Dreamforce ’13 kicked off with a bang this morning as CEO and Chairman Marc Benioff gave the opening keynote address. Benioff recognized and thanked more than 135,000 people who registered for this year’s event – an increase of about 40,000 people over 2012. Benioff also reported that Salesforce is on track to record more then $5 billion in revenue next year.
“That’s way beyond our expectation,” he said.
Here are the Top 5 Things we Learned at Benioff’s Keynote Tuesday:
1. Do More For Others
Benioff used most of the first 45 minutes of the presentation to talk about philanthropy and how Salesforce is using their success to help others. The Salesforce Foundation has long supported countless organizations based on the 1/1/1 model for funding philanthropic efforts but Benioff encouraged others to do adopt the same 1/1/1 model. As businesses embrace the methodologies and mission set forth by Salesforce, they are becoming more successful and profitable. But they should use that success for good and remember that people all over the world still don’t have the luxuries we take for granted, especially those affected by natural disasters such as the 2010 earthquake that hit Haiti. Benioff announced that the Salesforce Foundation will focus on helping Haitians this next year.
2. Listen, Engage and Interact
With so many devices, platforms, social networks and more, it has never been more important to stay connected to your customers. They have the answers.
“Behind every tweet, every post, every device and wearables and digestible and mobile devices, don’t forget there’s a customer,” Benioff said. “There’s a customer behind each of these interaction points.”
Benioff noted that considering more than 4.5 billion users are on social networks and 5 billion users have smartphones, the opportunity to engage with employees, customers, vendors, partners and others is more amazing than ever.
He also encouraged people to think about how they will go through the customer company transformation. They need to be ready for change and ready to innovate.
“You better be ready to be a customer company,” Benioff said. “If you aren’t, there will be another entrepreneur to take your place.”
3. Salesforce1 is Pretty Cool
Well, considering it was just unveiled this week, we have to take Salesforce’s word for it. But all signs point to the fact that Salesforce1 is indeed Salesforce’s “best engineered” product to date. Salesforce1 was built for the customer but the platform promises to make the job of developers, ISVs, administrators and end users easier and faster.
“With innovation, time to market is everything,” Benioff said.
Expect Salesforce1 platform to lower development and application costs and to streamline the user experience on any device. It also integrates well with other systems and other machines, which we all know is key to thriving in today’s cloud.
4. Customer Journeys are the New “It” Thing
The ability to create workflows and customer journeys through marketing automation is critical to success in the “Internet of Customers.” Marketing automation tools such as ExactTarget support and nurture customers through every touchpoint with a brand. In fact, ExactTarget Marketing Cloud has a journey builder function that defines where the customer is at in the journey and where the business wants the customer to go next.
5. Marketing Has Changed and Became More Important
“Marketers are leading the internet of customers,” said Scott McCorkle, chief operating officer of ExactTarget Marketing Cloud. “In this world of connected products, the marketer is leading this transformation.”
McCorkle cited a Gartner study in which the CMO is projected to spend more on technology than the CIO by 2017. Why? Marketing technologies are crucial in the Internet of customers. Marketers must be more agile than ever. They must be part of designing the customer journey and making sure their technologies fit with that journey.
“Customers expect a seamless, 1-1, relevant experience,” McCorkle said.
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