Customer relationship management solutions from global software names like Salesforce.com Inc. are nothing new. Businesses of all sizes have been using these solutions to ease their processes, manage supply chains, handle customer queries and more.

The pandemic, however, has necessitated a need for more sophisticated and capable CRM tools leveraging the latest cloud/artificial intelligence technologies, according to Bill Patterson (pictured), executive vice president and general manager of CRM applications at Salesforce. The company has been working with IBM to help companies navigate a post-pandemic landscape.

“IBM is an incredible partner for us on the technology side, on a service delivery side, and in an innovation side for us to create new solutions to help our clients really go in this from/to state of how their businesses used to operate to how they need to operate in the future,” Patterson said.

Patterson spoke with John Walls, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the recent IBM Think event. They discussed the current state of enterprise CRM solutions, their increasing use cases and the role of AI and other sophisticated technologies there. (* Disclosure below.)

Helping companies navigate a post-pandemic landscape

The bulk of business conversations over the past year has been how businesses and corporate entities can get out of the pandemic with minimal bruising. In that regard, Salesforce partnered with IBM on Work.com, a platform for vaccine management and advanced contact tracing for enterprises.

“The work that we did with IBM was to plan out the next wave of recovery options around vaccine managements, creating a core vaccine scheduling, distribution and administration management services and IBM focusing on more of that credentialing and vaccination state of how someone has gone from receiving a shot in the arm to now having a trusted profile of those vaccines,” Patterson added.

While the safety of a company’s employees is crucial to its success, so is the safety and security of mission-critical data. Comprehensive data security today, according to Patterson, is about locking down every operational touchpoint and not just keeping your servers safe.

To that end, Salesforce is leveraging a plethora of security-focused IBM technology underpinnings as part of a framework to provide increased value to customers — from a security standpoint, he explained

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM Think. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for IBM Think. Neither IBM, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE