Docurated: Dreamforce 2014: Wednesday Highlights
October 17, 2014-
By Cóbhan Phillipson
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By Cóbhan Phillipson
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So Dreamforce 2014 has come and gone. After an exciting week of product launches, innovation, networking, and the occasional bourbon tasting reception, we have decided to take the time to relive some of our favorite moments of Dreamforce 2014.
In an event jam-packed with inspirational speaking performances, we have put together our highlights from each day of Dreamforce. Already this week we have posted our top Dreamforce moments from Monday and Tuesday. Today we will take a look back at day 3 of Dreamforce.
While many of Wednesday’s headlines centered around the launch of Will.i.am’s new smartwatch, there were many other highlights throughout the day.
#BizAgility and Creating Success with Football Legend Joe Montana
The great Joe Montana was on hand to share his experiences on building a winning football team. In 1978, the San Francisco 49’ers ended their season at 2-14 – one of the lowest in the league. Rather than sticking to the status quo, the team reinvented themselves to edge out the competition and win their first Super Bowl. Joe explained how creating success came through leadership, calculated risks, and having the right tools at hand.
Joe was joined by Mark Grilli, VP of Marketing at Adobe EchoSign, who expertly steered the conversation towards how the lessons Joe learned on the field can be translated to winning in business. In a highly motivational session, Joe did not disappoint. We took four key points away from the session:
- Pay attention to the little things you never know when the little things come back to help you.
- Always put in those extra inches
- Culture begins at the top
- If you make a mistake, own it and move on
5 Cloud Trends that will Transform your Business
An excellent panel including Box’s Whitney Bouck and Neil Hudspith of DocuSign gave a great session on how to solve the challenge of running your business in the cloud, with different solutions. The speakers provided a number of real life cases of doing business in the cloud and the benefits it can bring.
As partners of Box and big time users of DocuSign we found ourselves in wholehearted agreement with the speakers. We also appreciated the chance to learn about some unique user cases.
Sales Leadership Panel: Secrets of the Big Guns
This session provided some great insights into how successful sales leaders drive top-line growth with Salesforce CRM. A set of speakers including key executives and thought leaders like Joe Frio, VP, Informatica covered a number of important topics including:
- Using performance data to drive result
- Executive complex selling methodologies at scale
- Helping partners deliver world class business outcomes
Driving Revenue by Standardizing Your Sales Processes
A formidable line up of sales process experts including Cenveo’s Kathy Coates spoke about how large organizations look to Salesforce as their company standard for their sales process as they grow. The panel including Sri Viswanath from Groupon explained how they not only created one organizational structure in Salesforce, but more importantly, standardized on common best practices and processes in their sales function.
As providers of sales acceleration software, we are always looking to enhance our understanding of sales processes and Kathy Coates’s tips and ideas on best practices provided us with a valuable learning opportunity.
Everything Small Businesses Should Know About B2B Online Marketing
When Docurated’s marketing team heard that the authors of Complete B2B Online Marketing: A Practitioner’s Guide were going to be at Dreamforce, this session was immediately jotted down as a “must attend”. In a session that did not disappoint, Marketwired’s, SVP of Marketing, Lauren Vaccarello and Maura Ginty of GeoEX explained how online marketing can really work in the B2B space. They also spoke about optimizing online strategy for a long sales cycle.
#1 Competitive Edge in Today’s Sales World: Jill Konrath & Panel
With today’s escalating buyer expectations and ever-changing business environment, it’s tough to stay at the top of your game. An all-star panel of female sales leaders presented an enjoyable session which tackled key career questions. Jill Konrath, author of Agile Selling and SNAP Selling, kicked things off by explaining how she mastered a “never-fail mindset”. The conversation continued as a panel of leading female sales experts including Josiane Feigon, Joanne Black, Trish Bertuzzi, and Thomson Reuters’ Debra Walton also shared some fresh strategies you can leverage to develop individual and team mastery.
We particularly enjoyed Debra Walton’s ideas on staying agile in today’s business world. She explained that whenever she takes on a new role she immerses herself in a “30-day deep dive of interviews with key stakeholders, including employees across the business, customers, partners, and thought leaders.” According to Debra, the most important question to ask when assuming a new role is “What would someone else focus on if they were in my role?”
Agility & Innovation: Accelerating the Business While Maintaining Compliance
Enterprise cloud computing accelerates business agility and innovation around the world, but can you keep your regulators happy? Experts including Kris Wagner from Covidien and Gary Yantsos from Topcon Medical Systems explained how they are modernizing, streamlining, and uncovering new value on the Salesforce1 Platform while building device tracking tools, complaint management, and other critical business processes to maintain compliance.
A highly informative session, Kris & Gary presented on cutting edge technology with regards to compliance in the HLS space. Kris talked about the sales cloud deployment at Covidien which began in June 2012 and now has some 6,000 active users worldwide and how Salesforce has facilitated further mobile enablement of customer facing operations.
Internet of Connected Products (IoCP): Hype or Reality Panel
An interactive panel of experts including Joel Young, Sr. Vice President and CTO of Digi International participated in a discussion on the Internet of Connected Products (IoCP). On a day that saw the official launch of Will.i.am’s smartwatch, it was great to hear from true visionaries where they think the IoCP is headed.
AppExchange: From Open Source to Force.com
Re-architecting any application is a scary proposition, especially an Enterprise-level application. But that’s exactly what Point of Reference did, rebuilding their Open Source application from the ground up on the Force.com platform to deliver the next-generation of Customer Reference Management to sales and marketing teams. In an informative session, Darren Smith from Point of Reference and Jim Maher from Epicor explained how this was quickly achieved.
Name That Advantage
Just after lunch on wednesday we headed to the Cloud Expo, Partner Theater North for a 20 minute rapid fire, interactive name that advantage quiz helmed by Pros’ Chris Mills. A sample questions in the quiz was “can you name the famous Olympic swimmer whose competitive advantages include an arm span that is three inches greater than his total height, a 20% efficiency boost thanks to double joints in his chest, a much higher-than-average lung capacity, 50% less lactic acid production than his competitors, and a 10% advantage in foot size?” This prize-filled session about winning big with huge advantages in sports and sales offered a nice change and kickstarted our post lunch agenda.
Salesforce Integration Lessons from the Trenches: Get More from Your Back Office
An A list panel including Owen McQueen from SoftwareAG, Chris Purpura from Mulesoft, Informatica’s Ronen Schwartz, and Ilan Sehayek of Jitterbit provided some great tips as they discussed integration strategies and models for Salesforce.
Having just launched Docurated for Salesforce we were delighted to get the opportunity to hear some more about Salesforce integration from leading experts.
Boost Sales with the World’s Leading Sales Performance Solution
Work.com is revolutionizing the way sales organizations onboard sales reps faster, coach them to close more deals, and decrease attrition. Jager McConnell, VP of Product Management at salesforce.com took us through a tour of Work.com which was built entirely on the Salesforce Platform.
He was joined by an interesting set of speakers including Kristi Brown, Vice President, Apollo Education Group and Mike Rutz, EVP, Sales at Angie’s List. Mike explained how Angie’s List were able to to improve the number of sales reps who meet quota by nearly five-times, while reducing the ramp time for new sales managers by up to ten months.
How to Make Your Road Warriors More Productive
Experts including Bill Mackenzie, Head of Global Sales Enablement at Hibu and Steve Sigrist, VP Customer Development Operations, Newell Rubbermaid discussed how using Sales Cloud has helped them drive sales productivity and grow their top line. The session provided some nice tips on how to transform the field Sales function.
We gleaned some great insights here from a forward looking panel. In a really strong presentation filled with “real-world” examples, Bill shared his impressive mobile philosophy and implementation and explained how large organizations amp up the selling process with collaboration, mobile, and cloud technology.
Digital Demystified – Making Sales & Service Investments Pay Off
The “new” Digital technologies, social, mobile, analytics, cloud, and knowledge management (SMACK) are disrupting traditional Sales & Service models to adapt to radically-changing customer expectations. 88% of companies are investing here, but only 24% of companies are getting results at SPEED. A panel including Jesse Singh, Senior Vice President Marketing and Sales at 3M, explained what their companies are doing differently as they transform these new disruptive forces into a competitive advantage.
One major takeaway from a lively discussion is that “every big company has to think like a startup” to get the most out of emerging and disruptive technologies.
The Digital Financial Services Future
A great set of speakers including ETRADE’s Teron Douglas spoke about the Salesforce1 Platform as it relates to the future of Digital Experiences in the Financial Services marketplace. As financial services organizations of all sizes, shapes, and markets race to define the digital experience of the future, the panel explored both an agent-facing and customer-facing perspective, from simple processes to complex processes, awareness, context, relevance, and personal digital and mobile experiences.
Teron explained how ETRADE are leading and defining this space and creating new customer excitement and agent empowerment as they embrace and re-define old models in the digital ecosystem.
Service Cloud Keynote: Deliver the Future of Customer Service. Today.
Service Cloud SVP & GM Mike Milburn moderated an intriguing discussion on the future of customer service and its growing importance. The panel included Liza Landsman, CMO of ETRADE, who’s very presence on the panel illustrates the blurring lines between customer service and marketing. Liza acknowledged this shift pointing out that both service and marketing want to get insight into the customer experience. Liza even went so far as to say that “the gap between sales, service & marketing has totally disappeared”.
Salesforce1 Platform Keynote: Build Apps Fast. Build Business Faster
A thoroughly enjoyable session featuring Eli Lilly and Company Vice President and CTO, Michael Meadows and Brown-Forman’s Vice President – Technology Architecture and Innovation, Toby Lester discussed how speed and innovation have become today’s currency for business as the onslaught of disruptive technologies open up new opportunities.
Michael and Toby shared some great stories on how they transformed their business with apps built on the Salesforce1 Platform. A valuable learning opportunity, the session provided a neat demonstration of the potential Salesforce1 Lightning to building connected apps and devices through the Salesforce cloud with speed.
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By Cóbhan Phillipson
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