Salesforce is proud to have earned major recognition from Gartner — one of the most respected voices in the industry — as a leader in its 2016 Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals for the second year in a row. Also mentioned in the report is Salesforce’s Community Cloud product, which enables customers, partners and employees to access business processes and data.

So what is a horizontal portal? Gartner defines portal as, “a personalized point of access to relevant information, business processes and other people. Portals address various audiences, including employees, customers, partners and citizens, and support a wide range of vertical markets and business activities. As a product, a horizontal portal is a software application or service used to create and manage portals for a wide range of purposes.”

So what sets Community Cloud apart? We believe it’s five key areas:

1. Agility with Lightning Bolt

With Community Cloud, businesses can customize the community or portal to completely fit their needs with prebuiltLightning Bolt solutions, whether it’s personalizing the look to match existing brand guidelines or integrating data from any third-party system.

2. Deeper customer relationships

Connect to your customers in a whole new way with a Customer Community. Customers can interact with each other, provide feedback, share their enthusiasm for your brand and product, and even purchase within the community.

3. Stellar customer service

A Customer Community enables customers to help themselves and each other. Rich self-service experiences satisfy customers who increasingly seek to solve their own problems first and allows service agents to focus on the more complex issues.

4. Accelerate channel sales

A Partner Community connects resellers, distributors, and partners to increase sales. Partners can find information and experts, register new leads, update records, and manage funds. With Partner Community, partners can close more deals quickly and sell just like one of your own reps.

5. Drive employee productivity

Enable employees to find the information they need to stay engaged and productive, all in one easy-to-use location. With a social, mobile, branded Employee Community, employees are directly connected to the experts, resources, and files they need to get their job done.

We couldn’t be more proud that the leading companies across industries turn to Salesforce to deliver game-changing experiences to their customers, partners, and employees. Find out more about what makes Salesforce a leader. Download the complete report.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals, Jim Murphy, Gene Phifer, 17 October 2016.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.