Dreamforce 2021 Day 2

The Dreamforce 2021 experience remained awesome on the second day of the event. Following the same structure of the hybrid event, it was possible for us to watch a lot of meaningful sessions, regarding current global topics we all should pay attention to.

From business transformation to the evolution of the nowadays workplaces, the second day was all about shaping a better future for any team. Showing new software solutions like Slack or bringing the discussion to the inclusive leadership topics, get to know an overview of the main sessions we assisted. Here’s the agenda we followed to attend day #2, September 22nd:

1. The Art of Transformation
2. Designing a new era of Experience
3. Getting more from Digital
4. Black Women in Leadership
5. The Future of Health is Connected

1. The Art of Transformation

Hosted by Jessica Ross, SVP of Finance at Salesforce and introducing the famous actor, Will Smith, this session was all about being creative and transformative not only in work but also in all the topics in your life.
With a really personal approach, Will Smith testify his experience in producing content that lasts for decades. At the first sight, he had no clue about what would happen in his career. He stood for causes that elevate the black people experience.

Knowing that a human being personality is a series of events that we construct and decide that this will be our own narrative, Will started to produce content that impacts crucial topics in a way of stories. We’re all story consuming machines, aren’t we?

There’s a string between impacting the world socially and humour. People are connecting with a story and when they are laughing, they are open to new ideas. All the boundaries are down. So, Will Smith used humour as a way of growth, transformation and also building new skillsets.

As the actor said, “nothing will last forever”, so we must stay creative and prepared to change every time. There are two things Will Smith says that is important to stay creative but successfully changing things up: enjoyment and community.

We must stay happy with what we are doing for ourselves so we can always stand on the edge and prepare for what’s next in our lives. Then, the community is everything. We’re not able to catch up to all stuff that is currently happening around us, so bringing the insights of anyone else is crucial for the creative process.

To generate a global and relatable story, people with different backgrounds are needed – if they agree on something, they are bringing a lot of new perspectives. It’s magical when all the thoughts are mixed up together and result in a greater story to tell.

2. Designing a New Era of Experience

So, CX+EX=what? That was the main subject of this session hosted by Kristen Bellstrom, feature editor at Fortune 500, and starring Melody Hobson, from Ariel Investments.

They started with a question: why are we focused on CX and EX when they are connected?

We are always serving people and the best way to provide an excellent customer experience is to assure that our employee experience is great as well, so we must think of these two topics as one.

Now that we are working mostly from anywhere but the office, assuring that our EX is outstanding is the main path to have buy-in. People need to feel belonging and engaged, speaking directly to them and giving them responsibilities so they stay motivated.

No one wants a selfish work environment. Employees need to feel that they have a sit on the table and they are valued for something. Melody mentioned that at Ariel Investments they are focused on building a diverse team where minorities can find a purpose and a belonging world to work. We no longer can accept a role model – everyone has the same potential and the same will to succeed.

3. Getting More from Digital

After a year of ups and downs, constant changes, and uncertainty, we also watch different trends in consumption. For consumers, the convenience of online experience started with video streamings (like the brand new Salesforce+), or apps (like food delivery), or even online shopping. Bobby Jania tells us that last year was his first time shopping for groceries online, for example.

So, with the digital imperative, Vala Afshar, who is lucky enough to work and collaborate with digital leaders from diverse industries, showed that all types of sectors are waking up to the need of the digital-first customer, as the latest survey done by Salesforce showed us.
It presents us 3 big shifting trends for the Dreamforce 2021:

1 – Customer expectations
– They expect to engage with brands on digital-first experiences
– Social media is much more than memes, it’s a place to shop
– 60% of users purchased directly from social media
– e-Commerce continues to grow and had revenues of 4 trillion dollars in 2020
– 56% of the organizations expect the majority of revenues coming from digital in the next 3 years
– consumers want simple online self-service

People want consistency, connection, convenience, and personalised experience, which brings us to the next mentioned trend.

2 – Data unlocks personal experience
– More than 50% of today’s customers expect to have a personalised experience every time
– We expect a 40% increase in the number of data sources
– 78% of the most influence-digital companies use CDP to assure a better picture of their customers
– Brands need to bring more data to give a personal touch

3 – Speed is a competitive advantage
– 78% of customers prioritize agility
– Companies are using integration and automation to break down silos
– The use of collaboration tools makes teams collaborate virtually from everywhere
– Improving the velocity of decision-making is achieved by democratizing analytics

To reinforce the survey, Emilie Arel, President and Chief Commercial Officer at Casper, and Zena Arnold Global Chief Digital & Marketing Officer at Kimberly-Clark started a conversation about how their companies are working to maintain the consumer in the center.

Casper always had a consumer model different from Kimberly-Clark that used use a distribution model exclusively. So it looked that for Emelie Arel, the consumer journey was more clear and all the business processes were always based on research (also with the consumer) and science to results in innovation and design, and for Zena technology and data made it possible to develop a custom relationship.

Kimberly-Clark can now do a mutual value exchange, rather than selling, exchange information, and education. Provide for what purpose they are contributing are figuring out how they can maximize their presence in digital.

Both seem to agree that data and technologies need to be used in all consumer experience, product development, and marketing creation process (quick format and scale in a customized and personalized way.). A deep relation starts with data.

Whit opened the door to talk about some Salesforce tools that can give exactly this:
– Salesforce CDP easy way to put all your data together.
– B2B2C Commerce you can launch a direct consumer store fast, with clicks no code (in the case of Kimberly-Clark, no more data only with the distributor)
– CMS, Relevant content, personalized, and fast. You can use a drag and drop experience to build microsites (and as they are integrated with Cloud Marketing you can use Interaction Studio Personalization to personalize that content)

One of the most talked-about themes during this Dreamforce 2021 is how much the use of Slack in our daily life will help in this moment of hybrid work, collaborative work from everywhere.

And, as Maureen Maggionia, I am also a marketer and love to see how I can use Slack to collaborate on marketing journeys (Cloud Marketing Journeys for Slack), see how my campaigns are performing (Datorama Insights for Slack), and share results with my team. She also showed that for the content team it is possible to share previews for review, edit in collaboration and share in social media directly to Slack, and commerce teams have online store frame visibility with real-time alerts (B2C Commerce Alerts for Slack). So I don’t know about you, but I already downloaded the Digital Trends Report, and I am looking forward to starting to use Slack!

4. Black Women in Leadership

Social justice and racial equality were the keywords for this Dreamforce 2021 session.

Hosted by Soledad O’Brien, it was time to introduce 3 female Trailblazers black leaders that are impacting their communities: San Francisco Mayor London Breed, the award-winner Minda Harts, and the award-winner journalist Elaine Welteroth, who joined this discussion remotely.

The discussion started with the meaning of black excellence. This state of mind open doors and creates opportunities for other black people to really thrive in their community. However, black females have to work 10 times as hard for half the respect and pay, said Elaine.

There’s a different set of expectations for black people, especially women, mainly when it comes to decision-making.

Then the conversation switch to the obstacles of scaling a career in leadership for black women – they say it’s hard to earn trust from other people and the impact it has on mental health and wellbeing. Another issue brought to the discussion was the access of black women to leadership roles.

5. The Future of Health is Connected

Hosted by LaShonda Anderson-Williams, SVP of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Salesforce, this Dreamforce 2021 session celebrates how technology improved our global health and what it can do for us in the near future.

Due to the pandemic, a lot of changes happened and we’re still learning and working together across the world against it. From virtual care to clinical trials, partnerships across sectors were crucial to success. Mentioning some great examples of how Salesforce helped healthcare American companies thriving during the last year, the change in this sector is happening in just a few days. We no more wait for medical innovation for years!

After a quick introduction by LaShonda, DP Brightful, EVP of Healthcare & Life Sciences at Salesforce entered the stage to explain how the future of health is connected. Silos will be broken by digital bridges, connecting all healthcare infrastructures in one single system.

If the world needs connected health, there are some things that we need to accomplish. First of all, a platform that integrates payers, providers, medtech, pharma and the public sector health organizations into one place, so collaboration is possible. All stakeholders must be involved.

The connected health ecosystem delivers the modern health experience. Personalisation is the keyword for patients to provide safe and accurate treatments and prevention for many diseases. This will also achieve better outcomes and lower the costs of healthcare.

Then, William Fleming, segment president of pharmacy solutions and chief corporate affairs officer at Humana, entered the stage virtually to tell his experience with Salesforce on building a more connected healthcare solution.

Healthcare transformation is all about improving quality, decreasing costs, expanding access and personalisation every day.

This is the day 2 review of our Dreamforce 2021 experience. We’re so excited about day 3! I made this article collaboratively with Gabriela Scatena and Sandra Soares.

PS: We also have a lot of information about Dreamforce 2021 day 1, check it out.