by Dorottya Dvorak 
Once again Salesforce World Tour London 2017 turned out to be a big and well orchestrated event for the community. The keynote that year, as always, was impressive.
It is clear that Salesforce, along with many others, views AI as the next big thing. All technology companies tend to launch their entry into such technologies with great fanfare but it will be some time before customers and partners see the real potential of this technology coming through.
We have yet to see it in action but a true machine learning view of the Sales pipeline could be a game changer for many smaller organisations who simply do not have the skills and bandwidth to analyse the data properly themselves. As with all of these things, it is the execution of the technology that is the important aspect and we believe as a partner we are in a excellent place to help all of our customers get the most out of the platform as a whole.
One of our Directors, Nick Clark said:
“Salesforce is big! And it’s getting bigger all the time. No one can be an expert in every area that the platform has to offer so it has never been more important to engage the skills of a team of professionals whose job it is to be great at all things Salesforce!”
Want to see what everyone else from our team thought about World Tour?
Sarah Kelleher, Head of Pardot
“This year’s World Tour was the busiest yet and it was great to see so many new faces as well as plenty of familiar ones! It’s clear to me that Einstein and AI are the current focus for Salesforce, which makes this a really exciting time to be working in the industry. The applications of the platform go way beyond the sales function now and can deliver real value across every area of businesses.”
Jack Bailey-Grundy, Senior Consultant
“It wasn’t quite Skynet, but the powerful AI revolution is definitely here. From intelligent lead scoring for Marketers and predictive tools for your Sales team, right through to alerts to assist your Service Engineers, there are some really advanced tools to help us all with our work. And what’s more, a lot is being built into the core platform itself – so while there are undoubtedly some premium products – some really cool functionality is being rolled out to all of us to get stuck into which is really exciting. Your new friendly AI, Einstein, will soon be your best friend.”
Nicola Eagling, Senior Consultant
“What strikes me again is that the customer is still at the very forefront of Salesforce’s mind when they consider new innovations on their platform. It continues to be about delivering the most personalised and relevant journey for our customers in order for us to engage with them in a more compelling way. With AI a key focus of this year’s World Tour, this process should only become easier for us to do in the future and I’m interested to see how this is applied successfully across the industry.”
Aidan Harding, Head of Development:
It was the busiest year so far, with the developer theatre drawing large crowds. My highlights included seeing how the new ft.com site is running on Heroku and AWS; along with the continued growth of Lightning. The AI-powered Einstein feature is also a prominent part of Salesforce’s future plans, so we’ll be looking for the right opportunities to make the most of it.
Kerry Watt, Consultant:
“Last year was about Lightning, a year on things have moved to Artificial Intelligence! The world of CRM seems to have no boundaries and the Salesforce world tour continued to overwhelm me with its sheer scale and the opportunity it gives customers. The tour highlighted how Digital transformation has to be part of a company’s business strategy, without which some may find they are left behind and never able to catch up. For me, I came away excited about the Summer 17 release which closes the gap between Lightning and Classic demonstrating how customer experience is at the heart of everything Salesforce does.”
James Campbell, Director:
“The thing that hit home to me this World Tour was just how much Salesforce ecosystem has grown in recent years. With AI, Krux, Demandware, Quip, CPQ, Field Service being just some of the recent developments / acquisitions that many were talking about, it is a real challenge keeping up with it all! This will clearly change the partner landscape and it is more important than ever for partners to focus their skillset based on existing capabilities and their customers’ needs.”
Dorottya Dvorak, Digital Marketing Executive:
“Customer experience has been a buzzword for marketers over the last couple of years, but for me it was this year’s World Tour that gave it a true meaning. Thanks to the keynote and an Einstein AI presentation, I was able to learn that now it is possible to see real-time and customised demands in order to provide a prompt and personalised customer service. As a digital marketer I’m curious to see where this will lead and what kind of new technologies will be developed in a way that will make our lives even more exciting.”
Paul Kissick, Senior Developer:
“The focus for Salesforce is clearly on Lightning and moving customers to the new UI. With new Einstein-based features available in Lightning only and the Lightning Experience maturing to a point where it’s becoming a lot more usable, customers will be looking to migrate sooner, rather than later. Developer Sessions highlighting the features and benefits of Lightning, as well as sharing some best practices, will help drive this adoption and encourage everyone to enjoy the new Lightning based UI.”
So there you go, our thoughts on another successful Salesforce World Tour London! As the Summer ’17 Release brings more Lightning and Einstein capabilities, many of you may be interested learning more about them. Be sure to contact us to see how we can help you migrate your org from Classic over to Lightning and make the most out of Einstein predictions.