Arundhati Bhattacharya, President & CEO, Salesforce South Asia
Salesforce India is seeing robust momentum throughout each SME and huge enterprise section, with AI rising as the most important driver of adoption, in accordance with Arundhati Bhattacharya, President and CEO, Salesforce – South Asia.
“Worldwide, we’re rising strongly within the SME section. SMEs can now faucet into the identical capabilities via AI, which was not attainable earlier as a result of they couldn’t afford to rent many individuals. However with digital labour, and people within the loop, they’ll handle to create hyper personalised advertising campaigns and scale as required to offer providers,” she famous.
When requested about competitors from home-grown SaaS suppliers within the SME house, Bhattacharya famous that enterprise has not been impacted as a result of bigger sentiment. “I don’t suppose Indian shoppers have a thoughts closed to working with MNCs,” she added.
Whereas the SME section is rising properly, the enterprise section can be lively, with shoppers experimenting with AI and operating proof-of-concept initiatives internally alongside companions. There’s important pleasure round how quickly the know-how is evolving.
Salesforce’s income in India rose 47 per cent 12 months over 12 months to ₹13,384.5 crore for the monetary 12 months ended March 31, 2025, in accordance with its regulatory submitting with the Ministry of Company Affairs’ Registrar of Corporations. That is compared to a 36 per cent income progress reported by Salesforce India final 12 months, when it noticed its complete income cross the $1-billion milestone.
Sturdy market
India continues to be certainly one of Salesforce’s fastest-growing markets globally, pushed by robust buyer demand for trusted, data-driven and AI-powered options. Salesforce now has an worker base of 14,000-plus throughout Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune and Jaipur.
“Earlier, we have been primarily within the BFSI section, and now, we’re giant in retail, and in areas similar to auto, aviation, journey and tourism, actual property, healthcare, training and manufacturing. That is likely one of the the reason why we’ve got grown quick,” Bhattacharya stated.
Responding to a question on the discharge of the Digital Private Information Safety Guidelines, she known as it a “ pivotal second for India’s digital economic system.” Sturdy information privateness and consumer consent usually are not simply regulatory necessities, however “elementary pillars for constructing belief and fostering safe innovation”, she added.
On whether or not the formalisation of DPDP spur Salesforce to arrange its personal information centre infrastructure throughout the nation, she stated they it’s not one thing that Salesforce has thought of or one thing that they need to do for the time being.
Re-skilling is vital
Addressing the impression of worldwide layoffs on India, she stated that whereas the corporate has continued hiring each quarter, this doesn’t imply there aren’t any job losses. Because the organisation evolves, some roles naturally section out whereas new ones emerge, making re-skilling important. The tempo of change is quick and requires steady adaptation, she stated.
“Abilities and designations we had no understanding of a couple of 12 months in the past are actually right here to remain…Some abilities might go extinct, however others will turn out to be in style. As extra companies use AI, newer jobs will come up. All the pieces won’t stay static,” Bhattacharya shared.
Amid rising scepticism round ROI from AI, she burdened the significance of prioritising AI use-cases. She stated corporations ought to start with less complicated, high-value functions quite than leaping into advanced initiatives the place impression is unclear. Salesforce serves as its personal buyer zero for Agentforce and studies optimistic outcomes from each inside implementation, she added.
“It’s higher to start out with use-cases that may give you quantitative returns quite than qualitative returns. After we begin an AI initiative, a couple of issues should be carried out proper. After selecting the best use case, consider you probably have the precise information units. If sure, and if we’ve got a layer that may entry this set, the outcomes might be good. Nevertheless, the specified outcomes are unlikely if corporations rush in with out evaluating the anticipated ROI or the readiness of their information units,” she highlighted.
Bhattacharya stated India is neither absolutely prepared nor unprepared for AI, highlighting that steady skilling stays important. AI, she famous, is not restricted to IT groups or analysis labs, however can assist day-to-day duties. Nevertheless, the human factor stays irreplaceable. Individuals should discover ways to use AI for the fundamentals and refine the output with their very own pondering and emotional nuance, which is the place the know-how turns into best.
With inputs from Sindhu Hariharan
Revealed on November 25, 2025