Ford has shut down VIIZR, a software-as-a-service firm that together with Salesforce constructed an app to assist tradespeople like plumbers, locksmiths and electricians to schedule subject appointments, ship invoices and handle prospects, TechCrunch has discovered. About 40 individuals who labored at VIIZR had been laid off.

VIIZR, which was first introduced in December 2021, was a separate firm majority owned by Ford with Salesforce as a minority investor. Its intention, on the time, was to construct one of many many digital instruments that may catapult the automaker’s business automobile and repair enterprise Ford Professional to about $45 billion in income by 2025.

VIIZR, is now not a part of that plan.

Ford spokesperson Catherine Hargett confirmed that the automaker ended its funding in VIIZR and discontinued the product November 1 on account of lack of buyer demand and prioritizing its telematics, fleet administration and charging productiveness software program the place demand is powerful and rising.

Ford Professional is nicely on its method to hitting $45 billion in income  — a goal that CEO Jim Farley famous throughout an occasion in January 2022 that highlighted VIIZR and Salesforce’s involvement. Ford Professional generated $42.7 billion in income within the first 9 months 2023, a 22% achieve from the identical time period final yr, based on the firm’s newest earnings. Ford Professional software program subscriptions, which incorporates providers that helps enterprise handle fleets, charging its electrical autos, information analytics and telematics, reached 476,000 within the third quarter, up almost 50% yr over yr.

Whereas Ford Professional’s enterprise is booming, the software-as-service app was met with extra competitors and restricted demand.

When VIIZR was first launched, nonetheless, Farley and Salesforce chair and co-CEO Marc Benioff touted its potential at a January 2022 occasion in Napa, California that TechCrunch attended. VIIZR used Salesforce’s subject service product, which gives software program designed for cell workforces, to construct its app. Ford, citing market analysis from Salesforce and Gartner, famous that the marketplace for subject service administration was estimated at $3 billion yearly within the U.S and was anticipated to double within the subsequent six years as modifications to shopper habits introduced on by COVID would drive excessive demand for trades.

The premise was that tradespeople, a lot of whom is perhaps driving Ford transit vans or vehicles, already used their autos as their cell workplace. So why not capitalize on promoting them digital instruments like an app that makes their job simpler so, as Farley put it on the time, “they don’t need to run their enterprise from sticky notes.”

“One of many massive buyer units for these vehicles is these skilled drivers; they are often first responders, contractors, electricians, plumbers — and lots of these people work proper of their truck,” Benioff advised TechCrunch on the sidelines of the 2022 occasion. “You’ll see they’ve reconfigured the truck, in order that it has a desk and also you don’t even have to go away the truck. So that concept that we might then present functions for these professionals to attain better ranges of productiveness made lots of sense after which it will get built-in extra proper into automobile providers as nicely.”

{The marketplace} for apps just like the one VIIZR was growing turned crowded and quickly advanced within the two years because the firm launched, based on Hargett, who famous utility was associated to job scheduling and automating again workplace administrative duties and never immediately tied to autos or managing business autos, which is Ford Professional’s focus.

Whereas VIIZR has been discontinued, Salesforce continues to be offering enterprise software program to Ford Professional.