Fujitsu and salesforce.com have announced that they have signed a sales and marketing agreement whereby Fujitsu will provide Salesforce CRM[1] cloud applications as well as application development and integration services on salesforce.com's Force.com platform. The partnership is designed to enable customers in a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing, distribution, and finance, to dramatically reduce IT costs and increase business competitiveness.

Amid a global economic recession and intense industry reorganization, customers are seeking to accelerate their management processes and reduce costs. In managing their IT, customers are demanding solutions that lower operational costs in particular. In the areas of CRM and SFA[2], demand has increased significantly for Software-as-a-Service solutions which can minimize upfront deployment costs and eliminate the need for customers to maintain their own hardware and software, enabling system resources to be flexibly expanded to business needs.

Starting today, Fujitsu will provide its application development, systems integration and consulting expertise combined with salesforce.com's market leading CRM cloud applications and Force.com platform. Together, the companies will address customer requirements with easy to customize, quickly deployable, and cost effective cloud computing solutions.

To date, Fujitsu has provided Software-as-a-Service solutions in specialized areas such as security and groupware to municipal governments and medicine. Based on its partnership with salesforce.com, Fujitsu is looking to develop cost estimate processing, workflow approval, and inventory management applications integrating the Software-as-a-Service capabilities of both companies with salesforce.com's SFA and Customer Service & Support applications together with customers' existing sales management and production control systems.

The Fujitsu Group has already successfully developed and deployed SFA and CRM systems integrated with Salesforce CRM at major financial institutions in the US, UK and Australia. Fujitsu has also expanded its SFA and CRM-related services through Glovia International, a salesforce.com global partner providing ERP applications on Force.com.

In December 2008, Fujitsu established a CRM Solution Business Office. Through this office, Fujitsu will take full advantage of the Fujitsu Group's CRM offerings and provide comprehensive solutions to customers. In order to further enhance its service expertise and expand its business, Fujitsu in 2009 plans to increase its Salesforce-certified consultants to 20, and Salesforce-certified sales executives to 100.

Fujitsu will also deploy Salesforce CRM solutions throughout its businesses in Japan, and by utilizing its firsthand experience and know-how, enhance the effectiveness of the CRM consulting services the company provides to its customers in the form of application planning, development, operation and maintenance services, with the goal of continually enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of its customers' sales teams.

Fujitsu and salesforce.com will offer periodic joint workshops starting May 2009, as well as engage in joint marketing activities. In addition, both companies will continue to develop and offer high-end consulting services, as well as support the training of their service personnel.

[1] CRM: Customer Relationship Management
[2] SFA: Sales Force Automation