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September 2016, IDC #US41691316
White Paper
The Salesforce Economy: Enabling 1.9 Million New Jobs and
$389 Billion in New Revenue Over the Next Five Years
Sponsored by: Salesforce
John F. Gantz
Pam Miller
September 2016
IN THIS WHITE PAPER
This White Paper forecasts the economic contribution of Salesforce and its ecosystem of partners and
customers to local economies in terms of jobs and gross domestic product (GDP) impact.
The study relies on IDC's forecasts of job creation from organizational use of cloud computing, IDC's
understanding of Salesforce's market share, IDC's published research on the number of ancillary
products and services that accompany cloud computing implementations, IDC's understanding of how
Salesforce partners and developers are building applications and services on top of the Salesforce
platform, surveys of cloud computing customers, and a custom economic model that estimates the
size of the Salesforce ecosystem.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Worldwide, Salesforce and its ecosystem will enable the creation of 1.9 million jobs within the
Salesforce customer base from the use of cloud computing between the end of 2015 and the
end of 2020.
During this same time frame, Salesforce and its ecosystem will enable the creation of more
than 2.8 million indirect jobs, or those jobs created in the supply and distribution chains
serving Salesforce customers, as well as from new company employees spending money in
the general economy.
Over the same period, the benefits of cloud computing accruing to Salesforce customers will
add $389 billion in new business revenue, or GDP impact, to their local economies.
Cloud computing generates these benefits primarily by permitting an increase in IT innovation,
which in turn supports business innovation that leads to accelerated development schedules,
faster project completion, shorter time to market for new products, and lower operational costs.
The Salesforce ecosystem revenue is three to four times bigger than Salesforce itself b