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Salesforce CFO Mark Hawkins says Australia is the starting point for a concerted push across Asia.

The chief financial officer of cloud computing giant Salesforce has said a local presence for hosting data will help charge the company's growth as its focus rests on Asia.

Salesforce CFO Mark Hawkins, a top lieutenant of exuberant chief executive Marc Benioff, was talking to The Australian Financial Review about the longer term repercussions of a long-awaited announcement last month that its Australian customers' data would no longer be hosted offshore.

The company signed a deal with Amazon Web Services to host its Intelligence Customer Success Platform in AWS' Sydney data centres, ending years of speculation about when the company would lay down some local roots.

The $US58.5 billion ($77 billion) valued company, which has been the highest profile and fastest growing pioneer of the cloud-hosted software as a service revolution, is looking to the Asian region to be a key driver of its plans to push its revenue well past the $US10 billion mark, having completed last year at $US8.4 billion.

Last year Salesforce's vice-chairman, president and chief operating officer Keith Block told The Financial Review it was planning to make its Australian operations the hub of its plans, and Mr Hawkins said the recent AWS deal was an example of barriers to further growth coming down.

"I think it's just one more example of us investing in Australia, which is really the cornerstone of our strategy in Asia," Mr Hawkins said.

"We're hiring people, we are growing our capabilities ... Australia is like the launch pad for all of Asia for us. We see it very, very strategically."

Mr Hawkins said that during the last completed quarter Salesforce's Asia Pacific operations had grown at a rate of 29 per cent, generating $US749 million in revenue, but that the region represented the biggest growth trajectory for the company worldwide.

His comments echo those recently made by Google's regional boss Karim Temsamani, who said the tech giant had recognised Asia Pacific was becoming the centre of the world in terms of being a leading indicator of consumer behaviour, and provided a far more lucrative growth profile than the US or Europe.

"I do think Asia-Pacific is the land of opportunity. I've spent a lot of time in Asia throughout my career and it's a huge opportunity and that's why we've been investing," Mr Hawkins said.

"Our headcount has grown 27 per cent on a compound annual growth rate the last three years across Asia Pacific, and while the company as a whole will be growing in the 20 per cent range for the foreseeable future in my opinion Asia-Pac will be leading the pack."

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Salesforce eyes regional growth after Australian Amazon Web Services cloud deal - The Australian Financial Review