Salesforce.com’s new platform chief, Adam Seligman, has a novel idea. He wants to turn 100 million business analysts and digital marketing executives into “developers” who’ll use Salesforce’s app-building tools.

The technology he’s pitching is called Lightning, a part of Salesforce’s Force.com service. Lightning allows non-engineers to use point-and-click tools to build internal apps for their businesses, like analytics dashboards to see user statistics. Mr. Seligman is hoping to connect those basic functions with the sophisticated tools offered by Heroku, which Salesforce also owns. Engineering teams use Heroku to build consumer-facing apps, like the burger chain Red Robin’s mobile loyalty app.