The Financial Post of Canada’s National Post published a story that details Salesforce’s expansion in Canada. Keith Block (Salesforce co-CEO) and Suzanne DiBianca (Salesforce Chief Philanthropy Officer) were interviewed at Dreamforce 2018 to share their insights on the company’s relationship with Canada.
Giant Investments in Canada
The story highlighted Salesforce’s large investments in Canada. It also went into detail on how the funding fueled Canadian Salesforce expansion and innovation.
When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the Salesforce headquarters in San Francisco in February 2018, Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff also pledged an investment of $12 billion in Canada. The investment will be made for the next five years. The said goal was to expand the Salesforce workforce, including its real estate and data center in Canada. The expansion will bring additional livelihood to the Canadian people and tech improvements to the Canadian market.
Aside from that, Salesforce Ventures also launched a $100 million Trailblazer Fund for Canada in May 2018. The fund will be used as an investment for the development of Canadian Startups as well as the innovation of cloud and customer services. Salesforce also awarded Waterloo and FunnelCake $100,000 at the Dreampitch Toronto competition.
These investments strengthened the company’s business relationship with Canada even more. In just two years, the Canadian Salesforce workforce has doubled to 1,400 and the Canadian customer pool reached to 6,000.
Relationship Based on Shared Values
Though investments’ outcomes are beneficial to the country’s economy, there are still critics that bemoan it as the company’s way of sucking up to the Canadian government.
In the story, Keith Block explains that the company’s relationship with Canada goes further beyond just money. Though large investments needed to be made, it’s the purpose of those investments that matter most.
In response to the critical allegations, Block simply said: