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After more than two years of keeping our distance, the Salesforce World Tour Sydney 2022 Main Show carried a broad theme: the importance of human connection, and how it drives us to do more and be more.
This includes bringing people together, but it also includes looking after one another in a variety of ways: caring for our planet, keeping others safe, giving back to our communities and working together to find innovative solutions to urgent challenges.
We then heard from Pip Marlow, CEO & EVP, ANZ/ASEAN at Salesforce, who delivered a keynote that was celebratory yet called for action.
Echoing a sentiment heard throughout the day, Pip noted the event had the feel of a ‘family reunion’ — one with old friends, new inspirations, and a stronger-than-ever resolve to build a better future that benefits everyone.
“Values are our north star, and continue to be our north star,” she explained, before revealing that Salesforce had added a new value: Sustainability, joining the existing values of Trust, Customer Success, Innovation and Equality.
Put simply, Salesforce is on Team Earth and is taking actions both inside and outside the organisation to achieve net zero emissions — for instance, Salesforce has partnered with Queensland solar farm X-ELIO and will offset 320,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
“It’s not just what we’re doing ourselves, it’s how we help others.”
This is the crux of Salesforce’s 1-1-1 model, which dedicates 1% of equity, 1% of product and 1% of employees’ time back to our communities. The more we all succeed and grow, the more we can help others.
As part of that commitment, Pip announced two exciting grants to Raise and DeadlyScience – you can read more about the work they do and how they’ll be using these grants to make the digital economy accessible to everyone and prepare Australia for the future.
In other words, the drive to innovate and succeed from anywhere is inextricably linked to our ability to build a better future — and present — for everyone. But innovation often depends on a new type of leadership, one that was on full display in Pip’s interview with Dylan Alcott.
Before becoming the first person with a visible disability to win Australian of the Year, Dylan Alcott was already a Paralympic champion and tennis golden grand slam winner. But, on stage, Dylan shared that he used to see himself in a very different way and experienced bullying due to his disability. To overcome those challenges, Dylan credits the support from family and mentors — and his overarching purpose is to do the same for others by giving back in any way he can.
“Being a good tennis player is about number 30 on my priority list… It’s so much easier to get out of bed when you live your life with purpose. It’s not ‘me’, it’s ‘we’.”
As an example, Dylan recently helped advocate for free COVID-19 rapid antigen testing in Victoria for people with disabilities. He also leads a consulting firm, where employees all have some type of disability.
So how is he accomplishing all this?
First, Dylan challenged the traditional idea of a stoic ‘leader’, explaining that vulnerability is a crucial part of connecting with others. Leading by example, Dylan shared the difficulties of overcoming negative self image and bullying. He said that it takes lots of hard work, yes — but it’s also about being yourself and knowing when to ask others for help, including seeking mental health support in the same way we train our bodies physically.
It would be hard to follow a class act like Dylan — in post-show remarks, he called his own performance the “worst” on the stage but, sorry Dylan, no one agrees with you about that! Yet one of our favourite moments of the show happened when Pip awarded a coveted Golden Hoodie to Two21 founder Kel Henderson. She pointed out that it’s a great example of not needing to be a huge organisation to put a 1-1-1 model to good use.
Kel shared that, after one of his sons was born with Down’s syndrome, he questioned his purpose — and ultimately decided that he wanted to use his 25 years of IT experience in a way that gave back. This led him to found Two21, a Salesforce partner and IT consulting firm that specialises in assisting the not-for-profit sector.
With over 800 Trailhead badges, Kel’s advice to other Trailblazers was this: “You’ve got all the tools. You can go and learn anything to do whatever you want.”
Another motif of the day? Going from ‘wow’ to ‘how’.
This underpinned many of the comments from Gayan Benedict, CTO and VP of Customer Advisory, ANZ. Building on Pip’s keynote, which explored the type of future we wanted to build and why, Gayan acknowledged that we’re in a “new world.” That’s left many of us asking: “How is the new future going to work?”
Practically speaking, it’s shaking out to be a business landscape where connecting with customers has never been harder — or more important. This doesn’t just require new ways of working, said Gayan, it requires a whole new playbook. And a new playbook needs to include a digital head office that can connect employees and customers from anywhere. It needs to facilitate the ‘wowing’ of customers.
“In a digital world, your competition is a click away. To get noticed, you have to do more than just meet expectations.”
This sort of ‘wow’ starts with Customer 360, a single source of truth, and a digital HQ. But we also heard exciting announcements that will help Trailblazers build on these foundations and take the ‘wow’ to the next level.
Lynne Zaledonis, Salesforce’s EVP of Cloud and Industry Marketing, joined us all the way from the United States to explain the exciting launches of brand-spankin’-new product innovations. These updates will help create even more unified customer experiences, threading together human connections and growing singular moments into lifelong relationships.
You can expect to hear more about these innovations, but here are the biggest takeaways.
Our speakers gave us a lot of insights into the ‘why’ and the ‘how’. But the Main Show wouldn’t have been complete without seeing the ‘what’ — that is, what many of these principles and innovations look like in practice.
That’s why it was so helpful to get an up-close look at exactly how New Zealand-based accounting software Xero and Australian beauty giant MECCA are stitching together customer data and turning individual moments into long-lasting customer relationships.
As an example, Xero has been supporting more than three million clients — largely small businesses — throughout the turbulent years of the pandemic. To ‘wow’ customers and provide deeper guidance during a vulnerable time, they’ve used Xero Central to help them connect with other business owners and keep learning how to use digital solutions to fortify their businesses.
They’ve also used Salesforce to combine client interactions, track and document feedback from customers throughout numerous channels. This includes service reps being able to surface information in real time that’s right for each client at any given moment — they can see all activity on Xero Central, while voice calls are transcribed and automatically supported by Einstein to deliver the next best step.
For both Trailblazers, audiences were able to see visionary demos and follow a detailed customer journey, seeing concrete examples of how each business is personalising experiences at scale. To see these step-by-step looks at the ‘how’ behind the ‘wow’, check out the Main Show on demand.
Pip put it best: “No family reunion should happen without some music.”
That’s when we were joined by Bernard Fanning, a Spotify favourite for many audience members, who stated that this was his first-ever conference.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever played at 12:30, as well.”
Hailing from Northern Rivers, Bernard shared experiences with pitching in to the rescue and clean-up efforts during the recent floods. He explained that, while confronting, it brought the community together — and it serves as a critical reminder of why Pip spoke at length about sustainability and coming together to address a rapidly accelerating climate crisis.
While we certainly are in a “new world”, the inspiring leaders and Trailblazers who joined us for World Tour 2022 prove it’s got a few big things going for it — namely, a new brand of leadership and purpose that’s bringing us together, fuelling innovation, and building a more inclusive world.
Sign up to Salesforce+ to see the Main Show in full, and for more upcoming World Tour Sydney 2022 content.
