IT Week: As president of technology, marketing and systems at hosted customer relationship management [CRM] specialist Salesforce.com, do you find IT buyers are wary of hosted CRM systems?

Patricia Sueltz: Many folks have been burned by CRM tools in the past. We hear a lot of firms complain that their sales team is out of control, and they don't know how to forecast, and yet resistance to the tools that can fix those problems persists. At some companies it comes about because they don't want to admit that a system they have been using for years does not work, while others are put off by the suggestion of "the end of software" [a Salesforce tag line]. We do not run into much resistance to our particular hosted CRM system as it is designed to be very usable.

How has that usability been developed?

When the company was formed [the CRM system] was designed to have a similar look and feel to that of Amazon.com, and to be as easy to use. It's been designed for the internet, the platform is strong and secure. The business case works and so does the model.

Before joining Salesforce this year you were at Sun Microsystems and before that at IBM. How do the roles differ?

I run research and development, marketing - soup to nuts - services and support. Obviously Salesforce is a smaller company than I am used to so I had much to consider before coming here, things such as whether I could make things work at a small company. Coming to a smaller company can be very difficult because it is such a different working culture, but Marc Benihoff - chairman of Salesforce - has such wonderful values. Salesforce is a firm where teamwork is all important. For example Parker Harris, who works with me on R&D, has some real splashes of genius - he is a fabulous initiative leader.

Speaking of research and development, Salesforce has a reputation for updating its software a lot more often than some of its major competitors. Is this because of your R&D spending, or the community you build up with customers?

I would say that it has more to do with the focus of the company. The traditional development cycle is about 18 months long. That's the time it takes most companies to assess the requirements of users, go to work on them and then deliver something. We work at a much faster pace. At Salesforce we have released 17 versions in about four years, which equates to a 12-week development cycle.

How do you achieve faster development?

For every 10 developers I had back at IBM, eight would be working on back ports. At Salesforce - where we have one knowledge base and one system - eight out of 10 are working on development. This means that we can be really focused on what the customer needs. The users are helpful as well: there is a great desire to both learn and contribute. We also do focus groups, and the hosted delivery method we use means that we can see where there is most interest.

ABOUT PATRICIA SUELTZ

Patricia Sueltz is executive vice-president and president of technology, marketing, and systems at hosted CRM specialist Salesforce.com.

She oversees R&D, all marketing programmes and initiatives, and systems engineering.

Sueltz joined Salesforce in 2004 after four-and-a-half years with Sun, where she was responsible for delivering consultancy, educational and support services. Previously, Sueltz spent 20 years as an executive at IBM.