The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies 5 indian companies in the list. 1. Salesforce.com Innovation premium: 73% US (Software) Sales growth 1 : 37.7% Return 2 : 29.7% In salesforce.com’s 13-year history, founder and CEO Marc Benioff has taken pride in innovating from within. That’s how he pressed for the release of Chatter, Salesforce’s Facebook-like tool for businesses. But this year, he’s spent $1 billion, the most ever, acquiring two firms: Radian6 and Buddy Media. “We couldn’t afford to wait,” says Benioff. These deals form the backbone of a new division within Salesforce, The Marketing Cloud, which will help brands know what is being said about them on social networks and then tailor messages to those audiences. Buddy Media places 10 percent of all ads on Facebook. Benioff has acquired 24 firms in all, and admits not all have succeeded. He is okay with failure, because that’s part of risk-taking. Everyone learns something along the way: “In...