How We Give Clients a Bird’s Eye View of the SaaS Industry

Over 171,000 people attend Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference in the Fall. The conference features incredible thought leaders, captains of technology, and major private equity firms in the SaaS industry. The energy is incendiary.

It’s also a lot to take in. It’s exhilarating to meet so many people, attend workshops & talks,  and network with business leaders. Frequently during the conference, however, people want to get away from it all, and take a moment to gather their thoughts and gain some perspective on all the incredible things that are happening, recharge, and then dive back in.

So, at last year’s Dreamforce, we thought, why not give our clients that chance to recharge and gain some perspective — literally.

We decided to organize a seaplane ride around the city of San Francisco.

Our guests were glad to get away from the conference for a morning. It was incredible to look down at the SaaS capital of the world (for now), and at Dreamforce. Every major SaaS company was down there. For a moment, we all had a bird’s eye view of the entire SaaS industry.

I don’t know of any other vendor or partner that’s here at Salesforce right now that takes their customers out like this and treats them to such an enjoyable experience.
– Chris Rustici, Sr Manager, Business Applications at Imprivata

The seaplane ride was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all of our clients. But it was also an opportunity for them to gain a different perspective on their business.

The 10,000-Foot Perspective

When you’re trying to hit aggressive growth targets, it helps to have a 10,000-foot view of your industry. To create a competitive advantage, it helps to have a vantage point that gives you a different perspective on your business, and others’.

At OpFocus, we consistently strive to give our clients an elevated perspective on their industry and their business. That’s how we help our clients grow.

The focus of OpFocus is on the customer.

– Brian Wainwright, Director of Business Systems at Toast

Looking for a bird’s eye view of the SaaS industry? Learn how our Strategic Roadmap helps SaaS clients grow. 

Brian Waterson

about the author

Brian Waterson

As Senior Director of Operations, Brian’s job is to ensure that his colleagues in Marketing, Sales, Delivery, and Finance have the systems, tools, and processes they need to excel in their daily work. For him, the role is most rewarding when he is enabling the rest of the company to do their job even better. 

His Salesforce career spans about a decade, split almost equally between client-facing consulting work and internal system administration and product ownership. Like many people, Brian fell into Salesforce work accidentally and was quickly hooked. Some of you may remember him from his previous days at OpFocus in 2013-2017 where he worked with many fantastic clients.

Brian holds a BA in International Relations from Boston University and a MA in International Conflict Studies from King’s College London.

For Brain, one of his favorite Salesforce features is Analytics CRM (formerly TableauCRM / Einstein Analytics / Wave.) Compared to standard Salesforce dashboards, he feels it provides much more flexibility when visualizing and joining data. It has been great to introduce it into the OpFocus product mix!

We often forget that it is now Salesforce, but he is also a huge fan of Slack. Brian is excited to see how Salesforce better integrates the two platforms in future releases.