The rise of generative artificial intelligence is forcing solutions companies to refine operations. One of those is Salesforce Inc., whose considerable yet disparate platforms across sales, customer services, analytics, and e-commerce have been integrated through enhanced data integration as it eyes a more cohesive positioning in the enterprise software space.
Christophe Bertrand and John Furrier dissect the route for Salesforce to continue its upward momentum.
“Salesforce has always been hampered by the reputation of having multiple disparate systems through acquisitions and multiple platforms not working well together,” said John Furrier (pictured, right), chief analyst at theCUBE Research. “This Dreamforce could be Salesforce living the dream, bringing it all together and building those abstraction layers and making gen AI the glue layer, so to speak, to … abstract away all the complexity, reduce the steps it takes to get things done.”
Furrier was joined by fellow theCUBE Research analyst Christophe Bertrand (left) for an analyst segment at Dreamforce, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They dissected the route for Salesforce to continue its upward momentum through data integration, exploring factors such as operational efficiency, ecosystem innovation and developer engagement.
Operational efficiency and data integration: The promise of gen AI and automation
Along with data integration, gen AI is the glue to unite Salesforce’s disparate systems and simplify workflows. By reducing complexity and making data integration more seamless, Salesforce is poised to revolutionize how businesses operate within its ecosystem, according to Bertrand.
“We had a great conversation with a customer this morning, a smaller size company, but they were able, in a matter of weeks or months, to leverage the capabilities of gen AI in Salesforce on their own, without having to go to a complex type of process with an external integrator,” he said. “So, I think there is definitely a lot going on.”
As Salesforce integrates more AI into its ecosystem, data protection and cybersecurity concerns are rising. With vast amounts of data flowing through APIs, third-party applications and partner ecosystems, Salesforce must get data protection and security right, Bertrand added.
“One of the things that’s key here is to remember that there is a bulk API, and that bulk API has been an interesting way of protecting data within Salesforce,” he said. “I would say this is a perfect question because of the recent announcement of the acquisition of OwnBackup … which actually begs a few questions. Number one is they have tried a couple of times to get into that data protection space, backup and recovery space. Yet that didn’t quite work.”
Salesforce’s ongoing collaboration with cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services Inc. underscores the company’s commitment to operational efficiency. By enhancing such partnerships and simplifying data flows through APIs, the company aims to streamline operations for businesses.
“I had a great example earlier today when we spoke with a client of Salesforce that started by just dealing with leads and then got into the whole ERP platform and operating the business on Salesforce,” he said. “Of course, now getting into gen AI and augmented type of use cases. What I took away from it is the built-in efficiency is tremendous.”
Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of Dreamforce 2024: