Cortana Analytics, Salesforce and Alpine Metrics walk into a dataset, generates better sales forecasts

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Microsoft has been working to expand its relationship with key players in the technology sector like VMware and Apple; now Salesforce is jumping on the friendship bandwagon as Satya Nadella showcased how Cortana Analytics can improve sales data insight on stage at DreamForce. At the event, he showed how a partnership between Microsoft, Salesforce and Alpine Metrics was able to create a better way to manage the sales workflow.

The new workflow uses Cortana Analytics prediction capabilities provides Salesforce customers with new forms of insight on the sales that are in their pipeline in the form of deep visualizations and verbal cues.

When it comes to sales, without the use of machine learning, it’s typically up to the sales rep who is on the ground floor talking with his or her clients to determine if they are going to be able to close a sale. The solution shown today is to help take the emotional connection out of the equation and use the science behind the sales process to determine likelihood of closing the deal. In this new solution, Alpine Metrics is using Cortana Analytics to analyze more than 40 different factors that produces a balanced, accurate view of sales forecasts.

The other benefit of being integrated with Cortana is the added support for natural language queries as well as being able to harness PowerBI too. Simply ask Cortana a query pertaining to the data and it can combine the relevant information from Salesforce to create visualizations based on rank, probability, geography, history and other factors.

This announcement is yet another step showing how Microsoft is integrating its technology into other platforms. The company has made it a mission to make sure that wherever its customers are working, they have their technology accessible. With Cortana Analytics now working with Salesforce, it asserts that Microsoft is part of the conversation when it come to one of the most widely used CRM tools which is a win for both Microsoft and Salesforce.