salesforce.com
Polly Sumner is president of global services and chief adoption officer at salesforce.com.
Sumner has more than 20 years of executive management experience in the technology industry. Prior to joining the San Francisco-based salesforce.com, she has served as president of global services, consulting and industry information services at communications software and services company, Telcordia, headquartered in Piscataway, NJ. She has also worked as an independent consultant with Warburg Pincus from July 2003 to January 2006. Prior to this, Sumner also served as president of Alphablox Corporation, an analytics software company, from 2002 to 2003. During her presidency, the company grew from $5 million to $25 million in two years and was eventually acquired by IBM in 2004. She has also worked for Oracle, McDonnell Douglas, and IBM.
Sumner earned a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science from Northern Arizona University and a Masters of Science from American Graduate School of International Management, in Glendale, AZ.
Last Updated: Fri, Apr 9, 2010
| Category | Title | Author/Speaker | Organization | Length | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video | Biggest Challenge of a CEO of a Start-up | Polly Sumner · Liz Tinkham | Salesforce & Accenture | 03:29 | 03/2010 |
| Video | Entrepreneurship in Large and Small Companies | Polly Sumner · Liz Tinkham | Salesforce & Accenture | 03:39 | 03/2010 |
| Video | Learning from Failure | Polly Sumner · Liz Tinkham | Salesforce & Accenture | 02:15 | 03/2010 |
| Video | Magic in Simplicity | Polly Sumner · Liz Tinkham | Salesforce & Accenture | 02:13 | 03/2010 |
| Video | No Idea Is a Dumb Idea | Polly Sumner · Liz Tinkham | Salesforce & Accenture | 02:31 | 03/2010 |
| Podcast | Success and Failure Drive Innovation | Polly Sumner · Liz Tinkham | Salesforce & Accenture | 56:49 | 03/2010 |
| Video | Success and Failure Drive Innovation (Entire Talk) | Polly Sumner · Liz Tinkham | Salesforce & Accenture | 54:33 | 03/2010 |
| Video | The Mistake Made by Most Start-ups | Polly Sumner · Liz Tinkham | Salesforce & Accenture | 01:58 | 03/2010 |
The size difference between a large company and a startup didn't faze her, says salesforce.com?s Polly Sumner, the biggest challenge as a CEO of a start-up was learning how lead all departments of a company (i.e., marketing, product development) towards a single target. To do so, she believes it first requires a period of self-assessment for the CEO to realize how through what type of lens they use to examine problems. Once they understand their "DNA make-up," they can build a team that complements their skill sets and broadens their vision. "In entrepreneurialism, you need to remember to keep your lens wider," Sumner stresses.
Salesforce.com's Polly Sumner believes that many people define entrepreneurship as starting your own business. She argues that there is a lot of entrepreneurism that occurs in larger companies. Not only confined to the area of product development, she points out that innovation can occur in any area, such as marketing or finance.
For Polly Sumner, recovering from failure is a lesson that you first learn as a child. She says that playing sports as an adolescent stresses the important fact that when you lose a game, you need to get back and play harder. "When you fail the first time and win the second time, the win is much sweeter," says Sumner.
"There's magic in simplicity," asserts Poly Sumner, chief adoption officer at salesforce.com. When you make things simple, she says people will use them. "Look at the iPhone," she says, pointing out the relationship between innovation and simplicity in the tech industry. Accenture's Liz Tinkham adds that this simplicity becomes even more important when writing a solid business proposal. The idea needs to be communicated concisely to have any success, she says.
Polly Sumner, chief adoption officer at salesforce.com, observes that entrepreneurship thrives in companies where people believe "no idea is a dumb idea." It's something important to her, and she advises anyone interviewing for a job to check out whether the company is interested in new ideas. "I never interview a person... without asking," she says, "?What's an idea you've had that you think could work here?'" If you look at entrepreneurs who receive venture capital money, she believes that you'll see people who are not afraid of taking a risk on an idea.
Accenture's Liz Tinkham interviews salesforce.com's Polly Sumner about entrepreneurship that occurs in both large and small companies. They both agree that innovation and risk-taking occur in any-sized company where the culture emphasizes "no idea is a dumb idea." Sumner advises young entrepreneurs to not fear risk: every failure teaches you a valuable lesson, and once learned, success is that much sweeter.
Accenture's Liz Tinkham interviews salesforce.com's Polly Sumner about entrepreneurship that occurs in both large and small companies. They both agree that innovation and risk-taking occur in any-sized company where the culture emphasizes "no idea is a dumb idea." Sumner advises young entrepreneurs to not fear risk: every failure teaches you a valuable lesson, and once learned, success is that much sweeter.
The problem most startups have when they take their product or service to the big companies? "The big companies can't figure out how to make it mundane enough to interoperate with all of the complexity they have," answers Liz Tinkham, a global manager at Accenture. She says that a start-up may have the best piece of new technology ever, but if it doesn't work easily with other technology, it's just too hard to get larger companies to adopt the service or product.