The innovation driven by Salesforce has been an area of highlighted for many years, recently Forbes recognized Salesforce as one of the most innovative corporations. To continue upon its growth journey, Salesforce kept on building on its momentum towards innovation for the year 2018.
It did so by launching new products, acquiring companies and by forging a partnership. Let’s review the year that went by and how Salesforce maintained its growth momentum.
MULESOFT ACQUISITION
Salesforce entered into an agreement to acquire MuleSoft. MuleSoft is one of the world’s leading platforms for building application networks that connect enterprise apps, data, and devices, across any cloud and on-premise. With the growth of Salesforce in large enterprises, it became important that various applications and systems should talk to each other to deduce the value of data stored in these disparate sources.
MuleSoft acquisition is going to give the new Salesforce Integration Cloud power to surface any data regardless of where it resides. Salesforce can now effectively serve its customers having a fragmented infrastructure. Customers may have some legacy application on premise, some application on cloud, some infrastructure may rest on Amazon or Google or Azure, with Mulesoft acquisition Salesforce can now bring all data together and transform it into an experience.
INNOVATION
AI Powered Image Recognition
In the year 2018 Salesforce brought new commerce cloud and marketing cloud connector that can automatically trigger personalized marketing communications based on a consumer’s shopping activity. New Integrations with Instagram enables retailers to create shoppable content within their posts.
This solution deploys AI-powered image recognition to uncover sales, marketing, and service opportunities. With the support of Salesforce Einstein the service cloud provides fast, intelligent answers on SMS, Facebook Messenger, chat or other communication channels.
Einstein Platform Services allow developers to create custom deep learning models to fit specific business needs. Einstein Sentiment will allow developers to classify the tone of any text (from prospect emails and social media posts to customer reviews and message boards) as positive, negative or neutral to gain insight into customer attitudes and then take appropriate actions.
Einstein Intent also allows developers to train a model to classify the underlying intent of customer inquiries to automatically route leads, escalate service cases and personalize marketing campaigns. Einstein Object Detection enables developers to train models to recognize multiple unique objects within a single image, as well as the location, size, and quantities of those objects.
Einstein Service
Salesforce delivered the next generation of Service Cloud named Einstein Service Cloud. Einstein combines CRM data, AI and guided processes, to deliver intelligent recommendations, instant service and seamless experiences to customers. With Einstein Bots for Service now generally available, companies can leverage machine learning and natural language processing to automate routine service requests and fundamentally transform the service experience.
Conversational CRM
The company ushered in a new era of conversational CRM. Salesforce has brought into service Einstein Voice, a new platform that brings the power of voice to millions of Salesforce users. Einstein Voice transforms the way people interact with Salesforce and also enables employees to work smarter and connect with their customers in new engaging ways.
It allows them to get personalized daily briefings and make conversational updates via the Salesforce Mobile App or smart speaker of their choice. By enabling users with the ability to connect with Salesforce on any device, Einstein Voice Assistant and Einstein Voice Bots empower Salesforce users to be productive from distributed locations.
Sales Cloud Essential
Salesforce launched Salesforce Essentials —easy-to-use, intelligent apps for the small business team.. The first Essential app—Sales Cloud Essentials enables every small business to grow and innovate faster with the power of Salesforce.
Integration Cloud
Salesforce launched a new version of Integration Cloud that allows Salesforce developers to create connected customer experiences with the Salesforce platform. New Integration Cloud surfaces data regardless of where it resides to connect every system.
New Low Code Tools
Salesforce launched new low code tools on the lightning platform empowering teams to collaborate and build Apps Fast. New Lightning Object Creator turns a spreadsheet into an enterprise app with simple clicks. New Lightning Flow Builder automates and manages complex, multistep business processes on the Salesforce Platform. New Lightning Flow Action on AppExchange connects Flows with the world’s leading enterprise cloud ecosystem.
Nonprofit Cloud
Salesforce announced Nonprofit Cloud – a complete solution that enables nonprofit organizations to power their mission and accelerates impact. New Nonprofit Cloud provides a 360-degree view of every aspect of a nonprofit organization–from donors and partners to programs and mission impact.
CONCLUSION
While Salesforce kept with its commitment to innovation in the year 2018 achieved new echelon in revenue and sales figures as well. Salesforce ranked 285 on the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States companies by revenue. Salesforce has successfully met lofty revenue goals along innovation.
