Brian Millham: 23 years.
Marc Benioff: 23 years. Is that true, Brian?
Brian Millham: Yes, it’s true.
Marc Benioff: And do you feel like I ?
Brian Milham: Yes, you will.
Marc Benioff: Yes. And I’ll break him down – . So he’s in trouble. All right. Amy?
Amy Weaver: Okay, Keith, turning over to operating margin. As I mentioned, we are very committed to being 25% or above by FY ’26. Now we’re not giving a guide for FY’24 at this moment. So I’m not going to comment on the linearity. I will say that, this is just a huge focus for the entire company. I think we’ve really shown that with our current quarter at 22.7%, which is an all-time record high. And this is coming not just from one area or one silver bullet, but really from a commitment and a disciplined approach across all parts of the company, whether it is sale, G&A, marketing, finance, the list goes on, were contributing. One thing that we’re particularly focused on are structural changes. So, we’ve certainly driven down workforce costs by the much more measured approach to hiring that we have had this year.
We also look to our cost of goods sold third-party cost efficiencies. We tightly prioritize T&A this year to prioritize customer-facing travel. And we are also benefiting from choices that we have made in the past and continue to review around our real estate footprint. So again, the commitment is here. I’m excited to see where we can go, and I think we’re already putting the necessary tools in place.
Operator: Thank you. We take our next question now from Mark Murphy of JPMorgan.
Mark Murphy: Yes. Thank you very much. Bret, happy trails, and thanks for everything. Marc, I wanted to ask you if you think that this volatile environment is going to be fully conducive to remote work — or do you see some of your employees may be gravitating back a little more to in-office, and Amy relatedly and since you just mentioned it, could you touch on the plans for the real estate footprint, including the Salesforce Tower and the other buildings? And just help us understand maybe how that could contribute to margin expansion?
Marc Benioff: Yes, absolutely. And First, Mark, I hope that you see that the operating margin in this quarter, which has hit a record level at 22.7%, that we are fulfilling our commitment to you and to others that we are deeply focused on this. And you’re 100% right, that there’s a lot of things pre-pandemic that we had in our company that are expenses that we don’t need post-pandemic. Now in regards to being in the office, well, all of us are in the office today. And there is no remote workers here. And it’s an interesting metaphor, but there’s companies that I work with very closely. And I have to tell you, someone who’s influenced me greatly is the CEO of Honeywell, Darius, and and the Board member, Robin Washington. And he’s made a plea for me for many years that he has factory workers and those factory workers still every single day during the pandemic were in the factory.
And that it’s a very critical part of how he runs this business. And when I have advocated for new kinds of work and folks having the flexibility in their working environment to remember is factory workers. And I think he’s absolutely right and 100% correct. Well, I would also say we have factory workers. Now today, we are the factory workers. The work that we’re doing is required here in our factory. And you know where that factory is very well, Mark. You know where we are. And we have different factories, around the world that we call our towers and our hubs and core offices. But I think we also realize and I think that even Darius would agree with me, that the percentage of folks who are working remotely is going to be higher. So before the pandemic the percentage of remote workers for Salesforce was approximately 20%.
For other companies now, we’re seeing that normalize at somewhere around 50% even with mandatory workdays. So I do think that we’re going to have a rebalancing. I think even at Salesforce, we have what I would call factory jobs, folks that do are required to be here, whether they are doing maybe very core work or even new folks who don’t have maybe the tribal knowledge yet or need the mentorship or folks coming in from college who benefit from being in the office. But we’re never going back to how it was. We all know that. I’m sure a lot of you actually are at home right now. And before this, even maybe your companies, especially the banks, especially the New York banks and some of those New York bank leaders who have made impassioned pleas for return to work.
But even though many of you who belong to some of those banks, I bet you’re not at those offices right now. And I think we are in a new world, and we all realize that. But I think that we’re finding a new way forward and there will be more in office, and there will be — but we’ll maintain the flexibility to be at home. And I will call out one more thing, which is probably one of the most successful things we’ve done is come up with new ways to work, and you’ve probably been down with the Salesforce Ranch, and we’ll have about 10,000 of our employees go through that this year in training and collaboration sessions, and we’ll find other new ways to work. And that’s also one of the reasons why we acquired Slack. And I think why we’ve seen just great growth in Slack, why Slack channels are so important, why you saw the tremendous new multimedia environment in Slack?
And we have got quite a few other surprises coming in regards to the integration between Slack and Customer 360 and line of business capabilities and other areas regarding systems of record involving Slack. And all of that’s because we’re in a new way to work, and we’re going to need new tools. So that’s how I look at it, Marc. I’m trying to be straight, honest with you, that you have to have a beginner’s mind, and we’re finding our way through this. And we’re going to have more in work in the office, but we’re never going to go back to how it was. Brian, do you want to talk about what you’re doing with your organization?
