Salesforce to increase India headcount to 10,000 by Jan next year: CEO

Salesforce India will increase its headcount in the country to 10,000 by January next year from 7,500-plus currently, its chairperson and CEO Arundhati Bhattacharya has said.

Bhattacharya further said that in the order of priority, the focus areas for Salesforce in India are banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, services and social services.

"We are (Salesforce India's headcount) at about 7,500 plus. We are expecting that we will end FY23, which for us ends in January of 2023... we expect to be in the range of 10,000," she told PTI in an interview.

Currently, cloud-based services provider Salesforce has offices in six Indian cities of Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Gurugram and Jaipur.

Salesforce increased its headcount significantly in India during the pandemic to 7,500 from 2,500 in April 2020.

Replying to a question on flexible and hybrid work culture post-pandemic, she said, "We will see more and more workforce returning to the workplaces."

Bhattacharya pointed out that when people come back to offices, the sense of collaboration and belonging increases.

"Because what we are also seeing is that if you don't get them to come to the office and connect, then it becomes more and more difficult to create the DNA of an organisation," she said.

While also noting that some amount of working hybrid is important, she said there are multi-generational families at home and due to lack of space, it is a little difficult to work from home for many people.

In India, Bhattacharya said work culture will evolve into a kind of model where there will be more people coming to the office in more days, but work from home will also continue depending upon their convenience.

Asked what will be the next set of skills Indian youth need to learn, she suggested that they need to learn niche technology such as those that are used by Software as a Service (or SaaS) companies and cloud-based companies.

Bhattacharya also highlighted skills such as analytics and integration are very much in demand because there is so much legacy industry.

According to her, cybersecurity is another area where skills are very much in demand because that is something which nobody really knows where and how it will evolve.

Pointing out that the hallmark of the current economy is that all cycles (economic, market cycles, fashion) are becoming shorter and shorter, she said, "Without the help of technology, you can't remain nimble and agile, and can not possibly meet the demands of the changing needs of the people."

Bhattacharya emphasised that the ability of people to adopt digital is going to drive the uptick in India's GDP that the country wants to see.

"Because we have a young population that seems to be not only aware but capable of changing and adapting very fast," she said.

Noting that technology and finance are getting very closely aligned, the Salesforce India CEO said, "Without technology, you will not be able to see the kind of growth in finance that you would otherwise have."

She emphasised that post -COVID pandemic, productivity and efficiency have become very important and that is where actually digital becomes such an important part.

"Because achieving more with less you can only do when you use digital in many of your activities," Bhattacharya said.