Take Your Salesforce Platform to New Heights in 2024

January 5, 2024

Salesforce is ranked as a “Leader” In Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation Platforms, and has been for 17 years. Gartner also placed Salesforce highest in its “Ability to Execute” axis – meaning how well the company delivers on its commitments and operates effectively in its market.

So, what commitments can we expect from Salesforce in 2024? Matt Wallock, Chief Revenue Officer for Enable Consulting (a Prolifics company with expertise in all things Salesforce) attended the Salesforce ‎World Tour NYC Winter 2023. Here are his top three takeaways for where Salesforce is headed in 2024:

The Einstein 1 Platform for AI and generative AI

Salesforce is embracing AI with its recently introduced Einstein 1 Platform. The company calls it a “trusted AI platform… that gives companies the ability to safely connect any data to build AI-powered apps with low-code, and deliver entirely new CRM experiences.” Salesforce also introduced a generative AI-powered “conversational assistant” into every CRM application and customer experience.

Wallock said, “Salesforce is talking about something that’s brand new in the AI space, which is the ability to build individualized algorithms for AI for specific businesses. These will look at just their data in their Salesforce environment and use the existing data in sales, service, marketing, and so on to make decisions within a generative AI model specific to that client.

“Within Prolifics, our Salesforce and AI experts are building a solution that utilizes this idea for enhanced customer service. It combines telephony (phone systems), CTI (computer telephony integration, integrating telephone systems with business applications), and IVR (interactive voice response), with the company’s Salesforce data and an AI learning model to generate the next best action prompts automatically. The company can have the next best action pop up on a screen or ‘whispered’ in the customer service agent’s ear. We feel this will be the first and top use case for companies.

“The key idea, though, is that Salesforce is investing in AI, and so are we, and there are areas where we can help clients with Salesforce and AI conversations as they come together, because we have expertise in both practices.”

Unstructured data integration – with Data Cloud or MuleSoft

Salesforce wants its customers to use its platform to unlock data siloed in various systems. They’re promoting Data Cloud (a comprehensive suite of data integration, management, and analytics tools) as a vehicle for bringing in not only structured data, but also unstructured data. According to Salesforce, Data Cloud will determine how unstructured data gets structured so it talks to other systems.

“Previously, this would be the realm of systems integrators like Prolifics and Enable Consulting,” said Wallock. “Salesforce is trying to get to that next level down. I believe they’ve done significant product development behind the scenes for Data Cloud, and for complex integrations, it would be MuleSoft and Data Cloud together. It remains to be seen how this would work and how much outside integration consulting will still be needed. We have a deep integration practice, and we love the idea of people thinking about unstructured data. It’s yet to be proven in the marketplace, and we are excited to be part of the ecosystem proving it can work in certain situations. And in the other situations where the heavy lifting is still involved, we have the chops to do that as well with software packages like MuleSoft.”

Going to market by industry

Salesforce focuses on going to market by industry. They’ll sell industry clouds as a combination of Sales and Service clouds, with an industry-specific data model and advanced functionality that doesn’t exist in the basic products. This is the entire idea behind Salesforce Industries solutions.

“Of course, we can go to market by industry as well, and we have a very good play in almost all industries,” said Wallock. “We’d love to help companies look at their current investment versus an industry cloud and how it comes together.”

Enable Consulting, A Prolifics Company

Our goal at Enable Consulting is to help you achieve excellent relationships with your customers through the smart application and use of your technology. We apply our expertise in customer relationship management, sales, service, and marketing automation to your project, helping you at every stage of the customer journey.

Read the media release: Prolifics Acquires Enable Consulting | Prolifics US

Salesforce Engineering at Prolifics

At Prolifics, we’ll take your salesforce beyond CRM, making it a powerful and fully integrated SaaS platform. Our difference is leveraging Salesforce end-to-end in your company. We have the expertise and ability to take Salesforce into the fabric of the application portfolio within your organization.

Visit our Salesforce Expertise webpage