Salesforce.com (CRM) Partners With Siemens To Help Businesses Reopen Safely

By Dan Anderson • Jun 24, 2020
  • Salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE: CRM) and Siemens announced they have signed a strategic partnership for developing a new workplace technology suite that supports businesses globally to safely reopen and deliver the future experience for physical workplaces

Salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE: CRM) and Siemens announced they have signed a strategic partnership for developing a new workplace technology suite that will support businesses globally to safely reopen and deliver the future experience for physical workplaces. 

This partnership combines Salesforce’s Work.com, powered by Customer 360 and Siemens’ Smart Infrastructure solutions, including Comfy and Enlighted for orchestrating the processes, people, and things that are essential to creating safe, connected workplaces for the future.

Some of the key solutions include a “touchless office” with mobile employee boarding passes for building and elevator entry, and a safe occupancy management system — which allows employees to reserve conference rooms and desks through Comfy’s app that sends real-time alerts as thresholds are reached.

Additionally by utilizing occupancy and location data provided by Enlighted and aggregated within Comfy, including employee check-in and desk and room reservations businesses will be able to augment their manual contact tracing process in Work.com. This feature allows for faster and more accurate emergency response. And contact tracing will be an opt-in solution to respect users’ privacy.

By combining IoT technology from Siemens with Salesforce’s Work.com solutions, it will enable customers to make data-driven decisions based on real-time data and create a flexible framework for the future workplace experience. And Siemens and Salesforce will be the first to deploy the new solutions in their own offices, including Siemens Smart Infrastructure headquarters in Zug, Switzerland, and Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.

“Organizations worldwide are beginning to reimagine the future workplace experience, putting their employees’ health and safety at the center of their digital transformations,” said Alex Dayon, President and Chief Strategy Officer, Salesforce. “By combining Siemens’ Smart Infrastructure solutions with Salesforce’s Work.com, we are giving companies the tools to make smart, data-driven decisions quickly and the confidence to reopen safely.”

Siemens is planning to contribute technology from its Smart Infrastructure portfolio, including IoT solutions company Enlighted and workplace experience solution Comfy. And data is collected multiple times per second by cloud-connected smart sensors from Enlighted. 

Enlighted’s Building IoT platform creates ‘sensory systems’ throughout the building and gives real-time insight and analytics into how the building is used and providing occupancy and location services for people and assets. And Comfy’s Safe Workplace Solution features an employee-facing app that enables businesses to keep people informed and productive while providing a workspace that is safe and compliant with local regulations. 

“The safe return of people to the workplace is a global challenge, and it’s vital that companies protect their employees to build trust and confidence,” said Roland Busch, Deputy CEO and member of the managing board of Siemens AG. “Together with Salesforce we can swiftly support businesses around the world to implement technology which supports employees as they return to the office while laying the foundations of long-term digital transformation in workplaces.”

Employees are able to view and reserve desks and meeting rooms, which adhere to distancing guidelines in real-time, search for, and navigate to health and safety amenities and request services such as sanitization. Plus Comfy Insights offers businesses an analytics dashboard to better understand how offices are being used thus informing a smarter, data-driven strategy for future workplaces.