Don’t call it a conference. Dreamforce — the annual three-day Salesforce celebration of community and customer success — is an experience. Where else do CEOs, celebrities, Olympians, journalists, scientists, policy wonks, and Trailblazers in shiny gold hoodies get together to snap selfies with Einstein?
Hosted virtually on Salesforce’s new video delivery platform; Salesforce+ and in person at Dreamforce International Park in San Francisco, this year’s event drew over 170,000 people. They came to hear from Will Smith, Jason Sudekis, and Jane Fonda; learn about revolutionary advancements in tech; share wisdom and build community; and, of course, rock out to Metallica and the Foo Fighters.
Here’s our recap of the best of Dreamforce 2021.
The Journey to Net Zero
In his keynote, Salesforce Co-Founder and CEO Marc Benioff — in a pair of custom, show-stealing Adidas, as per usual — addressed the multiple crises impacting people and companies worldwide — from workforce upheavals and systemic inequality to sustainability and global health. But, Benioff emphasized, businesses can be the biggest platform for positive change.
As proof, Benioff announced that Salesforce is a fully Net Zero company — and has achieved 100% renewable energy for its operations. What’s more, he unveiled Sustainability Cloud 2.0, which will help companies and organizations track and reduce their carbon emissions — and, ultimately, get to Net Zero faster. What’s included? Slack-First Sustainability for better collaboration with suppliers, a carbon-offset ecosystem, and industry-specific climate action plans.
Read the Salesforce Climate Action Plan to learn more about their journey to Net Zero.
Celebrating Sustainability Trailblazers
Mercedes-Benz is one Salesforce partner who’s committed to greener operations, and one of their new all-electric 2022 EQS Sedans was in attendance at Dreamforce. Benioff had a virtual conversation with Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius about how Mercedes is using Salesforce Customer 360 to build a customer-centric marketing experience — and get the word out about their new electric fleet.
Salesforce partner ENGIE was also recognized for its use of Sustainability Cloud to track energy patterns and emission trends — and its use of Salesforce Customer 360 to provide zero-carbon solutions to customers around the world. Yves Le Gélard, Executive Vice President in charge of Digital and Information Systems at ENGIE, emphasized the significance of the moment: “We’re committed to stepping up to this challenge. It’s for the greater good of our customers, but also for mankind. It’s the first time in the history of mankind that nobody can say, ‘It’s not my problem.”
See You on Slack
Slack, the newest jewel in Salesforce’s crown, was undoubtedly Dreamforce’s MVP. The two companies announced new integrations across multiple Salesforce divisions, including fun ones — get ready to add audio, video, and screen recordings to your messaging repertoire with Slack Clips — and big ones: GovSlack is a heightened-security version of Slack that complies with the U.S. government and its partner agencies.
In addition to the U.S. government, Dominos, Intuit, and Splunk are just three of the companies highlighted that are transforming their digital workplaces with Slack and the DigitalHQ. For field service teams across industries, these are the integrations we’re most excited about:
- Slack-First Service: Designed to accelerate case resolution, Slack-First Service uses new swarming and expert finder capabilities to make collaboration between cross-functional teams easier — and customers happier.
- Slack-First Analytics: New Einstein capabilities harness the power of data to make AI-powered predictions, while notifications help teams stay up-to-date on news and trends. The result? Teams that are empowered to make smarter, faster decisions.
- Slack-First Integration with MuleSoft: Now you can integrate multiple business apps directly into Slack, which means no more onerous switching back and forth between software and systems.
- Slack-First Quip: Embed Quip documents directly into Slack, where Sales teams can work together around a single view of the customer in one digital workspace. Collaboration has never been easier.
Global Health in the New Normal
As a partner to many healthcare organizations and providers, we were thrilled by updates to the Salesforce Health Cloud 2.0 portfolio of products. Notably, its Dreampass feature made it possible for Dreamforce to happen in person: Designed to help deliver safer in-person events, Dreampass capabilities including attendee registration management, COVID-19 vaccine and/or testing status verification, and vendor integration to help issue testing kits. Personalized QR codes allow admission upon integrated test results — and notifications and messaging are in place in the event of protocol changes or possible exposure.
Dreampass is just one of the platform’s game-changing enhancements that will make it easier for people everywhere to do their jobs safely. As Kevin Riley, SVP and GM of Healthcare And Life Sciences at Salesforce said, “With Health Cloud 2.0, we’re continuing to enhance our capabilities around care from anywhere, digital health credentialing, contact tracing, vaccine management, and more so that employees, customers and communities can succeed in the new normal.”
“Technology saved my life.”
Conversations between luminaries is a Dreamforce staple, and this year’s series didn’t disappoint.
Award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien dove into climate change with Salesforce co-founder and CTO Parker Harris; Delaware Governor John Carney and Accenture’s Bryan Berumen and explored the hows and whys of developing business ecosystems; but of all the inspiring conversations we heard, the one that stuck with us the most was between Paralympian Blake Leeper and Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman.
The celebrated athletes riffed on tapping into a gold medal mindset, and dropped quotable gems along the way: “Technology saved my life,” Leeper, who runs on passive-elastic carbon-fibre prostheses, told the crowd. And, “Instead of asking ‘Why me?’ I ask ‘Why not me?’”
Looking Ahead
Dreamforce is like a booster shot of inspiration — the energy and excitement left us with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for being in a position to use Youreka’s powerful technology for good.
With Salesforce at the helm of game-changing advancements and sustainable initiatives, we look forward to being part of a better future — and empowering field teams across healthcare, energy, utilities, manufacturing, the public sector and every industry to do their best work.
If you missed out on the excitement, click here to watch the Dreamforce replay.
