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I couldn’t wait to experience Dreamforce this year. Before attending last week in San Francisco, I had some questions on my radar screen regarding Slack product strategy, industry cloud updates, employee experience solutions and digital sales rooms.
In addition to getting some of my questions answered, I was eagerly anticipating the possibility of hearing new product announcements. Walking away, I can honestly say Dreamforce left me feeling inspired and excited. As this event has a reputation for dropping major announcements — this year did not disappoint.
This article will detail some exciting news from Dreamforce 2022 that can potentially reshape the way you do business.
1. Slack Product Strategy
If you’re looking to increase productivity, Slack has unveiled new product innovations.
With Slack canvas, teams can effectively:
- Share information
- Accelerate team selling
- Streamline onboarding
- Collaborate and improve campaign outcomes
Slack huddles powers live coworking sessions in digital HQ by offering:
- Lightweight video
- Multi-person screen sharing
- Message threads
Available to developers, the new Slack platform offers new developer tools and modular, reusable building blocks. Creating, customizing and sharing workflows is now easier.
Slack Partner Industry Solutions continually helps customers across industries to boost their productivity in a digital world. Customers in financial services, manufacturing, communications, retail, media and technology will be amongst the first to be served by Slack-certified consulting partners who will bring digital HQ to life for them by offering industry-specific Slack solutions.
As for Industry Cloud updates, this point was indirectly addressed with Slack updates that will be woven through the industry cloud products.
Related Article: 5 Things to Watch at Dreamforce 2022
2. Employee Experience Solutions
While not explicitly called out as a new solution, the new Slack canvas, coworking huddles and platform capabilities will enhance the employee experience.
Creating exceptional employee experiences is the norm at Salesforce. Research reveals that nearly seven in 10 US workers believe the office should not look the same as it did pre-pandemic.
Exceptional employee experience can be defined by three factors:
- Work location flexibility
- A collaborative team
- Finding a sense of purpose in work
“'Return to office' mandates don’t work — it’s about creating incredible employee experiences and driving connections, no matter where we’re working. Feeling connected leads to higher engagement and productivity," said Brent Hyder, Salesforce chief people officer.
Related Article: Is It Time to Combine Customer Experience and Employee Experience Programs?
3. Remote Selling
While not explicitly called out as a new Sales Cloud solution, this point was indirectly addressed under the Slack umbrella of products. The new Slack canvas, coworking huddles and platform capabilities make remote selling possible.
It’s evident that new product solutions unveiled by Slack will impact different departments across many organizations. As Slack canvas will aid in team collaboration and accelerate sales efforts, it’s fair to assess that teams can expect to experience a boost in productivity in relation to remote selling.
4. New Product or Acquisition/Partnership Announcements
Salesforce Genie
Salesforce unveiled Salesforce Genie, a hyperscale real-time data platform that powers the entire Salesforce Customer 360 platform. According to David Schmaier, president and chief product officer at Salesforce, “Every business leader wants to take advantage of real-time data to create compelling, personalized customer experiences — milliseconds matter in this new digital-first world. Genie makes every part of Customer 360 more automated, intelligent and real time.”
Salesforce Genie allows businesses to:
- Connect customer data at scale
- Harmonize data into a single customer graph
- Engage in real time
- Create exceptional customer experiences
The ability to adapt in real time helps to create seamless experiences across multiple departments. Why is this so important? There is undeniable value in personalization because 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions.
Carbon Credit Marketplace
Salesforce introduced Net Zero Marketplace, a platform taking climate action to new heights. Organizations can purchase carbon credits, helping to accelerate climate-positive impact.
Net Zero Marketplace will enable organizations to:
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- Be engaging toward climate action
- Make carbon credit purchases on a trusted platform
- Manage carbon projects in a collaborative manner
- Energize climate-action initiatives based on their own values
McKinsey estimates the market for carbon credits could be worth upward of $50 billion in 2030. This platform allows organizations striving for net zero commitments the opportunity to build a carbon credit portfolio and elevate their understanding of the positive impacts of carbon-credit projects.
Salesforce/WhatsApp Partnership
This partnership will strengthen businesses around the world. The integration of the WhatsApp Business Platform and Salesforce Customer 360 will allow businesses to build WhatsApp messaging, which can then be managed from the Salesforce platform.
A Facebook post from Mark Zuckerberg read, “We're partnering with Salesforce so all businesses that use their platform can use WhatsApp business messages to answer customer questions, run marketing campaigns and sell directly in chat. More and more people prefer to communicate with businesses over text. That's why we launched our Cloud API earlier this year and are now partnering with Salesforce.”
Related Article: Struggling Through Your Digital Transformation? Prioritize Employees
Bonus Takeaways
1. The Power of the Platform(s)
The Power of Salesforce Flow:
In a fast-paced digital world, time and money are two critical elements for organizations.
Let’s break it down:
- 44 billion Flow automations are run daily
- Organizations save 100 billion hours of work monthly (would be spent manually updating Salesforce record data, etc.)
- All total equating to an estimated $2 trillion in customer value
Genie, built using the Salesforce metadata model, makes everything actionable for use with Flow.
The Power of Salesforce Einstein:
The Salesforce Einstein engine makes 175 billion predictions daily. Using the Salesforce metadata model, Genie can tap into Einstein for real-time predictions.
2. The Rising Popularity of Salesforce
The amazing technology provides abundant solutions worldwide. Its growing community is testament to its rising popularity. Looking at the data, the numbers tell the story:
- Per Salesforce, there are over 17 million Salesforce professionals, aka Trailblazers worldwide
- Revenue expectation for Salesforce this year is $31 billion
- Voted No. 1 Most Innovative Companies (Forbes)
- No. 1 Best Workplace — multiple global regions
- Six years in a row — Top 100 Companies that Care (People)
Looking Forward: Dreamforce 2023, Anyone?
Is it too soon to look forward to the opportunity of meeting with business leaders and innovators next year? I don’t think so. Dreams and innovations consistently push our industry to reach lofty heights.
The announcements made at Dreamforce 2022 have the potential to impact organizations in a positive manner. It’s exciting to think about the growth of our industry and on a personal note, I can’t wait to discover the other products our forward-thinking colleagues have on the horizon.
A big applause to them for not only dreaming of what can be, but also turning those ideas into a reality benefiting both organizations and customers.
