BetterWorld had an amazing time at Dreamforce recently, learning about the latest and greatest happenings in the cloud. With a jaw dropping 45,000 attendees, this conference was beyond buzzing with activity.
Inspiration was clearly in the the air as Salesforce outlined where it is headed and the future flexibility of business as a whole. The overwhelming mantra of the conference was a drive to shift to the cloud for all aspects of business operations and the tool kit that Salesforce itself provides (let along its partners and tag-along industries) addresses the majority of a business' core competencies. The main events included a great conversation with Executive Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt and several keynotes highlighting new services in the upcoming Winter ‘12 release of Salesforce.
A few of the highlights coming up:
- native functionality for interfaces with touch screens such as the iPad
- integrated Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn tracking folded in to contact records
- their purchase of Jigsaw (now data.com), which has contact details for over a million professionals and a partnership announced with Dunn and Bradstreet, the business records giant with over 280 million company records
- more features for the Salesforce Chatter interface (a private, internal facing business equivalent to Facebook or Google chat), most notably – the ability to see if others are online and active
There was also a huge expo with 250+ Salesforce partners providing everything from Salesforce migration and/or implementation to security enhancement.
Salesforce has a dizzying array of tools available for small to large scale businesses to monitor, improve and streamline everything from marketing to customer service.
They also have a philanthropic arm, Salesforce Foundation, which provides verified non-profits with a free non-profit starter kit. With a donation of 10 free licenses for organizations to start their implementation and a series of discounts for any further service, the Salesforce cloud is very accessible for the non-profit community. In addition, certified B Corporations receive similar benefits as triple bottom line, For Benefit members with B Lab.
Attendees quipped about’drinking the kool aid’ throughout the conference, as the fanaticism around the brand and growing fame and momentum of Salesforce was heavily pitched throughout the event.
But many of the tools of Salesforce really are helping companies of all sizes to effectively manage their businesses and create better overall experiences for staff and customers.
We are excited to announce an upcoming roll out of improved resources and tools for our customers, in connection with the Salesforce Service Cloud. This will create more streamlined customer service, more options for troubleshooting and problem solving, and better methods to support our 5 Promises to our Customers. Kudos to Dreamforce for achieving the impossible, making CRM administration fun!
Posted in: B Corps Events General Blog
