Dreamforce 2023 is the largest and most anticipated Salesforce event of the year. It’s a place where Trailblazers from all over the world come together to learn, network, and be inspired.
One of the key themes of this year’s conference was the future of finance. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and others talked about how AI is transforming the finance function and how Salesforce is helping finance leaders achieve their strategic priorities.
In this blog post, I’ll take a closer look at Gartner’s five key strategic initiatives that finance leaders are prioritizing in 2023, and how Salesforce can help.
Gartner Finance Top 5
- Rethinking the finance function
- Driving business growth
- Improving financial performance
- Building a world-class finance team
- Transforming the financial function
Rethinking the Finance Function
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud provides a unified platform for managing customer accounts, products, and transactions. This can help finance teams automate tasks, streamline workflows, and improve visibility and collaboration.
Dreamforce Product Announcements that Support this Initiative:
- Salesforce Financial Services Cloud Einstein Forecasting: This new feature uses AI to help finance teams generate more accurate and reliable forecasts.
- Salesforce Financial Services Cloud Einstein Risk Assessment: This new feature uses AI to help finance teams identify and assess risks in real-time.
- Salesforce Financial Services Cloud Einstein Compliance: This new feature helps finance teams automate compliance tasks and reduce the risk of non-compliance.
In addition to the features mentioned above, Salesforce Financial Services Cloud also provides a number of other tools that can help finance teams rethink their function. These tools include:
- A central repository for all financial data. Salesforce Financial Services Cloud provides a central repository for all financial data, including customer accounts, products, transactions, and reports. This gives financial teams a single view of their data and makes it easier to track performance and identify trends.
- Real-time insights. Salesforce Financial Services Cloud provides real-time insights into financial performance. This helps finance teams make more informed decisions and be more proactive in managing their finances.
- Collaboration tools. Salesforce Financial Services Cloud provides a variety of collaboration tools, such as chat, task management, and file sharing. This makes it easy for finance teams to collaborate with each other and with other departments within the organization.
Overall, Salesforce is helping finance teams rethink their function by providing them with the tools, insights, and resources they need to be efficient, more strategic, and more valuable to the organization.
Driving Business Growth
Salesforce Customer 360 provides a unified view of customers across all channels, so finance teams can better understand their needs and develop targeted products and services. Salesforce Sales Cloud provides tools to help finance teams manage sales pipelines, track leads, and close deals. Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides tools to help finance teams create and manage marketing campaigns, track results, and generate leads.
Dreamforce Product Announcements that Support this Initiative:
- Salesforce Customer 360 Genie: This new platform provides a unified view of customers in real-time across all channels. This can help finance teams better understand their customers’ needs and deliver more personalized experiences.
- Salesforce Sales Cloud Einstein Deal Insights: This new feature uses AI to help finance teams identify and track deals that are at risk of falling through.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud Einstein Segmentation: This new feature uses AI to help finance teams segment their customers more effectively and create more targeted marketing campaigns.
In addition to the features mentioned above, Salesforce also provides a number of other tools that can help finance teams drive business growth. These tools include:
- Salesforce Analytics: Finance teams have access to real-time insights into customer behavior, sales performance, and marketing campaign results. This information can be used to make better decisions about where to allocate resources and how to improve business performance.
- Salesforce Einstein: A suite of AI tools that can be used to automate tasks, improve forecasting, and generate insights. For example, Salesforce Einstein can be used to automate the lead scoring process or generate insights into customer churn.
- Salesforce AppExchange: A marketplace where finance teams can find and install third-party apps that can help them automate tasks, improve their workflows, and integrate with other systems.
By leveraging Salesforce’s tools, insights, and resources, finance teams can better understand their customers, improve their sales and marketing efforts, and drive business growth.
Improving Financial Performance
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud provides tools to help finance teams manage costs, track cash flow, and optimize their capital structure. Salesforce Einstein AI can be used to identify fraud and waste and to optimize financial processes. Salesforce Analytics provides insights into financial performance so finance teams can identify areas for improvement and make better decisions.
Dreamforce Product Announcements that Support this Initiative:
- Salesforce Financial Services Cloud Einstein Spend Analytics: This new feature uses AI to help finance teams identify and reduce wasteful spending.
- Salesforce Financial Services Cloud Einstein Cash Flow Forecasting: This new feature uses AI to help finance teams generate more accurate and reliable cash flow forecasts.
- Salesforce Analytics Einstein Discovery: This new feature uses AI to help finance teams identify trends and patterns in their data that they may not have noticed before.
In addition to the features mentioned above, Salesforce also provides a number of other tools that can help finance teams improve their financial performance. These tools include:
- Scenario modeling. Salesforce Financial Services Cloud allows finance teams to create and run scenarios to see how different changes would impact their financial performance. This can help finance teams make more informed decisions about how to allocate resources and manage their finances.
- Budgeting and forecasting. Salesforce Financial Services Cloud provides tools to help finance teams create and manage budgets and forecasts. This can help finance teams track their spending and ensure that they’re on track to meet their financial goals.
- Reporting and analytics. Salesforce Analytics provides finance teams with a variety of reports and dashboards that can be used to track financial performance and identify areas for improvement.
By leveraging Salesforce tools, insights, and resources, finance teams can improve their financial performance by reducing costs, improving cash flow, and optimizing their capital structure.
Building a World-Class Finance Team
Salesforce Success Cloud provides tools to help finance teams attract, develop, and retain top talent. Salesforce Learning Cloud provides tools to help finance teams train and develop their employees. Salesforce Performance Management provides tools to help finance teams set and track goals, and to provide feedback and recognition to employees.
Dreamforce Product Announcements that Support this Initiative:
- Salesforce Success Cloud Einstein Talent Insights: This new feature uses AI to help finance teams identify and develop their top talent.
- Salesforce Learning Cloud Einstein Learning Paths: This new feature uses AI to recommend personalized learning paths to employees based on their skills and goals.
- Salesforce Performance Management Einstein Goal Setting: This new feature uses AI to help finance teams set more realistic and achievable goals.
In addition to the features mentioned above, Salesforce also provides a number of other tools and resources that can help finance teams build a world-class team. These tools and resources include:
- Onboarding and training. Salesforce provides a variety of tools and resources to help finance teams onboard and train new employees. This includes Salesforce Success Cloud Onboarding and Salesforce Learning Cloud.
- Performance management. Salesforce provides tools to help finance teams set and track goals, provide feedback and recognition to employees, and develop their employees’ skills. This includes Salesforce Performance Management and Salesforce Learning Cloud.
- Employee engagement. Salesforce provides tools to help finance teams engage their employees and create a more positive and productive work environment. This includes Salesforce Success Cloud Employee Engagement and Salesforce Chatter.
By leveraging Salesforce’s tools and resources, finance teams can build a world-class team that is skilled, motivated, and engaged.
Transforming the Financial Function
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud provides a platform for finance teams to adopt new technologies and automate tasks. This can help finance teams transform their function and deliver more value to the organization.
Dreamforce Product Announcements that Support this Initiative:
- Salesforce Financial Services Cloud Einstein Next Best Action: This new feature uses AI to recommend next steps for finance teams to take based on the data in their system. For example, it could recommend that a finance team follow up with a customer about an overdue payment or that they investigate a potential fraud case.
- Salesforce Financial Services Cloud Einstein Predictions: This new feature uses AI to generate predictions about future financial performance. This can help finance teams make more informed decisions and be more proactive in managing their finances.
- Salesforce Financial Services Cloud Einstein AI Advisor: This new feature uses AI to provide finance teams with personalized recommendations and advice. For example, it could recommend that a finance team make changes to their budgeting process or that they invest in new technologies.
These are just a few examples of how Salesforce is helping finance teams transform their function. By leveraging Salesforce, finance teams can become more efficient, more strategic, and more valuable to the organization.
In addition to the features mentioned above, Salesforce also provides a number of other resources that can help finance teams transform their function. These resources include:
- Salesforce Trailhead: A free online learning platform that provides finance teams with the skills they need to use Salesforce effectively.
- Salesforce AppExchange: A marketplace where finance teams can find and install third-party apps that can help them automate tasks and improve their workflow.
- Salesforce Customer Success: Provides finance teams with access to experts who can help them implement and use Salesforce effectively.
Interested in More Dreamforce Content?
If you weren’t able to attend Dreamforce in person or want to revisit some of the sessions, you can access select sessions on Salesforce+, Salesforce’s free on-demand content platform.
You can also check out our Dreamforce insights content, including Johnathon Rademacher’s key takeaways, advancements for healthcare and life sciences, and data, AI, and CRM for manufacturers.
Perficient + Salesforce
At Perficient, we’re passionate about helping Salesforce customers succeed. We have deep expertise in the Salesforce platform and in the financial services industry.
We believe that the five key strategic initiatives that finance leaders are prioritizing in 2023 are all essential for success. We also believe that Salesforce is the platform of choice for leaders to achieve these goals.
If you’re a finance leader looking to rethink your finance function, drive business growth, improve financial performance, build a world-class finance team, or transform your finance function, Perficient can help you leverage the power of Salesforce to achieve your strategic goals.
