For more than a decade, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has championed the concept of shoshin—a “beginner’s mind” that allows for continuous innovation and reinvention. As the company now embarks on its “hard pivot” to Agentforce, this philosophy takes on new relevance.  

Agentforce isn’t just an extension of Salesforce’s AI capabilities—it’s a reimagining of what AI can do for business. Positioned to debut at Dreamforce, Agentforce shifts Salesforce into a new era of AI-powered agents that go beyond answering questions to autonomously making decisions and completing multi-step processes. This is the next big step in Salesforce’s journey to redefine customer relationship management (CRM) and maintain its position as an industry leader in the face of rapid technological change. Here are the key takeaways and insights you should know coming into Dreamforce 2024: 

The Agentic AI Approach: Automation at Scale 

The crux of Agentforce lies in its ability to deploy multiple autonomous AI agents within an organization. These agents are not just conversational bots; they take meaningful actions, enabling companies to automate intricate business processes. This results in heightened efficiency, reduced manual workload, and the ability to scale operations dynamically. Whether it’s customer service, sales tasks, or decision-making workflows, Agentforce’s agents enhance productivity by doing the work themselves. 

Bring Your Own LLM: Flexibility and Data Security at Its Core 

Salesforce’s strategic choice to not build its own large language models (LLMs) allows unparalleled flexibility for businesses. Through the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture, companies can bring in their preferred LLMs while benefiting from Salesforce’s “zero-retention” interface. This means that sensitive customer data remains secure, enhancing trust—a cornerstone of Salesforce’s approach to data privacy and compliance. 

Data Cloud: Fueling AI with High-Quality Data 

In any AI endeavor, data is the key to success. Agentforce taps into Salesforce’s Data Cloud, enabling businesses to access and harness data from a multitude of sources without needing to duplicate it. The result? AI agents powered by accurate, relevant, and real-time data, leading to smarter decision-making and more personalized customer interactions. The focus on data stewardship ensures that companies can trust the quality of the data driving their AI systems. 

Enterprise-Grade Security and Compliance 

The ability of Agentforce to seamlessly integrate into existing Salesforce applications makes it a game-changer. AI agents can take over repetitive tasks, freeing up human employees to focus on more strategic priorities. From automating customer service interactions to managing complex workflows, the possibilities are endless. 

As Salesforce pushes the boundaries of what AI can achieve, Agentforce sets the stage for a new era of innovation, where businesses are not just supported by AI but are driven by it. The debut of Agentforce at Dreamforce 2024 will undoubtedly showcase how AI agents are poised to transform industries—ushering in a future where automation, data intelligence, and security come together to create unparalleled value for organizations. 

A Revolution in Customer Service and Business Operations 

The ability of Agentforce to seamlessly integrate into existing Salesforce applications makes it a game-changer. AI agents can take over repetitive tasks, freeing up human employees to focus on more strategic priorities. From automating customer service interactions to managing complex workflows, the possibilities are endless. 

As Salesforce pushes the boundaries of what AI can achieve, Agentforce sets the stage for a new era of innovation, where businesses are not just supported by AI but are driven by it. The debut of Agentforce at Dreamforce 2024 will undoubtedly showcase how AI agents are poised to transform industries—ushering in a future where automation, data intelligence, and security come together to create unparalleled value for organizations. 

Join Us at Dreamforce!

Join us to explore the future of personalized marketing and more at Dreamforce. Our team will be onsite, ready to guide you through all the latest innovations. 

Visit #PerficientDreamforce2024 to learn more. 

Can’t Make it to Dreamforce? 

Don’t worry! Schedule some time with us and let our experts fill you in. And stay tuned to our Salesforce blog for all our post-conference insights. 

Perficient + Salesforce 

We are a Salesforce Summit Partner with more than two decades of experience delivering digital solutions in the manufacturing, automotive, healthcare, financial services, and high-tech industries. Our team has deep expertise in all Salesforce Clouds and products, artificial intelligence, DevOps, and specialized domains to help you reap the benefits of implementing Salesforce solutions.  

Next-level personalization strategies will undoubtedly be a key topic at Salesforce’s largest event this year. Dreamforce is right around the corner taking place in San Francisco on September 17 to 19, and learning how to get the most out of your customer data with AI-powered tools is top of mind.

Whether you’re attending in person or virtually, the conference boasts numerous opportunities to hear how some of the world’s largest brands are using data and AI to create personalized journeys and promote better business outcomes.

One such brand is Nationwide. This leading financial services and insurance provider will be at Dreamforce this year sharing how it leverages Salesforce Marketing Cloud, an AI-powered digital marketing platform, to turn customer data into actionable insights that drive significant business outcomes.

Nationwide’s Personalization Story at Dreamforce

The session titled “Tailor Experiences with Einstein-Driven Personalization” will be on Thursday, September 19 at 12:45 P.M. PST in the Moscone South, LL, Content Pavilion Stage 2 and showcase a series of personalization stories from a variety of brands using Salesforce.

Nationwide’s AVP of marketing operations Zach Mason will share their journey to create seamless, personalized experiences for producers and customers using Marketing Cloud and how they partnered with Perficient to increase conversions, optimize customer journeys, and make impactful decisions faster.

So, make sure to add this session to your Dreamforce agenda to hear from real users. You’ll discover best practices to elevate your personalization efforts and maximize lifetime customer value using Salesforce.

Join Us at Dreamforce

Join us to explore the future of personalized marketing and more at Dreamforce. Our team will be onsite, ready to guide you through all the latest innovations.

Visit #PerficientDreamforce2024 to learn more.

Can’t Make it to Dreamforce?

Don’t worry! Schedule some time with us and let our experts fill you in. And stay tuned to our Salesforce blog for all our post-conference insights.

Attending Salesforce Connections 2024 at McCormick Place in Chicago was an energizing experience, highlighting the forefront of AI integration in business operations. The event gathered industry leaders to explore the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, data integration, and commerce, with a clear focus on how these technologies are reshaping the business landscape.

One of the most notable innovations introduced was Einstein Personalization, a tool poised to revolutionize customer engagement through real-time, hyper-personalized experiences. This groundbreaking feature, along with the broader integration of AI across the Salesforce ecosystem, underscores the significant shift towards data-driven strategies in the era of the ‘choice economy.’

The Choice Economy and Advanced Personalization

As Robert Marusi, Chief Commercial Officer at Turtle Bay, articulated during the event’s keynote session, we are firmly in the era of the ‘choice economy.’ Marusi emphasized, “It’s about the client, the consumer, being in the middle of this omni-channel spoke. It’s our responsibility as brand people to be delivering choices to that consumer.”

This notion of placing the consumer at the center aligns perfectly with Salesforce’s innovations aimed at providing advanced, hyper-personalized experiences across multiple channels.

Einstein Personalization: Real-Time Customer Profiles

A standout feature introduced at the conference is Einstein Personalization, which promises to elevate customer engagement through real-time, unified profiles that integrate seamlessly across Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and websites.

The power of Einstein Personalization lies in its foundation within Data Cloud and Hyperforce, ensuring both speed and scalability. By enabling zero-copy data access to Data Lakes, businesses gain a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute view of their customers.

This robust real-time profile functionality allows organizations to convert customer profiles into dynamic data graphs in Data Cloud. These data graphs synthesize information from diverse sources within Salesforce, providing a consolidated view that enhances decision-making and customer insights.

Key Features of Einstein Personalization

• Machine Learning Rule-Based Decisions: Enhances decision-making processes with AI-driven insights.
• Real-Time Targeting Rules: Enables precise and timely engagement with target audiences.
• Experimentation: Facilitates testing and other experimental methods to optimize strategies.
• Analytics and Attributes: Provides deep analytical capabilities to understand customer behavior and preferences

Integration of AI Across the Salesforce Ecosystem

Salesforce’s President and Chief Marketing Officer, Ariel Kelman, highlighted during the keynote that data integration is critical for leveraging AI effectively. Kelman addressed the pervasive issue of “islands of trapped data” within enterprises, advocating for a unified approach to data management.

He introduced Einstein 1, Salesforce’s comprehensive platform that amalgamates data, customer relationship management, and AI capabilities, extending even to external data repositories like Snowflake and Redshift.

As businesses continue to navigate the complexities of the choice economy, tools like Einstein Personalization and the broader Salesforce ecosystem will be pivotal in delivering seamless, personalized experiences across all channels.

Interested in More Connections Content? 

If you weren’t able to attend Connections in person or want to revisit some of the sessions, you can access select sessions on Salesforce+, Salesforce’s free on-demand content platform.  

Perficient + Salesforce 

We are a Salesforce Summit Partner with more than two decades of experience delivering digital solutions in the manufacturing, automotive, healthcare, financial services, and high-tech industries. Our team has deep expertise in all Salesforce Clouds and products, artificial intelligence, DevOps, and specialized domains to help you reap the benefits of implementing Salesforce solutions.  

In today’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, data is the driving force behind informed decision-making and personalized patient care. However, the abundance of data scattered across various siloed systems can be overwhelming, making it challenging for healthcare providers to harness its full potential. This is where Salesforce Data Cloud steps in as a Customer Data Platform (CDP) – offering a transformative solution that empowers healthcare organizations to aggregate, harmonize, and act upon their data efficiently. 

Data Cloud is not just a technological advancement; it’s a tool that supports the paradigm shift in the way healthcare providers view and engage with patients. Traditionally, the healthcare industry has been heavily clinical-centric, often treating patients as sets of symptoms and diagnoses. The capabilities of Data Cloud support the shifting perspective towards a holistic view of the patient. 

This transformation extends beyond patient care philosophy. It’s about moving away from fragmented systems that house patient data in silos, and instead, embracing connected ecosystems where information flows seamlessly between departments and organizations. This interconnectedness is vital for delivering comprehensive and well-coordinated care. 

Moreover, Data Cloud empowers healthcare providers to move from generic, one-size-fits-all interactions to personalized engagement. By aggregating and analyzing patient data, it becomes possible to tailor healthcare services and communication to patients’ unique needs and preferences, ultimately leading to improved patient satisfaction and outcomes. 

Automating Manual Processes to Focus on Care

Perhaps one of the most significant advantages is the shift from manual processes to automation at scale. Healthcare systems are often bogged down by administrative tasks and paperwork, which can be both time-consuming and error-prone. Salesforce’s automation capabilities streamline these processes, freeing up healthcare professionals to focus on what truly matters – delivering high-quality care to their patients. In essence, Data Cloud is not just a tool; it’s a catalyst for change that is reshaping the healthcare industry toward a more patient-centered, efficient, and equitable future. 

Data Cloud

Data Cloud is a powerful extension of Health Cloud that transforms the way healthcare organizations manage and leverage data. At its core, it begins with aggregating data from various sources, including the CRM’s core functionalities such as sales, service, marketing, and health data, along with electronic medical records (EMR), data lakes, and website data. This data integration is performed at scale, and the magic lies in the harmonization process that creates a unified patient profile. 

• Data Streams: Streamlines the data ingestion process, making it seamless and efficient. With just a few clicks, users can easily map data from diverse sources. 
• Identity Resolution: Reconciles multiple data sources to identify a single individual across various systems, providing a holistic view. 
• Actionable Insights Using Segments: Empowers users to create patient segments with just two clicks. For instance, healthcare providers can effortlessly build a segment of patients who have not scheduled appointments.  

What sets Data Cloud apart is its ability to bridge the gap between data analysis and action. Once these patient segments are created, healthcare organizations can take immediate action to drive value, whether it’s through targeted outreach, personalized care plans, or streamlining appointment scheduling processes. Healthcare organizations are empowered to harness the full potential of their data, enabling them to make informed decisions and deliver enhanced patient experiences with ease and efficiency. 

During Dreamforce in September, Salesforce announced free Data Cloud for Enterprise Editions and above. Take advantage of this no-cost access to start leveraging the capabilities of this exciting feature. Not sure how to get started? We can help. 

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; data, AI, and CRM for manufacturers; and the top 5 initiatives for financial services. 

Perficient + Salesforce

We are a Salesforce Summit Partner with more than two decades of experience delivering digital solutions in the manufacturing, automotive, healthcare, financial services, and high-tech industries. Our team has deep expertise in all Salesforce Clouds and products, artificial intelligence, DevOps, and specialized domains to help you reap the benefits of implementing Salesforce solutions.

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

1. Rethinking the finance function
2. Driving business growth
3. Improving financial performance
4. Building a world-class finance team
5. 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.

Dreamforce 2023 was hyper-focused on generative AI and the ways Salesforce is making it easy to take advantage of the benefits – especially for manufacturers. Oftentimes, the thought of artificial intelligence (AI) is accompanied by fears of the unknown and insecurities around data sharing. Salesforce is helping demystify those notions and build trust with the launch of Einstein 1 – bringing the power of Einstein AI into the fold of the secure CRM platform you already trust, powered by data you already own.  

Here are some of the powerful impacts this can bring to manufacturers: 

Modernize Commercial Operations 

Manufacturers create two times the data of any other industry, so it is imperative that the data comes together seamlessly to drive efficiency, productivity, and profitability. Insights powered by Data Cloud within sales agreements, asset detail, and service bring this to light and enable you to move forward faster and win in your space.  

Below are just a few of the ways Manufacturing Cloud, powered by improved insights from Data Cloud, will help drive this, with the announced launch of Revenue Lifecycle Management for Manufacturing within Manufacturing Cloud: 

• Manage your full book of business 
• Plan and align forecasts 
• Enable product to cash 
• New visual hierarchies will make it easier to view and manage complex relationships and take action on the page. This allows for all the necessary information to be in the hands of your employees and executives to enable quicker reaction time, increase efficiencies in processing, and increase productivity for sales. 

Transform Service Experience 

Customers want to be served where they are, and manufacturers want to create customers for life. New innovations launched at Dreamforce help enable both of these goals.  

• Connected Service for Manufacturing will help deliver all asset and service data to the fingertips of call center and field service agents, enabling them to provide the most comprehensive service and data-driven analysis for solving customer issues. 
• Digital representation of assets includes but is not limited to, location, images, condition, service events, alarms, and is all based on asset data 
• Predictive maintenance 
• Event orchestration to drive actions based on asset event data in a declarative, not code, implementation to allow flexibility and ease of implementation and change 
• Einstein predictions to provide warranty claim approval probability scoring for automation and/or efficiency of claims adjudication 
• Analytics for trends in service and warranty 
• Filtering by urgency, ie. aging, size 
• Claims by state, stage, etc. 
• Flexibility to meet the needs of your business and to help you make data-driven decisions 

Together, Data + AI + CRM enables you to grow your business and deliver world-class experiences for your customers by simplifying processes, putting informative data in the hands of your employees, and enabling the use of that data to intuitively help you make decisions. Let us help you move your business forward using your data to modernize your commercial operations and transform the service experience for your customers.  

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 and advancements for healthcare and life sciences.  

Perficient + Salesforce 

We are a Salesforce Summit Partner with more than two decades of experience delivering digital solutions in the manufacturing, automotive, healthcare, financial services, and high-tech industries. Our team has deep expertise in all Salesforce Clouds and products, artificial intelligence, DevOps, and specialized domains to help you reap the benefits of implementing Salesforce solutions.    

Dreamforce has come and gone, and our team proudly attended this year’s conference for a front-row seat to hear Salesforce’s latest innovations. These announcements ranged from AI-centric innovations to new Data Cloud features and everything in between.

Takeaways from Dreamforce 2023

With a highly skilled team of Salesforce consultants and developers with Healthcare and Life Sciences (HLS) experience, Perficient is especially interested in this year’s announcements for the vertical. Here are takeaways for Salesforce clients, consultants, and developers working in HLS.

1. During the HLS keynote, Lashonda Anderson-Williams, EVP & Chief Strategy Officer – Healthcare & Life Sciences, Salesforce, set the stage for the opportunity those in HLS continue to have when it comes to modernizing their operating models. Two statistics she shared stood out to me:
   1. First, on average, healthcare organizations have 46 systems in place dedicated to operations (Source: Salesforce Research, Healthcare & Life Sciences, April 2023). At Perficient, we have seen this firsthand, many times. Clients are swimming in tech that is redundant, costly, and underused, which creates a clunky, inefficient, and overwhelming operational model that gets in the way of the experience the organization is striving to deliver.
   2. Roughly 30% of health industry costs come from administrative work (Source: Health Affairs, Administrative Waste Study 2022). Reducing costs in HLS is imperative for sustaining our nation’s health system. The time is now to evaluate and reduce drivers of administrative costs.
2. Salesforce announced Life Sciences Cloud, an AI-powered CRM for med tech, pharma, and clinical operations. This adds to Salesforce’s existing HLS offering to bring more specialized capabilities to clients in this subsector. What makes it different from Health Cloud? Among other things, Life Sciences Cloud comes with turnkey, low-code features for streamlining early research phases, building target segments for clinical trials, qualifying participants, and ongoing sales and physician engagement.
3. AI, both traditional and generative, is a massive area of investment for Salesforce across all verticals. With Einstein, Salesforce has been offering traditional AI for years, but generative AI with Einstein GPT is about to explode. Einstein GPT combines propriety AI models with generative AI technology from partners, public large language models, and real-time data from Data Cloud. For HLS, the possibilities and use cases are endless for reducing costs, increasing efficiencies and response times, intelligent chat, scheduling appointments, and predicting patient needs. At Dreamforce, as many times as AI was mentioned, so was trust. Salesforce is making clear the responsibility and care they are taking to build trust in this AI era. For HLS, this means continued HIPAA-compliant products and keeping clinicians and operations specialists using their tools in control of the technology. Salesforce has built a trust layer with a zero-retention policy, meaning that data is kept completely separate from external large language models.
4. Data Cloud, sometimes referred to as Genie, Salesforce’s Customer Data Platform (CDP) continues to evolve and empower amazing use cases in HLS. Data Cloud works by bringing together data from multiple sources to create a central, unified view of the patient. During the breakout session “Data Cloud for Health”, Salesforce client Brian Buckland, Senior Director – CRM Engineer at Teledoc, shared how the company is building intervention journeys using Data Cloud for Health. Interventions are based on incoming data points that warrant outreach. For example, Teledoc created an intervention for patients that use a durable medical device that requires daily readings. When a reading hasn’t been taken for three days, an intervention journey is sent through Marketing Cloud to get them back on track.
5. Salesforce is joining the fight against mental illness. Health Cloud introduced a new Crisis Support Center to help payers, public health organizations, and other nonprofits that operate crisis hotlines to quickly connect individuals experiencing a mental health emergency to safe and high-quality behavioral healthcare.
6. Past and future releases are bringing more focused use cases for all subsectors within HLS. There was a lot to unpack regarding the Health Cloud roadmap, and you’ll want to stay tuned for official release communications for Winter, Spring, and Summer ‘24 updates. But here’s a preview of what I think are some of the most exciting things coming:
   1. For home healthcare organizations, new capabilities for scheduling and clinician appointment insights.
   2. For providers, an enhanced interoperability platform with out-of-the-box FHIR APIs to reduce time and cost for integrating with Health Cloud. These will be usable for any provider using an EMR that exposes FHIR APIs or can send HL7 V2 events.
   3. For payers and providers, Health Cloud is improving features to strengthen provider relationships. This includes holistic views of providers and networks, new workflows to manage referrals, and a new provider data model.
   4. For life sciences, a chain of custody and e-signature offering to help advanced therapy providers remain compliant and drive patient safety.

Perficient + Salesforce

We are a Salesforce Summit Partner with more than two decades of experience delivering digital solutions in the manufacturing, automotive, healthcare, financial services, and high-tech industries. Our team has deep expertise in all Salesforce Clouds and products, artificial intelligence, DevOps, and specialized domains to help you reap the benefits of implementing Salesforce solutions.

For additional post-Dreamforce content, hear from Johnathon Rademacher, Principal of Perficient’s Salesforce practice, about 9 key takeaways from this year’s conference.

Last week, Perficient attended the largest AI event in the world, Dreamforce, in San Francisco. During the three-day conference, 40,000 Salesforce partners, clients, and vendors got together to hear from Salesforce leadership, industry experts, clients, and a handful of celebrities, as well as get hands-on experience with the Salesforce platform.  

Fueled by generative AI, IDC reports that Salesforce and its partner ecosystem will create a net gain of more than $2T in business revenue and 11.6M jobs by 2028. This solidifies that Salesforce is leading the charge in AI, and Perficient is leaning into the partnership to bring innovative solutions to our clients.  

We learned about new Salesforce capabilities and technologies, heard new product announcements, and connected with peers and clients from across industries. Read on to learn about my top nine takeaways.  

Data, AI, and Trust 

There were several key themes at this year’s Dreamforce, including Data, AI, and trust. Salesforce announced its Tenets of Trusted, Ethical & Humane AI that guide all of its innovations, which are designed to keep the trust between Salesforce and its customers, and Salesforce partners and their customers.  

These tenets are: 

• Your data isn’t your product 
• You control access to your data 
• We prioritize accurate, verifiable results 
• Our product policies protect human rights 
• We advance responsible AI globally 
• Transparency builds trust  

Launch of Einstein 1 Platform 

The Einstein 1 Platform is a new AI-driven platform that enables businesses to leverage data, develop low-code AI apps, and revolutionize CRM experiences. It also promises to make application building safer and more efficient by using machine learning to identify and mitigate security risks, and provide developers with tools to build more secure applications.  

The key to Einstein 1 is Einstein Copilot, a new conversational AI assistant that is built into the user interface of Salesforce applications to help users with their Salesforce tasks. Users can interact with the assistant in natural language, and it can offer additional actions beyond user queries, such as automatically completing tasks, providing recommendations, and answering questions.  

Free Data Cloud and Tableau Licenses 

Perhaps the biggest announcement to come out of Dreamforce, Salesforce is providing free Data Cloud and Tableau licenses for existing Sales and Service Cloud customers – Enterprise or Unlimited edition – and includes two free Tableau Creator licenses and Data Cloud licenses for up to 10,000 profiles.  

Enhanced Data Cloud Features 

With Data cloud embedded in the Einstein 1 platform, dynamic, real-time data from different systems can be automated, called Data Cloud-Triggered Flow. This allows users to create flows that are triggered by changes in data. Another new feature is Data Graphs, which are visual representations of data relationships that can help users better understand their data.  

Increased Capabilities for Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud 

Salesforce introduced 26 generative AI capabilities between Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud, 14 of which are in GA now, with an additional 14 to arrive by the end of 2024. These features are built on Data Cloud, and help create more personalized and engaging customer experiences. Those currently available are: 

• Marketing Cloud: Marketing in Starter, DC + Account Engagement, Personalization Insights in Core, Data Spaces in Data Cloud, Advertising Audiences in Data Cloud, Einstein Lookalikes in Data Cloud 
• Commerce Cloud: Salesforce Payments, Order Management, Omnichannel Inventory, Reorder Portal, Pay Now, Generative Product Descriptions 

New Slack Innovations 

Slack now has AI features to enhance productivity and save time. These features include thread summaries, channel recaps, and search answers; automation; and Slack Lists to track projects, product launches, and handle approvals.  

Most Sustainable Dreamforce Ever 

• 74% of structures were recycled or reused 
• 5,500 square feet of biodegradable signage 
• 10M gallons of water conserved 
• 100% compostable meal packaging 
• Multiple Net Zero Cloud sessions 
• New Net Zero Cloud capabilities, including simplified ESG reporting for companies amid changing regulations; Einstein for Net Zero Cloud is expected in Spring 2024 

New Life Sciences Cloud 

The newest industry cloud, Life Sciences Cloud, is tailored to expedite onboarding on the Salesforce platform. More information will be available in the coming weeks.  

Expanded Partnerships 

Google 

Salesforce and Google are expanding their partnership to further integrate their products. Salesforce is the first partner to integrate with the Google Workspace Duet AI extensions framework, and Google Workspace is the first extensibility partner for Salesforce Eistein Copilot. These integrations will generate tailored content in Google Workspace and Salesforce, ensuring Salesforce records stay current with Google Workspace insights.  

AWS 

In 2024, Salesforce and AWS will pilot a series of integrations to enable the sharing of data lakes and large language models (LLMs). Amazon Redshift, EMR, Athena, Bedrock, and SageMaker users can leverage foundation models within Salesforce with security – the process has no copying and moving of data.  

An existing integration between Service Cloud Voice with Amazon Connect allows users to launch contact center services with Salesforce’s agent desktop with various Amazon services to improve agent productivity.  

Databricks 

Salesforce and Databricks are expanding their partnership to allow for seamless merging of data from Data Cloud with external Databricks Lakehouse Platform data. Ultimately, this will reduce the cost and complexity of moving and copying data while keeping security, governance, and trust standards. Users can access Databricks data in Data Cloud and vice versa. 

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.  

Perficient + Salesforce 

We are a Salesforce Summit Partner with more than two decades of experience delivering digital solutions in the manufacturing, automotive, healthcare, financial services, and high-tech industries. Our team has deep expertise in all Salesforce Clouds and products, artificial intelligence, DevOps, and specialized domains to help you reap the benefits of implementing Salesforce solutions.  

Dreamforce 2023 – We are Ready. Are You? 

30 days and counting until Dreamforce 2023 kicks off! This year, Salesforce is expecting about 170,000 people to descend on San Francisco, Sept. 12-15.  

Opportunities at Dreamforce

Each year, there’s always something specific to look forward to and this year is no different. As always, it’s a jam-packed three days filled with powerful content, bold ideas, and opportunities to make an impact. I’m looking forward to three specific opportunities this year to maximize my time at Dreamforce.  

1. Powerful Connections:

Thousands of Salesforce customers come to San Francisco for this epic event. Through all the flurry and buzz, having moments with our customers is special. In our busy, remote world, having time together in person creates opportunities for us to connect deeper with our customers and the business problems they are trying to solve. And best of all, connecting our customers with one another and watching them share experiences, best practices, and ideas on how to maximize their Salesforce investment is truly powerful.

2. AI, Data Cloud, and Inclusion:

There are over 200 sessions about AI. This is what everyone is talking about in the market, and I couldn’t be more excited to learn not just about Salesforce AI capabilities, but how we can understand and trust AI more effectively. The AI market is projected to reach $407B by 2027, which is substantial growth from its $86.9B in revenue in 2022. I’m also eager to understand how we can train AI to bring digital inclusivity to the solutions we build with customers.

For example, AI enables us to bring in capabilities such as video, speech-to-text, translations, image and facial recognition, just to name a few. We want to build solutions that you can use to engage with customers across any digital channel in an accessible and inclusive way. Together, AI and digital inclusivity have the potential to create powerful business outcomes, including time and cost savings, brand loyalty, and increased customer retention.

3. Seeing Over the Horizon:

Dreamforce presents an opportunity for us to all look up and look ahead – what’s coming? What challenges do we see? How can we leverage our investments in Salesforce and other technologies to address those challenges? These are all questions we and our customers are asking. When we engage with customers at Dreamforce, together, we begin to unpack what our future roadmaps will look like and how we can make our biggest impact on their customers using Salesforce.  

Perficient will have a large contingent of sellers, industry and platform experts, and channel partners on-site, with the ability to schedule meetings with you and your team. If you’re attending Dreamforce, I’d love to connect with you!  

Connect. Engage. Maximize. With Perficient. See you There! 

As we approach Dreamforce’s 20th anniversary, this year will be especially memorable and epic. This September 20–22, the much-anticipated Dreamforce 2022 event will feature workshops, parties, and networking opportunities.

Following the global pandemic, Dreamforce adopted a hybrid strategy for their main event, offering a combination of live and virtual events via Salesforce+ to reach every trailblazer in the ecosystem. So, even if you don’t have tickets, you can still enjoy live streaming.

Is Dreamforce new to you? We’ve got you covered, so don’t worry!

Dreamforce is the biggest software conference in the world, bringing together Trailblazers from across the world to share their amazing travels, experiences, insights, new launches, business possibilities, and fun—all in one location! With over 180,000 attendees, this premier event is a must-attend opportunity for business people. All three days promise to be a career-changing event, from learning about the future of technology to attending motivational keynote talks.

How can I prepare for Dreamforce?

• Learn about cutting-edge technological innovations that can help you overcome difficult business difficulties.
• Expand your network by connecting with new, like-minded colleagues.
• Volunteer and provide assistance to other trailblazers.
• Celebrate by going to Dreamfest, the biggest tech event.

Where and when is Dreamforce taking place?

The conference for this year will go from September 20 to 22 in San Francisco in Moscone Center. If you can’t attend in person, you can still catch all the action at Salesforce+, a free streaming service, that allows live broadcasting.

Agenda highlights at Dreamforce 2022

Here are some must-attend seminars to help you plan your Dreamforce schedule. Even if you plan to attend in person, remember to sign up for Salesforce+ so you can access special, online-only moments and catch up on sessions you might have missed.

• Main Keynote at Dreamforce

Begin your Dreamforce experience by mingling with co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor as well as distinguished guests. You’ll find out about our plans for Salesforce’s future, hear from users about their experiences using our technology successfully, and see live demonstrations of our most recent developments.

• Risk and Reward in the Fight for Climate Justice by Alex Honnold

Knowing how Alex Honnold, the star of the film Free Solo, is making a name for himself as an advocate of solar energy and is working with local groups to advance climate justice.

• Making Business a Change-Making Platform

CEOs of today are expected to spearhead social change. Your staff, partners, clients, and investors want to know how you’re assisting disadvantaged groups, promoting equity, and moving closer to Net Zero. Hear from top leaders about how they make use of their platforms to advocate for social justice, value diversity, and lead with compassion and accountability. Speakers include Sarah Friar, CEO of Nextdoor, Rich Paul, CEO and Founder of KLUTCH Sports Group, and Bill Westrate, CEO of American Family Insurance.

• Delivering the Future of IT, Now

Learn how IT can unlock data across Customer 360, automate with low code, and scale securely using MuleSoft, Slack, and the Salesforce Platform.

• Women’s Empowerment Both On and Off the Playfield

Olympians Allyson Felix, Dina Asher-Smith, and Melissa Stockwell describe how they are permanently changing the landscape of women’s athletics in an effort to inspire the next generation of athletes.

• Dreamfest Concert

Prepare yourself for a spectacular evening at Oracle Park with Red Hot Chili Peppers and DJ Mary Mac.

Perficient will be at Dreamforce 2022.

We’re thrilled to be a part of Dreamforce 2022, which is returning with a boom. We can’t wait to meet you, host you, and discuss business.

We have implemented more than 3,000 Salesforce solutions that empower businesses to become more responsive, efficient, and relevant. Whether you’re looking to drive efficiency, insight, reliability, simplicity, scale, or collaboration, we’ll unlock the right Salesforce solution for you.

In order to assist organizations in delivering outstanding solutions, Perficient plans to bring more value-added services to the table during this year’s event.

Let’s talk about how we can help you during our coffee breaks.

Looking forward to meeting you all at #DF22!

Subscribe to the Perficient blogs for fascinating updates on Dreamforce 2022.

Dreamforce 2019 is officially underway! It’s always one of the biggest events of the year in San Francisco, packed with energy, innovation, announcements and plenty of parties (not to mention, thousands of people who should have worn more comfortable shoes). 

So what’s all the buzz about anyway?

To kick off this year’s event, Chairman and Co-CEO Marc Benioff emphasized one central theme in his opening keynote: bringing everything – and everyone – together.

It’s no surprise that building relationships and connecting customers with companies is always a big part of the conversation. But the industry giant also revealed an expanded approach to “Customer 360” and data integration, supercharged with new acquisitions, partnerships and technologies with several major companies.

It’s a rather shrewd, innovative approach. After all, if you’re like most businesses, you probably use several other tools in addition to Salesforce and would love to put all the best features together. So what does this mean to you?

Dreamforce Announcements: Day 1
Here’s a closer look at some of today’s biggest news and takeaways:

#1: Customer 360 Truth
Most of us are familiar with Customer 360, Salesforce’s integrated CRM platform. It’s built to deliver a 360-degree view of the customer across every app and every role, including sales, service, marketing and commerce.

Now Salesforce is taking it further with the introduction of Customer 360 Truth, bundling together even more features to help companies unify data across all touchpoints. The intent is clear: creating a single source of truth. But it’s also about building deeper trust through connected customer data, identity authentication, privacy governance, audience segmentation, and more personalized experiences.

See the featured capabilities here

#2: Stronger Data, Stronger Partnerships
Today Benioff also showcased the company’s latest product developments in AI and machine learning. (Stay tuned for Einstein Voice Skills and Call Coaching in 2020!) But above all, he reinforced the company’s focus on building relationships, not boundaries, through new partnerships and offerings.

Some of the biggest include:

• Tableau
  Onstage Adam Selipsky, the CEO of Tableau, said his company’s mission has always been the same: “We help people see and understand data. That’s it.” That’s a pretty modest description, since Tableau is one of the top analytics platforms on the market – and it was acquired earlier this year by Salesforce for $15.7 billion.With the addition of Tableau, Salesforce expands its analytics offerings, which already included Einstein Analytics and Datorama. The goal: make data more accessible for everyone, everywhere.
• MuleSoft
  Creating connected experiences is the new standard, and MuleSoft (acquired by Salesforce last year) is leading the way when it comes to helping companies quickly integrate systems. We can’t wait to see what’s in store with Wednesday’s Integration Keynote: Unleash the Power of Salesforce Customer 360 with APIs.
• Apple Apps
  Salesforce announced Trailhead GO, the first mobile app for Trailhead, designed to empower everyone to scale up for the future. Exclusive to iOS and iPadOS, it allows users to learn on the go with more than 700 modules for business and tech skills. You can download it right here.
• Expansion with Amazon Web Services (AWS)
  Salesforce and Amazon are expanding their global partnership to support faster customer service with Service Cloud Voice, bringing together Trailhead and AWS, and integrating Einstein Voice Skills with Amazon Alexa in the future.
  
• Expansion with Microsoft
  And as you may have seen in the headlines this week, Salesforce will move its Marketing Cloud to run on Azure to unlock new growth opportunities for customers. The company also intends to build new integrations that connect Sales Cloud and Service Cloud with Microsoft Teams.

Find Out More This Week
Want to know more or join the fun? Check out these handy links to watch the livestream video throughout the conference and dive deeper into the latest news:

Watch the live broadcast
See more announcements

P.S. We have a whole team of experts from Perficient at Dreamforce this week, so reach out if you’d like to grab a cup of coffee and connect in San Francisco. We’d love to see you there! 

When it comes to business intelligence, where do the experts go to learn? The answer is Perficient.

Since the SIMON app launched, Perficient has been on the road with AllianceBernstein and MicroStrategy sharing how to turn analytics into action. At conferences and private events all around the country, the past few months have been full of onsite opportunities to strategize with our experts and participate in demos showcasing proven ways to advance analytics, mobility, cloud, AI, and augmented reality.

Learn more about SIMON app

MicroStrategy World 2019

Credit: MicroStrategy

Perficient named as MicroStrategy’s North American Partner of the Year for 2019 at MicroStrategy World.

As the 2019 MicroStrategy North America Partner of the Year and a Gold Sponsor of MicroStrategy World 2019, we’re not only exhibiting at booth #300 in the expo hall, we’re also taking the stage four times:  

1. Perficient: Artificial Intelligence: A deeper look at the next wave of digital transformation

Artificial intelligence is poised to rapidly disrupt and transform industries much in the same way digital transformation has impacted our world. Gartner estimates that only 4% of enterprises have invested and/or deployed artificial intelligence in their organizations, with 21% of CIOs actively planning or experimenting with AI. In this session, we will take a deeper look at artificial intelligence, further defining the nebulous concept, highlighting capabilities, and identifying opportunities to introduce artificial intelligence to your customers and move beyond a PoC.

2. Perficient: Enabling the Intelligent Enterprise

The Intelligent Enterprise is the ultimate data-driven organization. It anticipates constantly changing challenges and turns them into opportunity. MicroStrategy provides a range of tools and capabilities to meet this need head on. But how do you get there? What steps do you take to get on the path and achieve results? What best practices should you follow to avoid the minefields create a scalable and insightful intelligent enterprise? Perficient will outline how to create the Intelligent enterprise and lay out what you can do to achieve higher value as quickly as possible.

3. Perficient: Optimizing healthcare operations with mobile analytics

As Fee for Value takes hold in healthcare, hospitals and integrated delivery networks are highly motivated toward increasing productivity and utilization—and reducing cost. Nursing and Operations leaders are constantly challenged to find the correct ratio of staff to patient volumes. But mobile predictive modeling analytics that allow volume and resource matching (inpatient and ambulatory) can solve this ongoing challenge in healthcare. Delivering mobile analytics tools to the fingertips of healthcare leadership provides the ability to proactively manage the effect of increased census on patient volumes, patient movement, labor costs, and financials. In fact, it’s critical to achieving the triple aim (cost, quality, outcomes).

4. Automated Insights and the Final Frontier in Sales Analytics: Using NLG to complete the last mile in BI

Perficient and Automated Insights are making the incorporation of data into sales teams’ day-to-day radically easier. Using natural language generation (NLG) technology, sales teams are empowered with analytics that deliver clear, actionable intelligence, resulting in better business outcomes. In this session, we’ll share how an innovative combination of NLG and MSTR technologies converts business data into action-oriented information that’s quick and easy for busy sales teams and executives to consume within the workflows and applications they already use every day.

Learn more about the MicroStrategy World 2019 sessions

SIMON App on Stage at Dreamforce 2018

SIMON was so impactful that AllianceBernstein was invited to share the app with the Salesforce ecosystem at Dreamforce 2018 in a session titled Best Practices When Going Mobile with MicroStrategy which featured Kevin Rosenfeld, Alliance Bernstein’s SVP and Head of Business Intelligence. Listen to the session here

Learn how AllianceBernstein’s Mobile App Empowers Sales Teams in Real Time

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2018

Credit: Gartner

Jim Butz is a MicroStrategy BI expert at Perficient and has been helping revolutionize the way end-users interact with BI, reporting and analytics tools. Butz was invited to speak about augmented analytics at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2018 in Orlando, Florida. His presentation included live demonstrations of how organizations can use MicroStrategy to increase analytics adoption among employees and how to implement augmented reality, chatbots, voice, and natural language technology into your organization.

Learn more about the power of Augmented Analytics

Where would you like to see Perficient next? Let us know in the comments who would benefit most from seeing a live demo of the power of Perficient combined with MicroStrategy.