Every Dreamforce promises to be bigger and better than the last, but this one felt…special. The blend of innovation, learning opportunities, and excitement made this year’s event one for the books. Now that everyone’s back at their desk after the excitement in San Francisco, you might be thinking: How can I keep driving my company’s transformation into an AI-powered enterprise?
In this article, discover some of the highlights from Dreamforce 2024 and how your organization can start implementing key takeaways, today.
Ushering in a new AI era
Although AI is still relatively new, its landscape is constantly shifting and evolving– something both Salesforce and CEO Marc Benioff are well accustomed to. In his Dreamforce keynote, Benioff unpacked the waves of AI: Wave 1: Predictive, Wave 2: Copilot, and Wave 3: Agents, and the implications for global businesses.
Agentforce, Salesforce’s latest innovation, works to ‘augment employees and handle tasks in service, sales, marketing, and commerce, driving unprecedented efficiency and customer satisfaction.’ And, what are building agents contingent on? You guessed it: data and metadata, which must be accurate and available to move your initiatives forward. "In this new era of AI and Agents, customer data and metadata are the new gold for the enterprise” expressed Rahul Auradkar, EVP and GM for Data Cloud at Salesforce, making all the more reason to protect and activate it.
How, you ask? Mark your calendar for the webinar, Revolutionizing Salesforce Data: A Leadership Panel on AI-Powered Insights and Dreamforce’s Hot News on October 1, 2024. Product and CRM leaders at Own Company will share key strategies for unlocking historical data to fuel your business’s future, and how Own Discover makes this possible. Save your spot here.
(Trail)blazing a data-driven path
Whether you’re part of a multinational, startup, or somewhere in between, transforming your company into an AI enterprise doesn’t happen overnight. However, the action you can take now, big or small, can make an impact on your data-driven future, with Arvest Bank, Abbott Laboratories, Twilio, PwC and more as proof. At Dreamforce, attendees learned how these companies are prioritizing the protection and activation of their most precious asset: their data.
In the session ‘Know Your Past, Fuel Your Future: Historical Data for AI’ Own Company’s Senior Product Marketing Manager Selma Chang and Director of Enterprise Applications Gina Marques spoke with Nasdaq’s Director of Architecture Kelly Petitjean about the important of leveraging historical data to enhance predictive models, gain actionable insights, and fuel success. Other notable sessions included ‘Build Resilience: New Backup Strategies for Critical Data’, ‘Unlock Your Data Securely with Zero Data Copy Partners', and ‘How Data Leaders Future-proof Their Strategies for Growth’ which will be available for streaming on Salesforce+ soon.
So, how can you turn these session insights into action? Start by taking a look at the common goals of the featured company and your own. Were they looking to generate business analytics faster? Streamline compliance and reduce risk? Ensure business continuity? By identifying overlaps, you can start to understand what it took to prioritize and effectively accomplish their goals, and follow suit. Also, it can help gauge a rough timeline and required resources to turn your vision into reality. This way, when it’s time to have strategic conversations, you’ll have an informed outlook on expectations and deliverables.
For more inspiration, check out the Own Award program winners, who have successfully navigated complex data protection and activation challenges and delivered exceptional results using the Own Data Platform.
Protecting and activating your data starts by asking the right questions
With so much emphasis on AI, data, and trust, Dreamforce served as the perfect backdrop for socializing how your Salesforce data protection and activation efforts measure up–and the consequences if they don’t. Whether you’re new to the conversation or are considering changing processes or vendors, it’s important to be aware of your SaaS data protection platform capabilities and limitations before signing on the dotted line. Here’s a list of must-ask questions for your post-Dreamforce conversations, based on your unique needs:
-How many Salesforce AppExchange reviews does your solution have?
-Does your solution protect data, metadata, attachments, and files?
-What kind of support is available to restore data?
-Can I conduct a POC using my own data?
-Does your solution offer Continuous Data Protection?
-Can your solution ensure compliance with global data privacy regulations, like GDPR and CCPA, and is it FedRAMP® authorized?
-How does your solution support time-series data for reporting and analytics?
-How does your off-platform analytics solution differ from a data warehouse like Snowflake?
- How does your solution integrate with SQL-based BI tools, AI platforms, or via Zero Copy to Data Cloud?
*For a comprehensive list of backup and recovery solution assessment questions, check out our ebook Buyer’s Guide for Backup and Recovery.
Beyond Dreamforce: Your Salesforce data and Own
While Dreamforce 2024 may be over, your organization is just getting started on its journey to becoming an AI enterprise. With the insights gleaned from the three day event, you and your team can proactively prepare your organization’s Salesforce data for success. (Your future self will thank you).
Looking to jumpstart data protection and activation? Set up a meeting today.
