Salesforce

Since establishing its Zurich office in 2016, Salesforce has grown into a vital part of the region, leveraging Greater Zurich’s exceptional talent pool and collaborative environment to drive innovations like Agentforce, where autonomous agents and humans work closely together. In our conversation with Rami Habib, General Manager of Salesforce Switzerland, we explored how Salesforce is empowering businesses, fostering sustainability, and building lasting partnerships to shape a prosperous future for the region – because for Salesforce, Greater Zurich is not just a stopover, they’re here to stay.

Hey Rami, thanks for joining us today! How is it going for Salesforce in Zurich?

We established our Zurich office in 2016 and have seen remarkable growth since then. Greater Zurich provides us with an incredible ecosystem to operate and grow in, especially as we serve some of our most important customers in the financial, manufacturing, Health Care & Life Science, and Retail sectors. Without our presence here, we wouldn’t be able to support these key relationships as effectively as we do today.

What were the driving factors behind Salesforce choosing Zurich?

The Greater Zurich Area is a hub for innovation, technology, and talent. The region is home to exceptional educational institutions like ETH Zürich, which produce the innovators of tomorrow and provide us with world-class tech talent. For a company like Salesforce, this is essential as we continue delivering cutting-edge solutions to our customers. The ecosystem also fosters collaboration across industries, creating countless opportunities for innovation and growth.

On the business side, Greater Zurich offers unmatched advantages. Its excellent connectivity – both within Switzerland and to international markets – ensures seamless access to key resources and customers. Switzerland’s political stability and business-friendly policies make it a secure and reliable place to invest. Adding to that, the sister-city relationship between San Francisco, our headquarters, and Zurich highlights cultural and economic parallels that make Zurich an attractive choice for our Swiss operations.

Zurich provides us with the talent, partnerships, and resources we need to support businesses of all sizes and industries in taking their next big step into the future.

Rami Habib - General Manager, Salesforce Switzerland

How does Salesforce contribute to the local ecosystem?

Salesforce has become an integral part of Greater Zurich’s business landscape. Today, we serve over 600 customers in Switzerland and collaborate with more than 80 partners to drive digital transformation. According to IDC, the Salesforce Economy is projected to create over 80,000 jobs in Switzerland between 2021 and 2026. These numbers reflect not only the success of Salesforce but also the significant impact we’ve had on fostering growth in the region.

Our 'Bring Women Back to Work' program, launched in Zurich in 2020, is a standout initiative that helps women re-enter the workforce after career breaks by providing Salesforce skills training, fostering innovation, diversity, and economic balance.

Additionally, through our 1-1-1 philanthropy model, which dedicates 1% of our equity, 1% of our product, and 1% of our employees’ time to giving back, our Zurich-based employees contribute over 6,000 volunteer hours annually to initiatives like BirdLife Switzerland, supporting species conservation and demonstrating our deep commitment to creating lasting, positive change in the communities we serve.

You mentioned collaboration as a key strength of Zurich’s ecosystem. Can you share more about how Salesforce works with partners in the region?

Collaboration is at the heart of Salesforce’s approach, and Greater Zurich’s dynamic network makes it the ideal environment for innovating together. The presence of global players like AWS, who are also based here, allows us to work closely with industry leaders to accelerate digital transformation for our customers.

A great example is our Hyperforce platform, which greatly benefits the finance sector, a cornerstone of the Swiss economy, by enabling secure deployment of Salesforce applications in compliance with local regulations and local data residency. This next-generation infrastructure was developed in collaboration with AWS, showcasing the impact of strong partnerships.

What does the future hold for Salesforce in Greater Zurich?

The future is incredibly exciting. We are committed to empowering businesses with cutting-edge technologies and cultivating an environment of collaboration and growth. Greater Zurich’s exceptional talent pool and vibrant business environment make it the perfect place to drive these efforts forward. We are enthusiastic about leading a new era of generative AI with Agentforce, positioning Zurich and Switzerland for a prosperous future where innovation thrives and businesses flourish. Through Agentforce, humans together with autonomous agents drive customer success. It is a suite of customizable agents and tools on the Salesforce platform powered by AI, data, and action. It enables companies to meet customer needs by executing tasks or seamlessly handing them off to employees to transform the way work gets done across every role, workflow, and industry, delivering operational scale like never before. For Salesforce, Greater Zurich is not just a stopover – we’re here to stay, building a lasting partnership with the region and its people.