More than 150,000 attendees are expected at Dreamforce in San Francisco, where Salesforce will show how recent acquisitions fit into its product platform.
Users can anticipate more Einstein AI features to be integrated with Salesforce products and more news about the CRM vendor's recent acquisitions and how they will play pivotal roles in the Salesforce platform.
Salesforce is expected to unveil the Einstein and acquisition developments at Dreamforce, the company's annual customer conference in San Francisco that attracts nearly 150,000 attendees.
Analysts said they expect substantial upgrades to core Salesforce systems and more use cases for Einstein and how recent acquisitions of CloudCraze and MuleSoft fit into the Salesforce ecosystem.
"Salesforce is trying to tell the story that they are the customer success platform for all companies, B2B, B2C and companies that operate in both industries," said John Bruno, an analyst at Forrester.
Bruno added that he expects more keynotes than usual from companies like Adidas that show how Salesforce products allow companies to work with a variety of customers, from both the business and consumer sectors.
"I think you'll hear a tight story around exactly how Salesforce and CloudCraze and Commerce Cloud fit for B2B and B2C companies," Bruno said. "Is it going to be prime time ready? No, but they will target that story because Salesforce hasn't told that story great."
Users can learn about new upgrades and features for all Salesforce products at Dreamforce conference.
New Quip Slides system
Meanwhile, Salesforce said Sept. 17, a week before Dreamforce, that it will be showing at the conference PowerPoint-esque upgrade to its content collaboration platform, Quip, called Quip Slides.
Quip Slides is an AI-assisted platform to help workgroups create interactive presentations mainly for internal meetings and training. It features real-time collaboration, charting, live data, feedback prompts and engagement insights.
Another feature in Quip is Salesforce partner-built Live Apps, which enable work teams to embed Box and Dropbox files into Quip.
Integrating the Integration Cloud
The CloudCraze acquisition was just one of several the San Francisco-based CRM giant made to improve its suite of products. Salesforce spent $6.5 billion to acquire MuleSoft and build out what it's calling the Integration Cloud.
What Salesforce is recognizing is there's a whole different set of roles for how you manage customers now.
John Brunoanalyst, Forrester
Paul Greenberg, founder and analyst at The 56 Group, said he sees the name "Integration Cloud" as a misnomer, but that he thinks the MuleSoft purchase is a pivotal acquisition to bolster Salesforce.
"Despite its silly name as Integration Cloud, MuleSoft was a smart acquisition as it gives Salesforce access to all these different layers of service and does a lot of things Salesforce couldn't previously do," Greenberg said. "For integrations to succeed, it's not just about building on the Salesforce platform. Without MuleSoft it was harder to build out integrations."
With many organizations working to upgrade legacy systems and update their processes and provide customers with a modern experience, the ability to connect legacy systems to current platforms is often laborious. Salesforce hopes its Integration Cloud will help ease that transition.
"We've ended up in a hybrid world," said Michael Fauscette, chief research officer at G2 Crowd. "We've created so many data silo issues and it's incumbent on the platform players to provide the ability to get past that."
Continuing with business transformation
In addition to the expected unveiling of Integration Cloud and B2B commerce use cases, Salesforce is anticipated to continue its strategy of bringing together different customer-facing departments to help curate better customer experiences.
"I don't think it's a fully mature or fully conscious Salesforce strategy, but Salesforce is drilling down toward more personalization," Greenberg said. "Salesforce's Connections conference was the first step to that public story where we saw Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud and Service Cloud becoming cross clouds in more significant ways than ever before."
Bruno, from Forrester, agreed that organizational transformation and how Salesforce products can help is a major theme for Salesforce.
"What Salesforce is recognizing is there's a whole different set of roles for how you manage customers now," Bruno said. "I can see themes where [Salesforce] recognizes businesses have changed, customer engagement has changed and they are trying to provide solutions to account for that."
More than just Salesforce products
Beyond the larger topics around its new acquisitions and customer empowerment, all of the core Salesforce products are expected to receive upgrades and users will be able to attend sessions with roadmaps outlining the future for Salesforce products.
"A core part of Dreamforce is about unveiling new innovations and it's what customers have come to expect," said Brigitte Donner, VP and conference chair for Dreamforce, at Salesforce. "We have more product keynotes planned than ever before."
Donner added that the theme for Dreamforce is "change," extending beyond just Salesforce products to larger social issues, with the first climate summit planned at Dreamforce this year, as well as Salesforce bringing back an equality summit.
Dreamforce takes place Sept. 25 to 28. Check SearchSalesforce.com for daily conference coverage.
