Cooking one meal in seven kitchens – Why? A new look at Cloud

Cirrus, Nimbus, Stratus, Cumulus and so on. Public, Private, Multi, Vertical, Self-service, Super and so on. So many clouds, and yet, to each his/her own.

What looks like ‘just pink’ to a colour-blind guy, can be anything to the sharp and nuanced gaze of a girl – salmonella pink, rose pink, fuschia pink, taffy pink etc. Speaking to Ketan Karkhanis, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Sales Cloud, Salesforce, can give anyone that jolt of ‘phew, so few’. But speaking to him also reveals why the Cloud is changing in its shades, its adoption, its challenges and its pockets of mist.

Now that we are past 2022, do you see enterprises moving away from knee-jerk cloud investments made during the pandemic?

A lot has changed. Even our sales meetings happen in-person only when the occasion calls for. Most face-meetings are purpose-driven. The pandemic has changed everything and some changes are not going to be reversed. The same is visible in how enterprises look at Cloud. They have gone from digital-first to digital-only. Clients are looking at customer experience delivery in B2B areas.

They are looking at ‘efficient growth’ and not at ‘growth at all costs’. They are looking at maximizing their selling potential without increasing operating expenses. They are also moving towards tech-consolidation.

How and why?

In the last six to seven years, there has been a renaissance in sales technology. Hundreds of point solutions had come up. Many sales representatives in an average organization were using seven to eight products. But the industry has outlived that trend now. As seen in Salesforce’s new State of Sales Report—70 per cent of sales leaders say their sales organization takes fewer risks now than before the pandemic vs. 82 per cent of sales leaders in India. Also sales reps spend only 28 per cent of their week selling, and 66 per cent say they’re overwhelmed by too many sales tools. Sales teams experienced a 25 per cent average turnover rate over the past year, while nearly nine out of 10 sales leaders say they struggle to get budget for needed headcount. Sales reps spend only 28 per cent of their week selling – down from 34 per cent in 2018 — 27 per cent in India.

Does that mean a room for consolidation?

Yes, tech consolidation is the top priority. And that’s a good piece of news for us. Ours is a complete platform. We also enable the idea of self-service – something that has quickly moved as an imperative from B2C to B2B landscape also. In the last two-three years we have become used to buying everything with a click, and the same is transpiring in B2B side now. People want grow across all channels, and they are consolidating. They are also moving towards self-service options.

As the report also pointed out, 94 per cent of sales organizations (99 per cent in India) plan to consolidate their tech stacks over the coming year to boost productivity. Cross-functional alignment is sales leaders’ number one tactic for driving growth, with 81 per cent of sales reps saying team selling helps them close. And 55 per cent of sales leaders say they’re prioritizing low-risk initiatives with modest guaranteed growth versus 45 per cent who are prioritizing high-growth initiatives with high risk and unpredictability.

Is all this happening because products have become simpler or more plug-and-play than before?

Yes, products have become easier to use. In the first purchase stage, one may need the typical buying process and go through all considerations. But in the second time, and with the third upgrade, one need not go through the whole cycle. Our self-service options make the whole thing seamless. One can easily renew a license without hassle.

Why are some enterprises resorting to Cloud repatriation?

We have not seen such instances. But I would say that not all Clouds are equal. For 16 years in a row, we have been recognized by Gartner for the criteria of ‘trust’. This word is manifested through many aspects like scalability, reliability, transparent billing, seamless upgrades etc. There are some players that may have encountered rollbacks. There are players that do hosting and call themselves Cloud providers. But we have not seen the roll-back trend.

How crucial is security now after the recent spate of supply-chain attacks and third-party fragility?

It was always a priority for us. In fact, when we began, customers were hesitant to put CRM on Cloud. But we have cultivated a strong sense of trust. Our customers know we are there for audits, compliance etc. and thousands of our engineers are working on security. That said, security is a never-ending game. We always strive to keep it strong.

Are Super Clouds the next thing?

You have to think of tech-consolidation from a user’s point of view. A customer does not want its salespeople to log in from seven different platforms and bogged down with too many features. Why to cook one meal in seven kitchens?

With automotive 360 and other such offerings, you are deepening your forte in vertical clouds, right?

We call them industry products and it’s a game-changer approach. Every industry has its nuance and coding these nuances in the product helps to accelerate the time-to-value aspect for the customer. It fits a given business well. We are doing it for financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and automotives.

We talk about ‘how to actually leverage a feature’ and not just talk about the new features and tools that we have. It’s more than Sales Force Automation. It’s a sales growth platform. We do not just give more or better ingredients to our customers. We help them cook.

This trend is going to continue ahead. India is an exciting market that way and we have seen good traction in BFSI and automotive verticals.

What are you bringing in next?

There’s Einstein, there’s intelligence-driven CRM. There’s sales enablement product where a salesperson can have a coach by his/her side while the process is on. There’s something for pipe inspection. There’s something for forecasting. A lot is coming up. Like how Salesforce’s Sales Cloud and Slack are bringing a new, native integration with Sales Cloud that will be available early next year, as well as a productivity bundle that’s available immediately. The new productivity solutions will connect the right people, critical insights and scalable automation together in one place, without adding more tools.

Salesforce has also introduced Tableau Genie, a technology to help businesses of all types find success now through real-time data insights into their customers. With Genie and Tableau, customers can bring together all Salesforce data into one place, helping turn raw data into actionable insights to drive better business outcomes and more efficient workflows. Tableau Genie seamlessly integrates with existing Salesforce CDP and products and enables customers to automate data analysis, leverage AI-driven insights to make better decisions and act on real-time data.

What does it mean for companies?

Marketers can leverage data to understand the factors driving customers’ attitudes and behaviors. Real-time web traffic data can help brands scale to meet demand quickly, delivering a flawless customer experience and connecting engagement to activity, following unplanned endorsements or a video going viral on social media. Service leaders can use case data to spot problems and triage support right away. This helps them scale their services seamlessly to support customers navigating an outage and real-time case data can inform investments in services or staff. Retailers can turn their enormous reservoir of customer data into actionable insights. A holistic understanding of customer data can help create personalized shopping experiences and help organizations across the industry make informed decisions about marketing, sales and loyalty. Even Financial Services companies can use client activities and life events to better understand their clients’ financial needs and proactively help them plan for key milestones like buying a new home, paying for college or planning their retirement.

CRM has, compellingly, moved from data to customer-intimacy and anticipatory-selling. Do you agree with the fear that someday these systems, powered with AI, can hack human brains too? Or are we being paranoid here?

It is an exciting topic for speculation. You can easily go wrong if your intention is not about serving your customers well. If you can serve their needs well, giving them exactly what they want – that’s a good evolution. It depends on ‘whether you want to know’ or ‘whether you want to serve them better’. And today’s customers, specially millennials, are very savvy. They have high expectations. I also see that the very purpose and personality of ‘sales’ is changing. It’s no more about selling. It’s about creating better outcomes.

Your advice to customers?

We know that customers have a business to run. They do not have time to learn the technology they buy. So we try our best to focus less on technology and more on ‘best practices’. We talk about ‘how to actually leverage a feature’ and not just talk about the new features and tools that we have. It’s more than Sales Force Automation. It’s a sales growth platform. We do not just give more or better ingredients to our customers. We help them cook.

Ketan Karkhanis

Executive Vice President and General Manager of Sales Cloud, Salesforce

By Pratima H

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in