It has been three weeks since Dreamforce 2019 in San Francisco. Since then we have seen many obligatory blog posts summarising what happened at Dreamforce which recap the keynote sessions. We recommend you watch the keynotes for yourself, as they are available to everyone!
At Fullcrm we have a weekly Coffee and Keynote session in the office. This is where the team watches a keynote and we discuss the new features and how they are going to affect our customers.
Dreamforce is way more than just the keynotes. With over 2000 sessions there is so much to see and do. At Fullcrm we believe in making the most of the DF experience by spending time doing only the things that can see at Dreamforce.
This year Helen, Peter & Dean from the Fullcrm team attended Dreamforce. Here are Helen & Peter’s top 3 highlights for DF19:
The Fullcrm DF19 Highlights
1. Go to DF19 to see how other customers are using Salesforce
It is an opportunity to get some great ideas on innovative ways in which the platform is being used. This year our focus was on manufacturing and distribution. I saw some great Salesforce use cases such as:
- The 3M CRM journey. This one is particularly close to my heart because I had deep engagement with 3M in the very beginning of their CRM journey back in the early 2000s. It was even mentioned in the presentation – they started with The Great Elk! 3M have a global instance of Salesforce and some of the system stats were mind boggling:
- 2.5M Accounts
- 33M Activities
- 9.5M Cases
- 7M API Calls made per week
- 68 sandboxes in use
- Over 4,000 enhancements
- Kuka, a leading robot manufacturer, have allowed self service ordering for their customers. Can you imagine ordering your own robot online?
- ThermaXX Jackets using standard Salesforce asset object to streamline their custom build of boiler jackets. At Fullcrm we love the standard Asset object. We have some great use cases where the asset is tracked from one owner to the next with a full audit.
- How Schneider Electric are embracing Einstein Analytics recommendations. Do you think you could give up your company KPIs and embrace AI to the point where the recommendations become the new KPI?
2. Past industry clouds had a strong North American flavour but that is no longer the case.
The Consumer Goods Cloud for retail execution is universal in design with great features and very well presented. It is built with the user in mind.
The retail revolution makes brand awareness and market reaction critical. Manufacturers, Suppliers & Distributors who aren’t working closely with their retailers and have an ecommerce strategy for now and the next 5 years possibly won’t be here and certainly not in the same capacity they are now.
Very pleased we are part of this exciting direction with Salesforce.
3.There’s very little value in just entering data.
Intelligent decisions come from information.
Salesforce reports and dashboards continue to get better with every release but Tableau takes it to another level. Einstein Analytics and insights are the top of the tree.
Tableau is a business intelligence tool that hits the sweet spot. It combines easy to build dashboards, great information presentation, ease of use to drill down further, and a very accessible price point.
We can’t wait to help more of our clients get better insights faster.
4.Watch the Salesforce Labs Demo Jam!
This is such a great session. Salesforce Labs create FREE and open source apps for everyone to leverage. At Fullcrm we closely monitor Salesforce Labs apps and try to find the right solutions for our clients.
My vote was for the Digital Store Audit flow. It is a great interface that allows reps with set tasks to record their completion at each store visit (in any order) in Salesforce. I love the interface.
Dean voted for the Profile and Permission Set Helper which allows you to audit all profiles and permission sets by user. This is very cool when you are using quite a few apps and you need to figure out who can see what as if you have inadvertently missed permission set assignment. Also great for us when we do our Refresh Revive Resuscitate projects that Fullcrm is famous for.
The winner on the day was neither. It was Consent Capture which assists companies in being GDPR compliant. A great interface that shows you EXACTLY how you are allowed to communicate with your customers and prospects and when they consented to this communication method.
Did I mention that these apps were free?!
5.We have a number of US and UK app exchange partners we met which only strengthened our relationship.
While technology reduces the distance we don’t often get the time to have a more personal and relaxed engagement. There were a number of functions to get to know them better. Hope our friends at Axsy, KBMax and Ascent in particular are faring well as we all move into the end of year holiday season.
If you get the chance, get to #DF2020 and experience the buzz of 170K people with a common denominator even if their numerator is different.
6. DF19 is more than just tech. There are great leadership and personal development experiences
This year I made sure that I attended some inspiring/motivational sessions. These included Shine On – a session that truly allowed you to empathise with people that are continually discriminated against. Another was Courageous Conversations – 3 inspiring women who gave us some great tips on how to look for moments when a conversation becomes crucial and how best to present yourself. Lastly, the one session where I was able to combine my love of hard rock and classical music was a fireside chat with Lars Ulrich (Metallica drummer) and Yo Yo Ma (famous cellist). Lars said “There are only 2 kinds of music: great music and not so great music.” So true!
Courageous Conversations
If you get the chance, get to #DF2020 and experience the buzz of 170K people with a common denominator even if their numerator is different.