Salesforce set to unveil new business analytics product

The company will debut Wave at its Dreamforce conference this week

There is so much data out there now for businesses to dissect these days, along with a ton of companies with the capability of gathering it. That means that simply having the ability to offer up that data is no longer enough. They need analytics. Companies have to be able to gain something from that data it has to be analyzed, and actionable. Businesses need to be able to up their ROI. The data alone just doesn't cut it.

That's why its, frankly, pretty surprising that customer relationship management company Salesforce does not already give its clients data analytics. It just seems like the next logical step for the company. Now Salesforce is finally about to up its game, and fill in that gap, by offering a brand new data analytics service called Wave.

Wave, which it calls "the Salesforce Analytics Cloud," will be unveiled at its Dreamforce conference this week, it has been confirmed by Salesforce to VatorNews.

"Salesforce is the customer success platform. Companies leverage our portfolio of technologies to connect with their customers in an entirely new way. Analytics is an important piece of that puzzle," a Saleforce spokesperson told me.

"Currently information about a customer is siloed across a variety of data sources, both structured and unstructured. And companies don't have analytics solutions that can put all of this data together in a timely and actionable way."

The company, he said, has spent "the past two years designing a solution to address this."

Since there are a plethora of other companies already offering business and data analytics out there, it's important for Salesforce to set Wave apart from the competition, which it will apparently do in the way the analyzed data is displayed to customers.

Forbes, which saw the demo of the product, describes the service as an "in-depth visualization tool," one that allows data to be "sliced and diced to create different views and connections between data." The product sounds like it takes a more visual approach to analytics than the typical offering. 

Not only can Wave spot links between data on the Salesforce platform, but Forbes is also reporting that it will be able to take data from third party apps as well, and that it will have partnerships with Mulesoft, Informatica, Accenture and Deloitte.

In addition, Wave will also be reportedly be integrated into offerings from companies that include Lattice Engines and Gainsight. It will also be integrated  with Salesforce’s enterprise social network Chatter.

Salesforce has obviously seen analytics as key for the company to offer an end-to-end solution; last year the company bought business intelligence and analytics startup EdgeSpring in June of last year.

(Image source: Salesforce.com)