When it comes to SaaS companies, Salesforce is the creme of the crop. The CRM software firm focuses on a suite of tools that standardizes customer engagement for large firms, and is now adding NFTs to their scope, courtesy of a partnership with the Polygon blockchain.
The news represents another big-box, enterprise win for the Polygon – which is certainly not a first for the blockchain.
Let’s review what this new partnership entails and how software firms embracing NFTs may be a ‘more than meets the eye’ maneuver.
Salesforce: As Big As It Gets
According to active data from independent researcher Mike Sonders, Salesforce is the biggest SaaS (software-as-a-service) company on a U.S. stock exchange to date – leading the pack over other recognizable software providers like Adobe, Intuit, and Shopify. If you want to look for a bigger target in SaaS, I wish you the best of luck.
A tweet published on Thursday by Polygon Labs President Ryan Wyatt stated that the parties would look to “help [Salesforce] clients create token-based loyalty programs.”
We are excited to share that @salesforce has launched on @0xPolygon!
Salesforce will help their clients onboard to Polygon with its management platform to help its clients create token-based loyalty programs.
“Most Salesforce customers use Ethereum or Polygon” – Salesforce
— Ryan Wyatt (fwiz.polygon) (@Fwiz) March 16, 2023
The move comes after the SaaS company had already launched a pilot program that yielded north of a quarter million transactions and encompassed brands like toymaker Mattel and spirits producer Crown Royal. The partnership secures another big-box win for Polygon, whose corporate partner list includes the likes of Starbucks, Reddit, and more.
Software & NFTs Go Hand-In-Hand
As much as we often discuss ‘IRL integration’ and ‘phygital items,’ the confluence of physical and digital integration, it’s natural for SaaS companies to be the first to adapt to the changing NFT landscape. However, while many of the top SaaS companies are starting to explore the NFT sandbox, there’s likely more than meets the eye in the logic behind it. SaaS companies are certainly the most conducive firms to integrate NFTs – they live in a digital world as a nature of their business.
But SaaS companies can also help onboard broader brands, much like the aforementioned Mattel and Crown Royal, and effectively offer a ‘safety net’ that allows brands to potentially uplevel their loyalty program (among other things) while remaining somewhat hands off – letting the software people do what they do best.
Furthermore, Salesforce executives have gone on the record to state that they could see crypto wallets being the ‘new cookies.’ While that might not appease the OG decentralization loyalists, it’s arguably an inevitability and still signifies that web3 is more than just a buzzword.
