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We are just a few weeks out of Salesforce's biggest yearly event--Dreamforce 2022. And we already miss the excitement, magic, and energy of this event. That is why every Trailblazer looks forward to being part of this annual experience. At Dreamforce, we celebrate the Salesforce community, discover new technologies, forge fresh partnerships, and unlock ways of improving customer experience. No doubt, we are eagerly awaiting the Dreamforce event scheduled for the next year. But next year is not happening anytime soon. For the time being, let us relive the fun, learning, and discoveries that happened at Dreamforce'22.

Day #1 Highlights:

Revisiting The Mainstage Keynote

Marc Benioff (Chairman and Co-CEO of Salesforce) and Bret Taylor (Co-CEO of Salesforce) started the mainstage keynote. The keynote started with the feeling of how they felt to be back at this annual in-person event. This session chiefly brought the audiences up to speed on how Salesforce began its journey of Dreamforce. They even reminisced how their company has evolved into a cultural leader with the spirit of innovation and philanthropy. While the keynote session was underway, these two visionary leaders revealed the roadmap for Salesforce's product launches of the future. Benioff and Taylor shined a light on Net Zero Cloud, Salesforce Genie, their longstanding commitment toward building an Ecopreneur Revolution, and the all-new Slack integration with Canva.

Unveiling Salesforce Genie

Salesforce Genie was the highlight of this keynote. This platform helps businesses gather and consolidate customer data only in a matter of seconds. The collection of customer data and its unification help brands react at a blazingly fast pace. And this platform becomes all the more capable with a range of Customer-360 features, including Hyperforce, transactional database, Einstein AI, and hyperscale data platform. Besides, the keynote even briefed the attendees about moving sessions. Not just that, the session even covered Salesforce’s key philanthropic contributions in the field of education and hospitals.

Chronicling The Journey Of A Trailblazer

The session was made extra special with Sima Samara—an inspiring Trailblazer who went from being a refugee to a Salesforce developer. Samara gave a snapshot of how she struggled to begin her career in the field of Salesforce, given that her university degree did not hold any value in the new country. Owing to security reasons, Samara fled from her home country. When she faced problems finding a job that aligned with her education, she started cleaning homes to get by. Samara shared how Trailhead—Salesforce's free online learning portal--and the RefugeeForce program enabled her to become a Salesforce developer in just a few months, even without solid technical training.

Unpacking The Sales Cloud Keynote

This session had some of the most visionary speakers from not only Salesforce but also Delta Air Lines and FedEx. These speakers explained what the future of sales tech looks like. They even described how sales tech could get digital first if it starts investing in hyper-automation, data analytics, and AI. The key takeaways even included many things. First, how Salesforce Genie helped businesses uncover new revenue channels to kick-start growth, embrace automation, and usher in features that support digital selling. Second, the session covered how intelligence fuels decisions that turn raw data into actionable insights. The panelists even shared how Salesforce enablement empowers sales reps to use high-end tools and other resources that help them close more deals at speed. They even shared how bots, Einstein Relationship Insights, and Einstein Conversation Insights help organizations deliver key content that engages audiences better and for longer. Last, the panelists even shared updates about subscription management and even partner relationship management.

Analyzing The Service Cloud Keynote

This specific section was managed by a panel comprising experts from Uber, Salesforce, ADT, and GE Appliances. As the session's name suggests, this panel discussed critical customer-service challenges. These challenges generally include the complexities of legacy systems, the growing frustration of customers, and the lack of context. Undoubtedly, these challenges throttle the efficiency of a client-servicing team. The panelists shared the solution, too; they explained personalized services, delivered at a moment's notice, could help businesses improve client-servicing outcomes. During this keynote, the Salesforce team unveiled Contact Center Genie, Field service Genie, and Service Cloud Genie. The panelists even shared how these new additions could help any business create, scale, and improve customer experience with the help of real-time data, intelligence, and automation.

Covering The Highlights Of Slack Keynote

The highlights of this session were the speeches made by Katie Augustus (VP, Product Management, Salesforce). Besides Augustus, the session had some key names from Slack as well. For instance, the session included the speeches of Stewart Butterfield, who is Slack's CEO and President. The session even had Tamar Yehoshua—who is the Chief Product Officer of Slack. Moreover, one other panelist in this keynote was Jennifer Hirsch from SparkWorks. Hirsch used this keynote to discuss how the latest innovations in Slack help in driving productivity, value, and efficiency across Customer 360. On the other hand, the Salesforce staff in the panel highlighted the benefits of the latest integration of Canva into Slack.

Understanding How Businesses Are Driving Change

This session included three different speakers. The first one was Bill Wetrate from American Family Insurance. Wetrate, along with Salesforce, is a signatory of The Climate Pledge and is currently working on an initiative called “Free to Dream”; this initiative plugs the equity gaps lying across the country. Wetrate even highlighted how American Family Insurance had made a series of investments in the last few years in startups committed to creating a social impact. The next speaker of this session was Sarah from Nextdoor. During her speech, she discussed how her company is committed to creating a kinder and better world. She shared the social impact framework and the values her company is sharing. The last speaker of this session was Rich Paul from KLUTCH. Paul shared how KLUTCH grew 3x because of its commitment to educating people at a young age. All of these businesses were examples of how any company can commit itself to be a robust platform for change.

Day #2 Highlights:

Beginning With The Commerce Hour

This session had many speakers who were part of the Commerce Cloud team. These speakers included Kelly Thacker, Amanda Hatker, and Kimberley Zatlyn. These panelists discussed the different benefits of using Commerce Cloud. The panelists drew attention to the fact that how digital spending is on the rise in a world that has been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. Then they shared how Commerce Cloud offers a range of functions that would help businesses maximize their efficiency and productivity. This session even saw the introduction of Commerce Genie. Last, the session helped the Dreamforce attendees understand flexible tools that would help businesses unlock the power of automation, real-time data, and intelligent recommendation. That way, businesses will be able to strengthen their revenue flows.

Evaluating The IT Keynote Session

In this panel, the speakers discussed how IT teams worldwide can take a step toward automation. The panelists discussed how Salesforce is growing its library of build-and-operate low-code apps. The panelists described how these apps would help the IT team resolve issues at an incredible speed. These members even showcased multiple MuleSoft product innovations that would help the IT team gain access to real-time data as safely as possible. As the session progressed, the speakers even spotlighted some key challenges facing the world. These challenges include economic insecurity, siloed processes and teams, a labor crunch, and disrupted supply chains. This session had many takeaways, such as IT's a surefire path to prosperity, Salesforce's evolution, the rise of Salesforce Genie, and so much more.

Answering Tomorrow's Questions With Today's Analytics

This session brought loads of information on how businesses can use analytics to build a better and stronger data culture. The panelists were Anusha Surepeddi, Karen Madera, and Francois Ajenstat; they shared how businesses can use Customer 360 and drive intelligent decisions every time. They even shone a light on how analytics can help predict accurate outcomes faster. The panelists explained how analytics-backed insights could be the foundation of making better business decisions. These speakers also introduced Tableau Genie and described how Tableau Exchange could improve the overall Analytics ecosystem. Tableau Exchange, along with Tableau Genie, is slated to help businesses of any scale automate analyses and make decisions backed by AI insights.

Being A Trailblazer At Heart

Titled “Be a Trailblazer in the Salesforce Ecosystem,” this session was led by speakers Sarah Caporusso and Leah McGowen-Hare. The discussion revolved around exploring the future of the Trailblazer economy. The session speakers even described the mission of the Trailblazer Workforce Partner Program, which is to bring 20,000 new Trailblazers into its fold by 2028. The session even discussed how Salesforce plans on upskilling everyone so that they become Trailblazers wherever they are.

Getting The Expert Take On Digital Transformation

This keynote involved top-of-the-line CEOs from leading names. They discussed how the judicious use of the emerging technology stack could drive continual reinvention and sustained business success. The session speakers were Sharon John, Sim Tshabalala, and Sam Roddick. Roddick, Deloitte Digital's CEO, spoke about how digital solutions help brands reinvent their future. He explained how businesses had lost capital by embracing a breed of digital transformation that is not geared toward maximizing business value anymore. Tshabalala from Standard Bank Group explained how the role of banks had been elevated to recycle societal resources and mobilize them better. He began discussing how different challenges—the Russia-Ukraine war, terror financing, money laundering, etc.—have created cutthroat strategic competition. Later, Tshabalala even discussed the benefits of creating fresh fintech partnerships. He also analyzed Nigeria's digital currency and the rise of e-wallets. Last, he talked about different digital innovations in the fast-evolving trade ecosystem. John from Build-A-Bear explained how digital transformation goes beyond IT; she helped the audience understand that digital transformation is multi-dimensional, which is more focused on unlocking creativity and empowering everyone.

Day #3 Highlights:

Understanding The Meaning Of Core

This keynote was a live Q&A session that involved the legendary Parker Harris, Salesforce's chief technology officer and co-founder; David Schmaier, Salesforce's chief product office; and other Salesforce product leaders. In this session, they fielded several questions that helped the attendees understand the meaning of Core. The leaders explained that Core includes Tableau Data and other Salesforce products. The panelists even shared a road map for implementing the Core into different business models. Besides discussing Core, the speakers shared the significance of being certified in Marketing Cloud. Last, the panelists even shared about the status of migrating from Class to Lightning.

Unlocking Equity In Health

This keynote focused on the impacts of overcoming health equity challenges. The speakers in this session were Amit Khanna, LaShonda Anderson Williams, and Kristi Lundgren. They highlighted how Salesforce is bringing practical solutions for engaging with patients with the help of data. That way, the team focused on improving health literacy. Moreover, they shared how top-rated healthcare companies are already using Salesforce to improve real-time data. That is how Salesforce is enabling the healthcare sector to build a 360-degree approach toward improving patient care.

Ending The Event With The Dreampitch

Dreampitch is where you see leading entrepreneurs perform live, pitching their sustainability businesses. This time, Deloitte Digital hosted the session alongside ecopreneurs of HIVED, Urchinomics, and Veritree. This session was chiefly geared toward understanding how ecopreneurs are scaling new-age technology to drive innovation forward. The ecopreneur from Urchinomics explained the significance of forests and of building a strong foundation for the marine ecosystem. This was followed by the second ecopreneur from HIVED, who shared how parcel delivery is growing unsustainable, all the while polluting the environment. In the last segment, the third ecopreneur from Veritree discussed a range of restorative organization measures. Besides, the ecopreneur even explained why it is so important to establish clear goals that help in gauging the degradation risk. Urchinomics won the Dreampitch segment by a huge margin of votes.

Wrapping It Up

Needless to say, Dreamforce 2022 helped us discover the magic Salesforce is creating to elevate customer experience now and beyond. As a Salesforce consulting partner, we are committed to using the latest advances in the Salesforce landscape and use them to improve the way we serve our customers. By knowing about the latest happenings in the Salesforce landscape, we are keeping ourselves informed in using this business solution optimally. That way, we will help use Salesforce to enable digital transformation and advance business growth.