Partner Cheers Facebook's Latest Workplace Win: Walmart

Facebook has scored a major win for its new employee collaboration offering by signing the world's largest employer as a customer.

Walmart is one of 14,000 companies to start using Workplace, Facebook's first enterprise product, over the last 10 months, Julien Codorniou, vice president for Workplace, wrote Tuesday in a blog.

"As its team grows increasingly mobile and distributed, Walmart needs a place to support associates’ growth, build connections and make work simpler. Walmart wants to build the next generation workforce by embracing next-generation technology, and Workplace is helping them do that," Codorniou said.

[Related: Facebook Upgrades Workplace With Salesforce, Microsoft And Box Integrations]

A high-profile customer like Walmart benefits partners implementing the new collaboration service, said Tony Safoian, CEO of SADA Systems, a Los Angeles-based solution provider.

"The fact [Walmart] selected Workplace, and [Facebook COO] Sheryl Sandberg is part of the Workplace narrative, signals to us how important the enterprise strategy is for Facebook," Safoian told CRN.

SADA, an early Facebook partner, is investing internally to succeed with the new practice while working with Facebook to define its role in the enterprise and where partners can add value, Safoian said.

Workplace has some notable benefits over rival office collaboration products, like Slack, Safoian said. It's more effective a tool for executive leaders to create departmental lines of communication, he said.

Facebook has also leveraged its vaunted mobile user experience to create "a great communication tool for the mobile workforce," Safoian said.

To seize on the product's momentum, SADA has introduced a range of services around the product, including implementation, training and consulting packages.

The solution provider has also built its own integrations to the Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite portfolios to differentiate its Workplace offering. Those integrated services could be productized in the future, Safoian said.

Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, posted about Workplace on her Facebook account, thanking the thousands of customers to adopt the enterprise product.

"Today we’re excited to welcome Walmart to Workplace so that its associates can easily share information and move quickly to solve problems and celebrate wins. I look forward to seeing how much they accomplish together," she wrote.

Zoom, a video and web conferencing company, also said Tuesday it would integrate its service with Workplace, making it possible to stream a video meeting in Workplace.

The same day, Sun Life Financial announced the adoption of the product, making it an early financial services company to use Facebook's service to communicate with employees around the world.