For Salesforce President Miguel Milano, the challenge was twofold: thousands of employees were losing valuable information across countless paper notebooks, while using laptops for notes created a barrier of digital distraction in meetings.
By introducing reMarkable, Salesforce replaced both paper and distracting devices, fostering better listening and allowing teams to be more present and prepared in high-stakes client conversations.
Handwritten notes became instantly searchable and shareable, with a game-changing Slack integration that allowed teams to convert meeting notes into action items and add them to a shared AI knowledge base immediately.
The result was a powerful business case, leading to more time for deep thinking, improved collaboration, and a significant reduction in paper use, establishing reMarkable as a secure, distraction-free platform for the future of work.
Salesforce
Salesforce, headquartered in San Francisco, is a global leader in cloud-based CRM software, helping businesses manage sales, services, and marketing, with data, agents, and apps.
What’s the problem
So every one of our employees, including myself, used to go through at least 10 notebooks per year,” says Miguel Milano, president and chief revenue officer (CRO) of Salesforce. With nearly 80,000 employees, that adds up to a lot of paper. And with staff lacking the time to type up notes after high-stakes meetings, information became scattered, unsearchable, and hard to share.
At the same time, when staff used their laptops and phones to take notes in meetings, it led to distractions and fragmented attention during important conversations. Tapping away at keyboards while staring at the screen meant less listening and created a barrier to being present with each other and with customers.
“If I see people pulling out a cell phone to take notes on, I have no idea if they're playing Candy Crush or actually listening to me,” says Peter Doolan, chief customer officer for Slack at Salesforce.
By replacing both traditional paper and distracting screens with paper tablets, Salesforce solved some of the most pressing way-of-work issues.
Free from apps, web browsers, or notifications, the paper tablets significantly reduced distractions and improved the quality of face-to-face interactions. With more intentional note-taking by hand, everyone won — through better listening, better attention, and by being more present in meetings. That, in turn, meant that executives could “show up better” in front of customers and clients.
“I only have one chance to make an impression with the customer, when you have those first few moments in a meeting. I see other people in meetings pulling out laptops or other devices, and they're signaling ‘I'm not really prepared’,” says Doolan. “When I pull out my reMarkable, it's signaling that I am prepared and that I'm here for you, and this time is important to you and to me.”
Better meetings also meant better and faster decision-making and follow-up. The two Pro-models allow for secure, cloud-backed notes across devices. All of a sudden, the team’s handwritten notes — once scattered around on runaway sheets of paper — became editable, searchable, and shareable.
“For me, being able to use Slack integration has been the game changer,” says Rachel Skelly, chief of staff to the CRO. “Taking notes by hand allows me to remember and be more focused in those settings,” she adds. “Then I can share them immediately with my team so we're able to search and reference going forward.”
Slack integration makes it possible to convert and share handwritten notes instantly in a way that fits directly into existing workflows, removing the need for manual transcription and ensuring quick follow-up.
Skelly describes an example from the Davos World Economic Forum where she used her reMarkable to convert handwritten notes into typed action items to share with global account teams using Slack.
The results
Secure, searchable, and free from distractions, reMarkable paper tablets have had a noticeable impact at Salesforce, according to Milano.
That investment, he says, made a lot of sense for the business, resulting in more time to think, better collaboration, and significantly less paper use.
“I’m a reMarkable fan. I've been using reMarkable for over four years. reMarkable gives you the distraction-free time that only paper provides, but delivered as a secure, searchable, and shareable, multi-device digital platform. reMarkable is the future.”
- Less time spent managing and typing up notes
- Less paper (cutting costs)
- Less distractions and better attention in meetings
