There was something different about this year's Dreamforce conference. Sure, it was massive, with 170,000 people in attendance and reportedly millions more online.
And yes, Salesforce announced a number of new products, chief among them its Einstein AI technology, which over time will be weaved into its sales, service and marketing applications.
But there's a but, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Andy Mulholland, who attended in person. "Something has subtly changed in the wind," Mulholland says. "This event didn't feel like a product company event. It felt like an event about services."
The big news out of Dreamforce was really the number of Salesforce customers who made presentations and even had sizable exhibition stands to put across their strategy and achievements, Mulholland adds. "From Coca-Cola to GM, senior executives were on hand to explain how they were refocusing their business model towards a ‘connected world’ that changed their relationship with their customers."
For example, GM's message was that it wants to build a bond with customers that carries through multiple car ownerships, together with transportation support, rather than merely connect cars to services, Mulholland notes.
Tech events routinely feature customer presentations and case studies, of course, but the willingness of such large corporations to actually invest in sizable amounts of exhibition space is a truly telling indicator of Salesforce's evolution, he adds.
"Somewhere in a one or two-year period, Salesforce has stopped trying to say we're a product company—buy the next release," he says. "Now they're saying, 'we're a service-enabling company. We're teaching people how to look after their customers with services.' It's a very interesting transition."
Top Salesforce Customers Prove the Point
Mulholland's perspective was echoed by some of Salesforce's most prominent customers, who appeared during a panel discussion along with CEO Marc Benioff.
The financial services industry is facing a massive disruption, with 2,500 startup companies in the space, said Deutsche Bank COO Kim Hammonds. The bank isn't trying to fight off these companies, however; rather, it wants to leverage their strengths, she added. Deutschebank has met with some 800 fintech startups over the past year: "The goal is to find that technology and bring it into our company and provide their content at scale.”
Why the urgency? "All of our customers, are expecting a digital experience," she said. Currently, between 4 and 5 million of the bank's customers are using its digital platforms. Forty-five percent of customers go into a physical branch just one time per year, and that's set to rise to 70 percent within a couple of years, she added.
There are about 150 core processes that run a bank, many of which are customer-facing. Through technology, Deutsche Bank wants to industrialize as many of these as possible, she said. Meanwhile, it is using data analysis to improve the customer experience. "We want to sense and respond to the customer [with a service] before they know they need it or want it."
Nonprofit health care provider Kaiser Permanente is also facing a major transformation in its market, said CEO Bernard Tyson. The health care industry we know today is a "fix me" system, Tyson said. Moreover, patients have traditionally had to go to a provider in person. "What we're working on now is blowing up that model, blowing up that concept and transforming the industry," Tyson said.
Kaiser Permanente is focused on maximizing the healthy life years of individuals coupled with a "care anywhere" strategy, Tyson said. Last year, the company logged more than 110 million interactions between physicians and members, and 52 percent were virtual, not physical visits, he said.
Technology is enabling major changes in Kaiser's approach to operations. Big companies have traditionally been structured by slotting employees into "thinkers" and "doers," with the former being management and the latter rank-and-file workers, Tyson said. "Now, with technology and the ability for information to go anywhere, it's all thinkers. We're working to blend the two. I want a front-line nurse to be thinking about, what can make this experience better for the patient. Improvement is a continuous effort, not a big bang."
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