The recent Salesforce Days India shows how well-trained and certified partners can deliver great customer success and more.
We at Salesforce aim to deliver great results for our customers. We’re constantly innovating to help organisations transform into more nimble, aware, digitally-enabled, and customer-focused businesses. However, doing that takes the efforts of an entire ecosystem that often extends beyond Salesforce.
Over 70% of all Salesforce business is managed via partners. They have been critical to the success of this company. And they’re as diverse as you can imagine. We have small ‘Mom and Pop’ consultants who help local businesses start their digital transformation. We also have global ‘Big 4’ consulting firms who roll out transformations for multinational corporations and governments.
The one constant across all of them is the need for skills that deliver innovation. Through our global talent centres (GTCs), we train and develop the skills of our partner ecosystem, including our system integrators. The objective is to ensure that all of them are well-equipped to deliver to the high standards that customers expect.
We recently held our annual Salesforce Days, followed by the Global Talent Centre Summit, our largest annual upskilling extravaganza. At each Summit, our partners are accredited and certified to grow their skills, and provide customers with the best possible digital transformation experience. When the Salesforce ecosystem is enabled to drive transformation, our customers become more successful and productive.
How certifications can have a long-term impact on communities
Trailhead, our training platform, empowers millions of Trailblazers to develop new skills. The certifications they earn build enormous capabilities across our ecosystem of customers, students, and partners. The more people who hold Salesforce skills, the greater the ability of organisations to succeed using the world’s top CRM platform. That success doesn’t just lead to happier customers; it also creates better jobs, lives, companies, and communities.
During Salesforce Days India, we were looking to deliver a large number of new certifications. And we did! Over 4,500 certifications to be exact. The best part is that we now have a potential new forest! That’s because Salesforce committed to planting two trees for every new certification.
How do GTCs help our customers and society at large?
GTCs are hubs of professionals that work on delivering technology projects, and servicing customers through our global partners. Our India GTCs currently employ 1.5 million people! We encourage our partners to hire candidates not just from graduate programs, but also from other previously overlooked areas of society, including the military, diverse ethnic groups, and women returning to the workforce.
But successful GTCs require training—lots of high-quality training—and Salesforce Days is one part of that. The event provides GTC professionals with Salesforce technology education and enablement to continually innovate for customer success.
“Programs such as Switch to Salesforce, the Architect Program, and the Advanced Enablement Program have allowed Accenture to build new skills and scale their practice at a very rapid pace.”
Global expansion, local impact
After the success of our GTCs in India, we’re using the lessons learned to work on an expansion plan that covers the Philippines, China, Latin America, and EMEA. A recent IDC report predicted that the Salesforce ecosystem will create 4.2 million jobs worldwide by the end of 2024. With many of those jobs being created outside of first world countries, the effect on societies around the world will be profound.
One of the great misconceptions of the present age is that businesses have to make a choice between growing their profits, and becoming platforms for change. Working at Salesforce has shown me that businesses can do both at the same time. Planting a forest of 10,000 trees is an excellent long-term outcome of Salesforce Days. But the real growth, the transformation that’s exciting to me, is that of people becoming economically self-sufficient and inspired members of our Salesforce Partner family.
Our main goal has always been to deliver great results for customers. But our larger positive impact on society is something the entire Salesforce ecosystem can be proud of.
You can learn more about our workforce development initiatives here. You can also read more about the reforestation project we’re supporting with 10,000 trees here.
