more effective with the right coaching, feedback and recognition.

2. With this acquisition, Salesforce acknowledges the direct link between sales performance and sales people.

• This acquisition focuses on keeping the people doing the work (PDW) passionate.

3. Though much is made of the need for Human Resources to understand business needs, the Rypple acquisition is a fantastic example of “business” moving to understand their people.

• This opens a fabulous new discussion about tying performance to people and the likelihood that HR need not be in charge of this initiative.

Talent Analytics’ Suggestion for Salesforce:  Keep going.
Coaching and dialog undoubtedly help sales people in the sales process.  I’m sure both Salesforce.com and Rypple would agree that no amount of social feedback or coaching will magically enable a natural sales “farmer” to suddenly become an effective sales “hunter”.

To continue the trend the Rypple acquisition begins, we recommend Salesforce.com continues to focus on the “sales reps doing the selling” as an asset (or barrier) to sales performance.

It’s now possible to forecast sales performance by hiring, coaching and giving social feedback to sales reps that have innate characteristics, which match top sales performer benchmarks.  This, we believe, would provide deep, measureable and lasting innovation and business value to Salesforce.com customers.

Greta Roberts is the CEO of Talent Analytics, Corp. She can be reached via greta@talentanalytics.com.