US cloud computing giant Salesforce will ramp up its investment in Australia as it bids to make the country its launching pad for further expansion in the Asian region.
The $US54 billion valued company, which has been the highest profile and fastest growing pioneer of the cloud-hosted software as a service revolution, is looking to the Asian region to be a key driver of its plans to push its revenue well past the $US10 billion mark and will make its Australian operations the hub of its plans.
Salesforce vice chairman, president and chief operating officer Keith Block, seen by many as the heir apparent to company founder and chief executive Marc Benioff, was in Australia last week to meet with employees and clients, and assess the level of investment required to pursue its ambitious strategy. 
He told The Australian Financial Review that Australia represented an ideal location to manage the regional expansion of the company, which had relied predominantly on US revenue in its early years. Now it is serving larger, international enterprise clients, it has found customers demanding a strong presence in their key markets.
Mr Block said his meetings with Australian stakeholders were to ensure the company was making its increased commitment in the right way.
"APAC in general is very important in terms of our future and Australia is the hub of that strategy," Mr Block said.
"Asia-Pacific has already become a good growth engine for us, but now we want to double down ... I want to make sure that we are making all the right bets and are listening to those who are key stakeholders for us here.
"Of course we are already doing well here, but this is accelerated investment in the region powered by Australia to expand our presence."
Mr Block declined to comment on the size of Salesforce's increased investment in Australia, but said it would manifest itself in areas such as real estate, hiring staff and data centre infrastructure. The news of Salesforce's planned local expansion will be music to the ears of many in the Australian technology sector, which is jostling to position itself as the future engine room of the Australian economy.
Groups such as the recently formed TechSydney have spoken about the importance of international tech players boosting their presence in Australia in order to attract the talent required for the local startup ecosystem to thrive. Mr Block said the shift in political conversation in Australia towards innovation had been noted internationally and he believed a much bigger tech sector could thrive down-under.
"I was very impressed by your Prime Minister talking about changing the culture from an energy culture into a knowledge or innovation culture. I think that is a great message to a country because innovation drives great results," he said.
"Australia can certainly be a poster child for innovation. I think the talent pool is here, the enthusiasm is here, and I think that if a Prime Minister is setting a tone around innovation and transforming a culture, then there is no good reason why Australia cannot thrive and embrace that innovation."
Salesforce is banking on this expanded embrace of technology, and Mr Block said it was locked in on going past $US8 billion in revenue in the 2017 fiscal year. The company has long been held up as an example of a new kind of technology company, which pursued rapid market share growth, powered by the adoption of cloud computing, prior to worrying about traditional metrics like profitability.
Mr Block said Salesforce continued to outstrip its traditional rivals because they were not properly equipped to compete. "We are a very different company than an SAP or a Microsoft or an Oracle in the way that we view our culture around innovation," he said.