Jujhar Singh, Executive Vice President and General Manager for Salesforce's Industries, oversees solutions across multiple industries here at Salesforce. While some executives dive deeper and deeper into one single pool, Singh dives deeply into one pool, then another, and another. Every time he surfaces with a new solution for an industry, he finds he can apply it elsewhere. He has only been at Salesforce for nine months but he's found that he loves finding solutions for distinct markets across the world.

Prior to Salesforce, he worked for Microsoft, SAP, Siebel, and Indian Railways. In his spare time, he enjoys swimming. We sat down with Jujhar to ask him to share how he tackles creating product strategies tailored to different industry markets.

Q: Why are industry markets so important to Salesforce?

A: Industries is a major growth lever for the company and an important piece of our long-term strategy. We are in a great position because we are truly differentiated in this space. How? Our cloud-based platform is updated three times per year with features that our customers are asking for, ensuring that they always have access to the latest innovations available. We have a deep understanding of end-to-end industry processes and have used those insights to create product solutions that we'll continue to evolve as a part of our industry clouds, such as Financial Services Cloud and Healthcare Cloud. We have differentiated integration capabilities, especially with our recent acquisition of MuleSoft. We have amazing strategic partners across every industry, helping us build and go to market with powerful industry solutions. And, finally, we have the power of Einstein, layering AI into each one of our products. Our competitors can’t offer anything like it. This is why I’m so excited to be here today.

Q: You work across multiple industries. What is that like?

A: I believe the opportunities are huge for every single industry, so we go into not only every industry but every sub-industry. For example, we not only focus on financial services as a whole, but we dive deep into areas like wealth management, lending, and retail banking. It’s vital for us to speak the language of all of our industry customers.

And we have built rich industry product blueprints. We are very grounded in building product strategies that are specific to that industry. But we also know it’s important to take a step back and look and industries holistically, which helps us identify the opportunities and pain points across the board.

Q: In what way is your work holistic?

A: I have the luxury of looking across several industries. So after we have looked at every segment of one industry, we pause and ask, from our vantage point: Can we see what is working well, and how could we leverage this for a completely different segment? And suddenly we see that a solution that's working for healthcare might also apply to insurance or retail sales. For instance, the need to create and take surveys, or have detailed action plans.

Q: Is it exciting when you suddenly see those patterns?

A: This part is really exciting. A light bulb goes off. What we are really doing is sharing best practices across industries. Those building blocks can be used over and over — and improved. So we are building products with that mindset. All the things we build we can leverage for new solutions. That is a rare point of view, and I treasure it. I really do.

Q: Can you give us an example?

A: You might not think that auto insurance agents and consumer packaged goods executives have much in common when it comes to day-to-day operations. But this is where it gets fun. An insurance agent examining a car accident can use their phone to take photos of the damage, and using artificial intelligence capabilities can easily analyze data and connect with their team on next steps. At the same time, consumer goods companies spend good money on the location of their product in retail stores, so they want to make sure their products are displayed appropriately. Using the same technology, these sales managers can go to a store and take pictures of their goods and easily send them back to home base for analysis. Suddenly we see these two industries need very similar solutions. When we can see that and apply learnings to develop solutions that help both customer groups to their job better, that is very exciting.

Q: Is it like building a puzzle?

A: It’s very much like building a puzzle, and when you can pick up five pieces together they fill up the puzzle much faster. That’s why we are so happy with the acquisition of MuleSoft. They are the very best at integrating solutions. So now you can piece together more of the puzzle in a seamless way. Now we aren’t building everything from scratch. We can elevate the work we do for customers and work on solving other, more important problems.

Q: Does finding common solutions across industries inspire you?

A: It absolutely does. Everything we do comes back to Salesforce values, and trust is number one. If I am applying a solution that I know works, that I have applied in the real world and improved, I have confidence. The customer can trust our work and our protection of their data and their business because we know it works. And the equality that is such a key value for us also comes through. If we can solve problems in similar ways it just shows that we are not so different. Our problems might divide us, but our solutions can bring us together. Clicking together those puzzle pieces to help people just feels good.