The service landscape in Singapore is evolving at a breakneck pace. The Sixth Edition State of Service report provides a pulse check on the priorities, challenges, and opportunities of over 5,500 service professionals worldwide. 

As customer service trends reveal that customers are setting their expectations sky-high, organisations are under more pressure to deliver personalised service at scale while delivering more value to the business. But there’s good news, too. The introduction of artificial intelligence and enhanced data capabilities are transforming how quality service is delivered, offering exciting opportunities to boost agent productivity and generate revenue.

Singapore’s Customer Service Trends: Everyone Wants More, from Customers to Executives

In Singapore, the stakes are high and climbing higher. 81% of service professionals in the region report that customers are more demanding than ever, with expectations of fast, personalised service at every interaction.

It won’t come as a surprise, then, that globally, customer experience topped the list of both priorities and challenges for service organisations. The biggest priority for service decision-makers is improving the customer experience, while their biggest challenge is keeping pace with customer expectations. 

Multiplying the burden on service, the surge in customer demands correlates with an anticipated increase in cases, with 65% of service professionals in Singapore bracing for higher volumes in the coming year. 

These projections underscore a critical challenge: delivering personalised service at scale – a requirement for maintaining customer loyalty and satisfaction. Self-service, including knowledge-powered help centres, customer portals, and AI-powered chatbots, stands out as a win-win solution.

There’s a growing desire for self-service, with 61% of customers globally reporting they prefer it for fixing simple issues. And while self-service now solves 54% of customer issues worldwide at organisations that use it, the pressure is on to get self-service right. 72% of customers won’t reuse a company’s chatbot after just one negative experience, so there’s little room for error. 

Adding to these growing demands is the awareness that customer service has evolved far beyond a simple support function and cost centre. Today, it’s at the forefront of revenue generation. In Singapore, 80% of service organisations are expected to ramp up their contribution to the bottom line. 

This dual pressure requires organisations to not only maintain but amplify service quality, so they can meet the expectations of customers and revenue.

Customer Service is Expanding – in Budget, Headcount and Channels

To meet these soaring demands, service departments in Singapore are ramping up their resources. About 77% of service professionals in the region anticipate an increase in budget, while 71% expect to expand their headcount, suggesting that Singaporean organisations are preparing to scale up operations to rise to the challenge of today’s customer service trends.

A diversification in service channels – now averaging thirteen different modes of customer engagement for organisations in Singapore — higher than the global average of twelve. This indicates a strategic move to interact with customers across multiple platforms.

There’s a clear trend in favour of an omnichannel service experience. High-performing organisations provide service across a broader range of channels than underperformers, making it more important than ever to meet customers where, when, and how they want to engage. Live chat, in particular, has been adopted by 9 in 10 high performers globally – but only among 60% of underperformers.

Infographic: The State of Service in Singapore

Customer Service AI & Data Promises Scale

Artificial intelligence’s role in transforming service operations is becoming increasingly critical as organisations look to technology as the solution for tougher workloads and more demanding customers. 

With 47% of Singaporean organisations fully implementing customer service AI, and 43% exploring or experimenting with the technology, AI’s rollout in Singapore’s service landscape is well underway. 

The benefits are clear: 97% of service professionals in these AI-equipped organisations acknowledge the time-saving benefits of AI, while 94% see cost reductions. 

Service organisations are using AI to increase agent efficiency and productivity, which increases their ability to provide customers with prompt and personalised experiences. The top three use cases for AI in Singapore are automated summaries and reports, customer-facing intelligent assistants, and service responses, with plenty more exciting applications emerging.

As service organisations commit to AI, they’re also putting a focus on trustworthy and connected data. 87% of service professionals in Singapore say better access to data from other teams would improve the support they provide, pointing to the importance of a comprehensive data strategy to underpin AI.

In response, 72% of these service organisations report an increase in investment in data integration efforts next year, pointing towards a strategic push to enhance the efficacy and responsiveness of service operations through better data accessibility and connected, efficient service systems.

How Does Your Service Organisation Stack Up?

The trends are clear and the data is compelling: service in Singapore has been forever changed by new customer demands, organisational imperatives, and AI capabilities. 

These are just a few insights into the nature of service today. To learn more about what your customers want and how you can wow them with a strategic approach to customer service – from self-service to the contact centre to the field – read the Sixth Edition State of Service report.

Elevate Customer Service with Data-Driven Insights

Dive into the Sixth Edition State of Service report for valuable insights to optimise your service operations, from self-service to the contact centre to the field.

Download now

Read more

• Everything You Need to Know About AI in Customer Service
• 36 Customer Service Statistics To Move Your Business Forward
• Inside the Sixth Edition of the State of Service Report

The post Bigger, Smarter, Faster: Meeting Customer Service Expectations in Singapore appeared first on Salesforce.

The service landscape in the Philippines is evolving at a breakneck pace. The Sixth Edition State of Service report provides a pulse check on the priorities, challenges, and opportunities of over 5,500 service professionals worldwide. 

As customer service trends reveal that customers are setting their expectations sky-high, organisations are under more pressure to deliver personalised service at scale while delivering more value to the business. But there’s good news, too. The introduction of artificial intelligence and enhanced data capabilities are transforming how quality service is delivered, offering exciting opportunities to boost agent productivity and generate revenue.

Customer Service Trends from the Philippines: Everyone Wants More, from Customers to Executives

In the Philippines, the stakes are high and climbing higher. 83% of service professionals in the region report that customers are more demanding than ever, with expectations of fast, personalised service at every interaction.

It won’t come as a surprise, then, that globally, customer experience topped the list of both priorities and challenges for service organisations. The biggest priority for service decision-makers is improving the customer experience, while their biggest challenge is keeping pace with customer expectations. 

Multiplying the burden on service, the surge in customer demands correlates with an anticipated increase in cases, with 70% of service professionals in the Philippines bracing for higher volumes in the coming year. 

These projections underscore a critical challenge: delivering personalised service at scale – a requirement for maintaining customer loyalty and satisfaction. Self-service, including knowledge-powered help centres, customer portals, and AI-powered chatbots, stands out as a win-win solution.

There’s a growing desire for self-service, with 61% of customers globally reporting they prefer it for fixing simple issues. And while self-service now solves 54% of customer issues worldwide at organisations that use it, the pressure is on to get self-service right. 72% of customers won’t reuse a company’s chatbot after just one negative experience, so there’s little room for error. 

Adding to these growing demands is the awareness that customer service has evolved far beyond a simple support function and cost centre. Today, it’s at the forefront of revenue generation. In the Philippines, 89% of service organisations are expected to ramp up their contribution to the bottom line — higher than the global average of 85%. 

This dual pressure requires organisations to not only maintain but amplify service quality, so they can meet the expectations of customers and revenue.

Customer Service is Expanding – in Budget, Headcount and Channels

To meet these soaring demands, service departments in the Philippines are ramping up their resources. About 82% of service professionals in the region anticipate an increase in budget, while 78% expect to expand their headcount — higher than the global averages of 80% and 76%, respectively. This suggests that organisations in the Philippines are preparing to scale up operations to rise to the challenge of today’s customer service trends.

A diversification in service channels — now averaging thirteen different modes of customer engagement for organisations in the Philippines — exceeds the global average of twelve. This indicates a strategic move to interact with customers across multiple platforms.

There’s a clear trend in favour of an omnichannel service experience. High-performing organisations provide service across a broader range of channels than underperformers, making it more important than ever to meet customers where, when, and how they want to engage. Live chat, in particular, has been adopted by 9 in 10 high performers globally — but only among 60% of underperformers.

Infographic: The State of Service in Phillipines

Customer Service AI & Data Promises Scale

Artificial intelligence’s role in transforming service operations is becoming increasingly critical as organisations look to technology as the solution for tougher workloads and more demanding customers. 

With 41% of Filipino organisations fully implementing customer service AI, and 36% exploring or experimenting with the technology, AI’s rollout in the Philippines’ service landscape is well underway. 

The benefits are clear: 92% of service professionals in these AI-equipped organisations acknowledge the time-saving benefits of AI, while 92% see cost reductions. 

Service organisations are using AI to increase agent efficiency and productivity, which increases their ability to provide customers with prompt and personalised experiences. The top three use cases for AI in the Philippines are service responses, customer-facing intelligent assistants, and agent-facing intelligent assistants, with plenty more exciting applications emerging.

As service organisations commit to AI, they’re also putting a focus on trustworthy and connected data. 85% of service professionals in the Philippines say better access to data from other teams would improve the support they provide, pointing to the importance of a comprehensive data strategy to underpin AI.
In response, 83% of these service organisations report an increase in investment in data integration efforts next year, pointing towards a strategic push to enhance the efficacy and responsiveness of service operations through better data accessibility and connected, efficient service systems.

How Does Your Service Organisation Stack Up?

The trends are clear and the data is compelling: service in the Philippines has been forever changed by new customer demands, organisational imperatives, and AI capabilities. 

These are just a few insights into the nature of service today. To learn more about what your customers want and how you can wow them with a strategic approach to customer service – from self-service to the contact centre to the field – read the Sixth Edition State of Service report.

Elevate Customer Service with Data-Driven Insights

Dive into the Sixth Edition State of Service report for valuable insights to optimise your service operations, from self-service to the contact centre to the field.

Download now

Read more

• Everything You Need to Know About AI in Customer Service
• 36 Customer Service Statistics To Move Your Business Forward
• Inside the Sixth Edition of the State of Service Report

The post AI is Helping Filipino Organisations Meet Rising Customer Service Demands appeared first on Salesforce.

The service landscape in Indonesia is evolving at a breakneck pace. The Sixth Edition State of Service report provides a pulse check on the priorities, challenges, and opportunities of over 5,500 service professionals worldwide. 

As customer service trends reveal that customers are setting their expectations sky-high, organisations are under more pressure to deliver personalised service at scale while delivering more value to the business. But there’s good news, too. The introduction of artificial intelligence and enhanced data capabilities are transforming how quality service is delivered, offering exciting opportunities to boost agent productivity and generate revenue.

Indonesia’s Customer Service Trends: Everyone Wants More, from Customers to Executives

In Indonesia, the stakes are high and climbing higher. 91% of service professionals in the region report that customers are more demanding than ever, with expectations of fast, personalised service at every interaction.

It won’t come as a surprise, then, that globally, customer experience topped the list of both priorities and challenges for service organisations. The biggest priority for service decision-makers is improving the customer experience, while their biggest challenge is keeping pace with customer expectations. 

Multiplying the burden on service, the surge in customer demands correlates with an anticipated increase in cases, with 74% of service professionals in Indonesia bracing for higher volumes in the coming year. 

These projections underscore a critical challenge: delivering personalised service at scale – a requirement for maintaining customer loyalty and satisfaction. Self-service, including knowledge-powered help centres, customer portals, and AI-powered chatbots, stands out as a win-win solution.

There’s a growing desire for self-service, with 61% of customers globally reporting they prefer it for fixing simple issues. And while self-service now solves 54% of customer issues worldwide at organisations that use it, the pressure is on to get self-service right. 72% of customers won’t reuse a company’s chatbot after just one negative experience, so there’s little room for error. 

Adding to these growing demands is the awareness that customer service has evolved far beyond a simple support function and cost centre. Today, it’s at the forefront of revenue generation. In Indonesia, 74% of service organisations are expected to ramp up their contribution to the bottom line. 

This dual pressure requires organisations to not only maintain but amplify service quality, so they can meet the expectations of customers and revenue.

Customer Service is Expanding – in Budget, Headcount and Channels

To meet these soaring demands, service departments in Indonesia are ramping up their resources. About 80% of service professionals in the region anticipate an increase in budget, while 68% expect to expand their headcount, suggesting that organisations are preparing to scale up operations to rise to the challenge of today’s customer service trends.

A diversification in service channels – now averaging twelve different modes of customer engagement for organisations in Indonesia – indicates a strategic move to interact with customers across multiple platforms.

There’s a clear trend in favour of an omnichannel service experience. High-performing organisations provide service across a broader range of channels than underperformers, making it more important than ever to meet customers where, when, and how they want to engage. Live chat, in particular, has been adopted by 9 in 10 high performers globally – but only among 60% of underperformers.

Infographic: The State of Service in Indonesia

Customer Service AI & Data Promises Scale

Artificial intelligence’s role in transforming service operations is becoming increasingly critical as organisations look to technology as the solution for tougher workloads and more demanding customers. 

With 57% of Indonesian organisations fully implementing customer service AI — higher than the global average of 49% — and 29% exploring or experimenting with the technology, AI’s rollout in Indonesia’s service landscape is well underway. 

The benefits are clear: 96% of service professionals in these AI-equipped organisations acknowledge the time-saving benefits of AI, while 98% see cost reductions. 

Service organisations are using AI to increase agent efficiency and productivity, which increases their ability to provide customers with prompt and personalised experiences. The top three use cases for AI in Indonesia are service responses, customer-facing intelligent assistants, and automated summaries and reports, with plenty more exciting applications emerging.

As service organisations commit to AI, they’re also putting a focus on trustworthy and connected data. 97% of service professionals in Indonesia say better access to data from other teams would improve the support they provide, pointing to the importance of a comprehensive data strategy to underpin AI.

In response, 81% of these service organisations report an increase in investment in data integration efforts next year, pointing towards a strategic push to enhance the efficacy and responsiveness of service operations through better data accessibility and connected, efficient service systems.

How Does Your Service Organisation Stack Up?

The trends are clear and the data is compelling: service in Indonesia has been forever changed by new customer demands, organisational imperatives, and AI capabilities.

These are just a few insights into the nature of service today. To learn more about what your customers want and how you can wow them with a strategic approach to customer service – from self-service to the contact centre to the field – read the Sixth Edition State of Service report.

Elevate Customer Service with Data-Driven Insights

Dive into the Sixth Edition State of Service report for valuable insights to optimise your service operations, from self-service to the contact centre to the field.

Download now

Read more

• Everything You Need to Know About AI in Customer Service
• 36 Customer Service Statistics To Move Your Business Forward
• Inside the Sixth Edition of the State of Service Report

The post AI is Leading the Charge in Indonesia’s Customer Service Transformation appeared first on Salesforce.

To mitigate these pressures, forward-thinking insurance companies in Southeast Asia are looking for new ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) to create efficiencies across the value chain. And, in doing so, they’re finding new opportunities for growth.     

In Singapore, for example, 50% of respondents to the Salesforce Connected Financial Services Report said they would switch to a new insurer if they offered a better digital experience. 

However, face-to-face engagement and the human advisory experience is still important in Southeast Asia to build customer trust, especially in high impact and personalised products like Life and Health (L&H) insurance. While in the Property & Casualty (P&C) insurance business, there has been an increasing momentum to go full digital and touchless.

There is a generational aspect to this human/digital balance too. For example, the more seasoned generations typically prefer some human touch in the customer journey, while young consumers usually prefer more digital experiences. 

Meanwhile, advancements in AI – particularly the rapid commercialisation of GenAI products through 2023 – have led insurers to adopt AI in various functions.

The Connected Financial Services Report

Insights from over 6,000 customers on why they switch financial services providers, and what they are seeking in digital and in-person experiences.

Get the report

1. Adopt a data-first approach to leverage AI

Data has always been crucial for managing risk, determining claims, and setting premiums. In addition, it’s also a critical tool actuaries use to set the prices and rules that give insurers confidence that they can cover claims while staying solvent and regulatory compliant. 

In this way, data is foundational to the insurance sector’s financial health and ability to mitigate risk. The advent of AI has heightened the importance of data in insurance to even higher levels, because AI is only effective when insurers use rich, interconnected, trusted datasets. 

For example, Thailand-based online car insurer, Roojai, is able to utilise granular data sets to focus on optimising the customer journey from origin to conclusion. This has contributed to a 25% reduction in cost per conversion, and a 16% increase in conversions.

To adopt a similar data-first approach, insurers can use Salesforce Customer 360 to: 

• Connect and unify customer data to enhance downstream applications with a 360-degree customer view. For example, Salesforce Customer 360 and MuleSoft connect your departments and customer data to provide a single, shared view of your customers. 

• Benefit from generative AI without compromising data thanks to best-in-class security guardrails and enterprise security standards. For example, the Einstein Trust Layer uses guardrails like dynamic grounding, zero data retention, and toxicity detection, to protect data privacy and security and improve AI results accuracy. 

• Grows deeper policyholder connections and increases productivity. For example, Data Cloud translates raw data into intelligence that enables insurance agents to visualise all customer engagement and activity, segment audiences, and prioritise cross-sell opportunities.   

• Enhance customer engagement with personalised interactions and insights. For example, a connected CRM gives your teams access to a single source of customer data they can use to personalise content and experiences to meet your customers’ unique needs. 

• Offer AI-driven insights, data analytics, and data visualisation across departments. For example, Tableau Analytics can be used to create intelligent experiences across the company with augmented analytics tools such as one-click storytelling with automated discovery, real-time recommendations, and narrative explanations with natural language generation.

Need help with your generative AI strategy?

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2. Use automation technology to streamline operational processes

Swift underwriting is essential to deliver a seamless insurance sales experience to customers. This has been a challenge for insurance companies because underwriting often requires extensive amounts of information processing and decision-making. Imagine managing extensive data on coverage, benefits, and pricing across numerous insurance plans, conducting rule validation, and workflows across various applications. This can significantly lengthen turnaround times.

In addition, underwriting is more than just a desktop task. It involves collaboration with various partners and customers. For example, insuring a High Net Worth Individual (HNWI) in Asia might require assessments of health, lifestyle, and financials. This sometimes involves third-party services, which adds further complexity. 

Similarly, commercial property insurance requires thorough property assessments, sometimes with onsite surveys by risk engineers. These comprehensive processes all contribute to longer turnaround times for the customer. 

Insurers can streamline insurance processes by leveraging industry solutions. For example, Salesforce Financial Services Cloud automates underwriting and pricing, optimises workflows and collaboration, reduces turnaround time, and thus enhances sales conversion and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) by empowering agents to focus on effective sales engagement and opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling.

In addition, Slack, brings conversations, collaboration, and automation together, making collaboration and communication between underwriters, sales agents, product managers, and third party service providers organised and aligned. Past underwriting data and knowledge are made easily accessible through Slack’s AI-powered search.

And real-time analytics and visualisation, along with natural language queries, empower employees to make informed decisions quickly.

Discover how finservs avoided disruption – and saved millions

Salesforce commissioned a Total Economic Impact™ study conducted by Forrester Consulting to explore the impact of Salesforce Customer 360 on financial services organisations. The study discovered decreased costs, improved customer engagement and employee satisfaction.

Read the TEI study

3. Recruit multi-generational customers with innovative digital engagement

As a new, affluent young customer group emerges in the region, insurance engagement is shifting from limited touchpoints to more frequent contact. 

For example, Singapore-based insurer Singlife understands the importance of connecting with their customers on their preferred channels, and replaced post-delivered policy documents with engaging digital experiences. The aim is to make buying insurance as seamless an experience as shopping on any other online platform.

In addition, innovative telematics-based rewards, digital health concierges, health thought leadership, and engaging digital methods like embedded finance and gamified social media campaigns are all helping insurance companies to more effectively engage with customers online. 

At the same time, social media platforms that attract diverse user groups enable insurers to personalise their marketing efforts. 

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is one tool insurers are using to achieve this. It enables real-time, hyper-personalised engagement with native integration across digital platforms. Marketing Cloud also leverages Einstein AI for automated, customised customer journeys and sophisticated analytics for marketing performance and ROI insights.

This approach ensures insurers remain competitive and effective in a rapidly evolving market.

Discover the trends shaping the future of customer engagement

Insights from 14,300 consumers and business buyers on how AI, digital transformation, and macroeconomic trends are changing customer engagement.

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Seize today’s opportunities with next-gen solutions

The insurance industry stands at a pivotal juncture, marked by both challenges and opportunities. 

For insurers, the path ahead includes adopting trusted AI and data strategies, automating and augmenting insurance processes, and captivating and retaining multi-generational customers through diverse channels. 

Leveraging platforms like Salesforce’s multi-cloud solutions will be crucial in integrating these initiatives, enabling insurers to not only satisfy current needs but also stay future proof. 

This strategic approach will drive sustainable growth and resilience in the ever-evolving insurance landscape in Southeast Asia.

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The post Insurance Companies in Southeast Asia are Unlocking New Opportunities with AI appeared first on Salesforce.

Then the tough question comes: “Did it work?”

The pressure is on for sales leaders to create enablement that makes a real impact on revenue goals, and prove that it’s working. This guide will show you how. We’ll cover the ins and outs of sales enablement — what it is, why it matters, and how you can measure success.

Make your enablement about results, not effort

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What you’ll learn:

• What is sales enablement?
• Why is sales enablement important?
• What are the benefits of sales enablement?
• Who is responsible for sales enablement?
• How do you succeed in sales enablement?
• How to build a sales enablement strategy
• What are best practices for a sales enablement program?
• What tools are needed for sales enablement?

What is sales enablement?

Sales enablement uses content, coaching, training, and technology to help reps onboard, improve their skills, and sell. Sales enablement leaders care about increasing productivity, making a business impact they can measure, and getting training programs out the door faster.

Why is sales enablement important?

Sales is hard. Your reps often face a big, blank space at the beginning of a deal. Who are the stakeholders, what’s the strategy, and which deal details actually matter? They have to understand the problem and bring a solution for it. That’s why sales enablement is so important. Without education and guidance, sellers will struggle to advance prospects through the sales pipeline. Then, poof! There goes your revenue.

Here are some key challenges reps face, making the case for sales enablement.

Sellers are expected to be experts. In a June 2022 Salesforce survey, 74% of sellers said their jobs are becoming more consultative and less transactional. Sales reps have to better understand the product, the customer, and the market more deeply, so they bring more value to each conversation.

Sales in a hybrid world is challenging. In the same survey, 58% of sellers said virtual selling is harder than selling from an office. Yet only 29% are trained on how to do it. Sellers have to learn how to be as effective behind a screen as they are in the room.

With economic uncertainty, there’s less room for error. Market upheaval raises the stakes, and puts sellers under pressure to keep revenue from dropping. It’s not just about growth anymore, but effectiveness, too. Sellers need to do more with less.

Enablement to the rescue — if you put in the time. “Enablement in leading organisations is tasked with true capability building — and not simply relegated to onboarding and training,” the Harvard Business Review stated.

What are the benefits of sales enablement?

A strong sales enablement process lifts up the whole sales team — and the company with it. It connects sellers to other key players and departments, gets everyone singing about the product from the same song book, and helps sellers use their time effectively.

1. Alignment

Sales enablement informs sellers about every team that could potentially touch the sale in some shape or form. This could range from marketing and development to product and finance. Sellers learn more about the products from these other roles’ perspectives, while understanding how these roles can support the sale. Sellers can then align all these resources and knowledge to guide their customers smoothly through the sales process.

2. Consistency

Sales enablement trains sellers to speak the same company language. This doesn’t mean everyone is parroting identical words, but you’ve provided the foundational training for sellers to then put their own spin on it.

3. Efficiency

The payoff of sales enablement is that sellers can use their time more wisely and productively. With everything they need to know about the product in front of them, they can focus their energy on developing the types of relationships that close deals. Add sales enablement software with real-time success metrics and sellers can more easily tie their training to their day to day.

Who is responsible for sales enablement?

For many companies, sales enablement is a team effort, where leadership and sales groups work in tandem. Some larger companies have a sales enablement manager or similar role dedicated to all things sales enablement, like building training programs or updating guides.

If a team doesn’t have a sales enablement manager, then enablement falls to sales executives, like the vice president of sales. Sales operations leads would also play a role, helping turn leadership’s enablement vision into reality using the right processes and technology. The sales manager would be in charge of making sure reps complete enablement and engage in coaching, taking the training full circle by carrying it out in their daily work.

How do you succeed in sales enablement?

Stop creating generic training programs and hoping for the best. To succeed in sales enablement, start by identifying a specific and measurable revenue goal, and then develop training that brings you closer to reaching it. Track progress as sellers change their behaviour, and adapt and learn as you pave your way to efficient growth.

1. Choose your enablement goal

You already wake up thinking about it. What’s that one key performance indicator (KPI) that’s threatening the business?

Consider these metrics.

Ramp time: This is how long it takes for new sales reps to onboard and reach full productivity. Reducing ramp time is critical to keeping your sales productivity high, even when experienced sales reps quit — taking all of their knowledge with them.

Win rate: This is the percentage of won deals in your pipeline. A high win rate means your sales reps are good at closing. A low win rate means too many of your deals evaporate into thin air.

Deal size: This is the average value of all deals closed. It might sound obvious that if you want more revenue, you should sell bigger deals. But often, companies don’t train sellers on how to increase deal size, whether it’s by matching customers with more expensive products or selling add-ons, upsells, and bundles.

Sales cycle length: This is how long it takes your sellers to turn a cold lead into a red-hot deal. Shortening your sales cycles is critical for driving efficiency and productivity. You want your sales reps closing more deals, faster.

Once you’ve identified the KPI you want to change, define a target goal. For example, if deal size is a problem, you might want to increase the average deal amount by 20% that quarter.

2. Define the behaviour change you need

Once you have a goal, think about the seller behaviours that affect it. Using the example above, if your goal is to increase the average deal amount by 20%, then you could look at the biggest deals you’ve sold and examine the sales conversations that led up to them.

A sales call analysis tool can be pretty helpful here since it allows you to see conversation details, like how often certain keywords are used and in what context.

For example, you might learn that your biggest deals happen when sales reps sell on value rather than on price. To train your sellers to stop hammering on costs so much, you might set a goal to make 20% fewer sales calls this quarter that mention discounting.

3. Shape the new behaviour with new training

Next, focus on building out the specific training that will drive the behaviour change. In this example, you might create sales enablement content that helps your sellers understand what it really means to sell on value (for example, highlighting business benefits over cost savings). Then you might guide reps to handle objections with value rather than discounting at every stage of the sales process. Finally, you could schedule coaching sessions that give reps personal guidance if they start to slip.

Each of these training events can become a milestone that you can track as reps complete them. Bring this training into the daily work of a rep when you can, since it’s more efficient when they can learn and sell at the same time.

4. Adapt, learn, repeat

So how’s it going? On a regular basis (at least once a quarter), dig in to see how your enablement is working. Did your sellers hit their milestones? Did the behaviour change make an impact? Maybe your hypothesis that value selling would increase deal size was wrong, or maybe the training itself wasn’t effective.

Identify what is or isn’t working. Then adjust to hit the mark. Whatever happened, you’re all the wiser for it, just in time to face a new quarter.

How to build a sales enablement strategy

With the framework above in mind, you can start to outline your tactical sales enablement strategy. This roadmap will plot out how you’ll meet the goals you set in the previous section, layering on specific actions and measurable steps. For example, let’s keep with the goal of increasing your average deal size by 20% by the end of Q1, and see how to craft your strategy around that.

1. Establish who will build and maintain your sales enablement program

Use this step to assemble your team. If we’re aiming for a deal increase, who specifically on your team will you assign responsibilities to based on their expertise? Do they have the bandwidth to take this on? Do you need to bring in external resources? With our sample goal in mind, the head of sales with a background in coaching could be your frontrunner.

2. Determine how you’ll reach your enablement outcomes

Focus on the output. What is each team member expected to manage, produce, or communicate as part of the sales enablement strategy? What are the deliverables? What is the budget? In this case, the output could be creating a coaching session schedule.

3. Decide on the timing and pace to meet your strategy deadlines

What’s the timeline? How will you track progress? When will you analyse the results? This could be one session per week during Q4.

Scale your strategy based on how many goals you’re trying to achieve. Pair these planning steps with these best practices for building a well-oiled sales enablement machine.

What are best practices for a sales enablement program?

Sales enablement should largely focus on making your training more data-driven, relevant, and personal. Here are four best practices for sales enablement to reach those goals.

Connect enablement and customer data with a CRM

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is your fuel. It gives you visibility into your data so you can see how individual reps are performing. Track sellers as they hit enablement milestones on their march toward their sales quota, and see how their behaviours are affecting your top-line goal.

Bring in technology that helps you make better use of your data. You can find solutions that lean on automation and AI to coach sellers based on that data. Then, train your sales reps in ways that work for their unique learning styles, giving them the information they need when they need it.

Onboard sellers in the flow of their work

In traditional onboarding, training tools are disconnected from the CRM (think stand-alone content libraries). The best practice today is to get reps selling even as they’re onboarding and learning, because speeding up ramp time will speed up revenue. When you do both in parallel, reps can check off milestones — like activities completed and meetings booked — as they move customers through the pipeline.

Train your reps in bites, not feasts

Stop providing sellers with enormous volumes of material. They get overwhelmed. Create bite-size learning modules and serve them up at just the right times. For example, a new rep who needs to send a quote to a customer could receive a CRM alert with easy-to-follow guidance on how to get the quote out the door faster, and how to follow up.

Create a library of sales enablement content to help your reps learn

Great enablement needs great content that delivers the right information at the right time. Here are common types you should consider for your own enablement program, and how they can be used:

• Customer stories: Documents that show why customers came to use your products and the benefits they’ve enjoyed.
• Product slide decks: Presentations on challenges, market trends, and product offerings for sales conversations.
• E-books: A downloadable guide for customers that typically focuses on high-level challenges and trends.
• Datasheets: A list of the nuts and bolts of a certain product, from use cases to features to results.
• Product demos: Videos and presentations that walk through key features.
• Competitive intelligence: Competitor research to help you understand where you fit into the market and how you stand out.

There will always be a place for good old-fashioned content — even as sales enablement goes digital. The trick is to create a diversity of content to fit different learning styles and topics, then serve it up when it’s needed most. Technology can help. Below, we share important sales enablement tools that will get you going.

What tools are needed for sales enablement?

A lot of businesses are reimagining the possibilities of what technology can take on. They’re putting the seller’s focus back on the human element — and letting automation handle the rest. They’re also keen to break down barriers between sales and enablement, and bring them together into the same flow of work. That’s why a sales enablement toolkit should combine CRM data, enablement software, and tools for call coaching and learning management.

Let’s take a closer look at critical sales enablement tools.

🔎 CRM software

A CRM gives you one single place to track customer data and spot opportunities and risks in the pipeline. When you automate the flow of this customer data and connect it to enablement tools, you can embed revenue milestones that auto-complete as reps hit them. Dashboards and reports let you see who’s on track.

📈 Sales enablement tool

At its core, a sales enablement platform manages and tracks all of the training and coaching a sales team needs. The best sales enablement solutions enable sellers to learn and onboard in the same place where they sell. You should also be able to build an enablement program that targets the KPIs you want to improve. From there, structure content and activities into step-by-step training that shows your reps what to do every day.

📞 Call coaching tool

A call recording and coaching tool can help you find coachable moments in sales conversations that you can use for training. The same tool can also help you track behaviour change. For example, you might set an enablement milestone for making 10 sales calls that mention your new product bundle to help increase deal size. Call coaching tools help you track keywords that show you whether you’re making progress toward the goal.

💡 Learning management tool

A learning tool should educate your sellers around new products, market conditions, and ways of selling. Certifications and interactive elements like gamification (literally mimicking a video game) can sweeten the deal.

What’s next: a shift in focus from inputs to outcomes

The question in sales enablement has changed. It used to be: “What are we teaching our reps?” Now it’s: “What business value are we creating with our training?”

To find the answer, build a program that has a goal in its sights. Focus on changing seller behaviour to move the right needle. Roll out the automation-powered technology that can scale your enablement teams’ efforts.

Build a path from effort to results. Faint at first, it will deepen and strengthen as your sellers walk it.

What trends drive sales productivity today?

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Worryingly, this is creating a growing digital skills gap. According to Salesforce’s Global Digital Skills Index, more than three quarters (76%) of global workers say they don’t have the skills they need for the future of work. To close this gap will require vast amounts of reskilling and career shifting on the part of companies, educational institutes, and policymakers. 

Salesforce has always been committed to workforce development programmes focused on training, reskilling, and helping people get hired for the jobs of the future. For example, our free online learning platform, Trailhead, allows people to skill up for jobs within the Salesforce ecosystem. To date, more than 3.9M learners have skilled up on Trailhead and 1 in 3 say they found a new job with the skills they learned. 

Doubling down on our efforts to close the digital skills gap in Singapore, Salesforce will be collaborating with The Institute of Technical Education (ITE) to train 7,500 ITE students on digital customer relationship management (CRM) skills over the next 5 years. Salesforce’s Trailhead Academy will work with ITE to provide an enhanced curriculum and a new mentorship programme, equating to approximately S$8.7 million in value.

  (L-R) Mr Sujith Abraham, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Salesforce ASEAN, Ms Cecily Ng, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Salesforce Singapore and Taiwan, Mr Tan Kiat How, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information, Ms Alice Seow, Principal, ITE College West, Mr Alvin Goh, Director, School of Business & Services, ITE College West at the MOU Exchange Ceremony for Salesforce and ITE

Building a strong foundation for a career in tech

As part of this new collaboration, Salesforce will customise and embed guided learning paths from Trailhead into the ITE curriculum across all three colleges in Singapore. The courses provided will focus on Salesforce administrator and developer roles. They are projected to provide at least 7,500 ITE students with the skills and credentials required to kick-start their career in the technology industry or generate pathways to further tertiary education. 

A dedicated mentorship programme will also be introduced for the first time. For each cohort, 60 ITE students will be mentored by Salesforce employees and supported by trained ITE lecturers, and will undergo exams to obtain resume-worthy certifications such as Salesforce administrator or developer. The students will be given case studies to apply their skillsets and hands-on case competitions simulating real-world environments to gain practical skills. Under the MOU, Trailhead Academy will also partner with youth development organisation, Halogen Foundation Singapore to provide these students with soft skills training.

The mentorship programme seeks to empower ITE students to connect to opportunities and eventually land a role in the Salesforce ecosystem, which is projected to create 18,600 jobs in Singapore by 2026. This includes roles such as Salesforce administrators and developers within companies that use Salesforce, or as independent consultants to companies that are looking to implement Salesforce solutions or seeking digital transformation strategies for their organisations. The program is slated to start in October 2023 alongside ITE’s official curriculum.

Enhancing student training to provide holistic education experiences

Beyond contributing to ITE’s curriculum, Salesforce will conduct Train-The-Trainer sessions with ITE staff to equip them with the expertise in emerging CRM trends and new Salesforce technologies.

By providing more opportunities for holistic educational experiences and training for the younger generation, we hope to be able to propel Singapore’s digital talent pool and democratise the access to education.

Did you know that you don’t have to be a student to join the Salesforce ecosystem? Anyone can create a Trailblazer account via Trailhead. Click here to find out more!

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Today, Boys’ Town is using significant digital transformation to modernise paper-based manual workflows and increase process efficiency with Salesforce automation. Yet the organisation’s goal remains the same — to help youth in need learn the strategies and skills they need to cope with trauma and thrive as valued members of Singapore society.

“Most successful implementations in our sector are a means to an end,” says Tan. “Technology must always be vision- and user-centric, always empowering both our staff and youth. Salesforce helps us achieve that by increasing process efficiency, allowing our team to add more value to the lives of our clients.”

However, with more than 70 years’ of operational history, modernising the organisation has been a long road. Tan explains that digitisation began about 10 years ago, with the first step to move paper-based workflows onto Microsoft and Google tools.

“Those old processes always required a lot of human intervention,” he says. “For example, our donation processes in the past required staff to print a huge amount of receipts and manually send them out to donors via mail. Today, this process has significantly reduced and we cannot imagine going back to those days.”

Integrating apps and consolidating data in one single platform

Tan says Salesforce has been a game changer for Boys’ Town. It is more integration-friendly than other CRM vendors the organisation was considering. “We found that other CRMs we were considering did not provide the same ability for customisation, and integration was not as straight-forward as Salesforce.”

Customisation and integration ability has been critical for Boys’ Town’s digital transformation. Tan and his team has used Salesforce to customise a set of integrated apps that consolidate donor, volunteer, and client data on a single platform.

“We use Salesforce as our main platform, and we have customised four core apps,” he explains. “Our Donation Analytical Datamart (DAD) management system processes and stores donor data. It is used to issue donation receipts and submit tax deduction information to the tax authority.

“We also have a Volunteer Management System (VMS) that automates online volunteer registrations and screening of volunteers, and an Integrated Case Management System (ICMS) that processes and stores case management data. Finally, we use our Residential Program Management System (RPMS) to manage all data relating to our residential boys such as their school and program attendance and medical records.”

Tan explains that the DAD and VMS are integrated through Salesforce to create a single source of truth for donor and volunteer interactions. The ICMS and RPMS are also connected to provide a central Salesforce-based front-end system that youth and social workers can use to track and consolidate client data.

Increasing efficiency and productivity with automation

Tan explains that Salesforce’s capacity for customisation has helped to automate processes across the organisation. And this has returned significant efficiency gains that reduce the administration burden on Boys’ Town’s dedicated Youth, Case and Social workers, as well as their Community Partnerships team.

“It was difficult to store and search for donor, volunteer, and client data before implementing Salesforce,” he says. “For example, multiple donations can be associated with one donor, and dozens of cases can be attached to just one of our approximately 1,500 clients. Since adopting Salesforce, it has become incredibly easy to trace and find links between records that we would otherwise not be able to match up.”

Tan says it is difficult to quantify the time savings achieved through Salesforce. There was no explicit measurement or studies made because the organisation has implemented process automation over time. However, the Community Partnerships team has estimated the time-savings to be in the range of 30-40%. Likewise, for the Youth Work and Social Work teams, they save an estimated average of 15% and 30% of their time, respectively.

“The automated workflows that we do within Salesforce are the cherry on top. Automation saves so much time that would otherwise be consumed by tedious activities and duplicated efforts.” 

For example, online donations, donor records, and client case notes and approvals are now automated through Salesforce. Automating client reports for appointments, attendance, and other useful data also provide a unified client view. This allows youth, case, and social workers to share the same source of client information.

“Those are just a few of the many automated processes within our Salesforce ecosystem that help our team focus on doing more for our clients,” says Tan. “Their time is now better spent with our clients’ parents, teachers, and other stakeholders. Salesforce takes the admin burden off them.”

Putting the client at the centre of everything they do

Despite some internal resistance and uncertainty in the early stages of the Salesforce implementation, Tan says Salesforce is now critical to the organisation. 

“It took some change management, training, and time to get to where we are today. But my colleagues are definitely grateful to have Salesforce. We cannot imagine going back to a time without a centralised online database that’s easy to use and navigate. It is now a digital pillar of our organisation that we can’t do without.”

Looking to the future, Tan says technology will continue to play a role in Boys’ Town’s ongoing evolution. But the needs of their clients will always be at the heart of future implementations.

“For the next three to five years, we will continue to develop more inter-service and inter-organisational collaboration initiatives, as well as tightening existing governance and compliance policies,” Tan concludes. “Everything we do will be about continuing to make sure our organisation is a better place for children.”

Learn how Salesforce can help your organisation do more good today.

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That’s an ambitious mission, and PPIS has embraced digital transformation to achieve it. The organisation is using Salesforce to optimise and automate donation, volunteer and event management workflows to increase productivity, boost efficiency, and get the most value out of its resources.

Transitioning from manual paper-based workflows to digital processes has required an organisation-wide shift across a network of 17 PPIS centres spread throughout Singapore. It’s a project that Thariq Aziz, Senior Manager IT & Facilities Department at PPIS, says needed to start with basic digitisation.

“When I joined PPIS in 2019, the workflows were very manual and paper-based,” he explains. “It required lots of filling out physical forms and signing off with wet ink. There was no such thing as digital signatures, and no Zoom. Donations, volunteers, and counselling were managed in Excel spreadsheets.”

The transformation journey begins

For the organisation’s digital transformation to be effective, Aziz knew processes need to come before tools. So he took a step back and put time into researching departmental workflows and identifying where and how digital tools could add value.

His first stop was the Human Resources (HR) department. Digitising forms and signoffs with web-based applications achieved early success transitioning away from manual, paper-based workflows. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. 

“That early digitisation led us to Salesforce’s Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP),” Aziz says. “Our first deployment was a client management system (CMS) for SYM Academy that’s responsible for all our family counselling and therapy services. Prior to Salesforce, clients were tracked in Excel and session notes were recorded in Word. Salesforce enabled us to bring this all onto a single CMS platform.” 

The new Salesforce-based CMS gave Aziz the proof of concept he needed to expand the organisation’s digital transformation. So he hired Farique De Silva, Project Manager CRM at PPIS, to lead the next major Salesforce deployment. That came in the form of a new customer relationship management (CRM) platform for the donations department.

A single source of donor interaction

Farique explains that donation volume is seasonal, so PPIS needed a CRM that could effectively manage bulk donation periods. Salesforce replaced the organisation’s existing government-provided tool for donation management, and De Silva and his team spent two months migrating the data into the new CRM. 

“Contact 360 now provides a single source of donor interaction across the organisation,” he explains. “This helps the fundraising team engage with the most active donors. We then deployed the Opportunities module for end-to-end donation management. So if a donor submits a donation via our website, they are now interacting with Salesforce end-to-end.”

Stripe and PayPal are also integrated with Salesforce for transaction management, and customised automations are used to create, update, and cross-check donor records. “All those steps used to be manual,” De Silva explains. “If a donor had made donations a year apart, it would have depended on the memory of the team. Now all that is managed in Salesforce.”

The Salesforce CRM is also significantly boosting efficiency for the finance team. Before Salesforce, every month a member of the finance team would spend a whole work day reconciling donation receipts for annual submission to the tax authority. That process is now completely automated with Salesforce.

“A customised report is generated in Salesforce to submit to the tax authority, and the finance team looks at it at the end of 12 months,” De Silva says. “Just automating that one process with Salesforce has saved us 12 work days per year. And in 2021, we only had to manually tweak two records out of more than 7,000.”

Increased productivity with automated workflows

PPIS now also runs volunteer and events management through Salesforce. De Silva explains that automated volunteer applications through Salesforce enables a single volunteer manager to oversee more than 800 volunteers. 

“To work with children, our volunteers need to go through additional screening, so the application process is not simple,” he says. “New applicant records are automatically created and cross-checked in Salesforce, then tagged as volunteer applicants. Then our volunteer manager can simply search for volunteer applicants with the relevant interest or skill set for a particular campaign or event.”

At that point, the volunteer manager interviews selected volunteer applicants, and only successful candidates are updated to volunteer status. 

“That means the organisation doesn’t have to immediately take on the workload of processing and interviewing every volunteer applicant,” De Silva adds. “That process only occurs when a volunteer is assigned to a campaign or event, which is a significant time saving for us.

“The idea is that we no longer run a collection of individual systems. Donations, volunteers, and events are all integrated into a single CRM and Salesforce is the backbone of it.”

Supporting people with technology

The organisation’s Salesforce transformation won’t end there. Next up, says Aziz, will be improvements to the CRM, and a new knowledge management system. He also envisions an integrated front-end platform to provide a simplified user experience for PPIS clients.

“Our main goal is to help people. That’s the bottom line,” Aziz explains. “We want to build a front-end platform that supports our clients’ progress through the PPIS lifecycle.

“We want to use technology to help our clients navigate many different issues and connect them with the support they need. I know we can achieve that with Salesforce.”

Learn how Salesforce’s Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) can help your organisation do more good.  

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From the Corporate Giving Study 2021 conducted by NVPC, 42.3% of the companies surveyed in Singapore include corporate giving in their business policies. Within this percentage, only 11% allocate paid volunteer time off (VTO) benefit, despite the fact that companies with a culture of volunteerism have better morale, retention, employee engagement, and brand perception. 

Many companies offer employees some kind of volunteer opportunity, but it’s often a single day of volunteering or raising money for charities.

Learn how Daughters Of Tomorrow uses Salesforce to help low-income women skill up, gain confidence, and find employment.

Read more

Make volunteer time off a core part of employee engagement

Salesforce was founded on the principle that businesses can have great social impact. The company offers employees an above-average VTO benefit of 56 hours, or 7 business days, each year. They can use that time to volunteer for one of the nonprofits Salesforce formally supports — the company has pledged millions of dollars to support education, workforce development, and climate justice initiatives — or one of their own choosing. 

We’ve learned a lot over the years about how VTO impacts our workforce and the community. We’re happy to share our expertise and best practices here.

Team Earth has landed

Businesses that live their values by fixing what’s broken are doing good for the world in general. Things like equal access, opportunities, and rights for all. We call this being part of Team Earth.

Join #TeamEarth

According to Jamie Olsen, senior director of Citizen Philanthropy at Salesforce, about 75% of the company’s 73,000-person global workforce participates in the VTO program, with about 25% using the whole 56-hour allotment. 

“These are the types of programs that people want and that are attracting them to companies right now,” she said. “They better the community. They improve people’s happiness. They make them feel more engaged when they are sitting at their desk.” 

The recent global research by Deloitte found that the younger generation workers are seeking balance and sustained change. Many are concerned about the state of the world and how companies can make work more purpose-driven. 

Companies that create aspirational workplaces foster a culture of inclusion, purpose, listening, caring, and empathy.

How to establish your own VTO program

Salesforce has donated more than $530 million and 7.3 million hours since our founding. The company might be an outlier in the resources it devotes to VTO programs — Olsen’s team, for example, has 25 people dedicated to it — but there are steps that you can take to establish your own VTO initiatives. Here are some tips:

Self-service digital options

Build volunteer engagement programs that align with your strategic focus areas or what your business focuses on. While employees should be free to volunteer however they choose, try to steer them toward opportunities where you’re already making a financial commitment. Try to pair employees with organisations that support them.

Focus on important goals

Think about your specific goals rather than spending time or money on any problems. What change do you want to affect, and where can you have the biggest impact? Formalise your goals in writing, and make sure all employees are aware of them and how they can participate. Doing so will give everyone something to rally around.

Plan with scale in mind, but within the budget you have

Think several steps ahead, considering all the different factors that might come into play. For example, Salesforce used to award employees who hit certain VTO milestones with donations to their cause, with no cap. When that became unsustainable, we reworked the programs while still recognising the employee’s efforts.

Track activity

Use tools that help employees find opportunities that align with organisational initiatives. Salesforce built its own digital tool, Volunteerforce, that lets employees log their VTO hours, organise team volunteer activities, and search for opportunities by skill, project type, duration, and location. 

“I think a lot of companies start managing this with Excel spreadsheets, or with someone in HR managing this off to the side, but that quickly becomes unscalable and unsustainable,” said Olsen. There are several companies that provide volunteer tracking apps.

Incentivise employees by creating impact milestones

At Salesforce, employees who hit at least 7 milestones — repeat volunteer engagements, donating skills, joining a board, organising a team event, etc. — are entered into a lottery for a grant to an eligible organisation of their choice. That’s in addition to standard company matches to eligible organisations.

Volunteer time off is the evolution of employee engagement

It’s easier to measure the impact of corporate giving for the recipients than it is to measure the impact of VTO on employee engagement and morale. How does Salesforce measure employee impact? Olsen’s team collects survey data to better understand how employees are inspired to connect with the community in meaningful and sustainable ways. 

“We also look at participation in our programs, and how many people are hitting each of the impact milestones,” Olsen said. 

She said 13,500 employees have hit at least seven impact milestones. 

Over the last few years, much has been made about the importance of purpose-driven employment. Lately, quiet quitting, where workers collect a paycheck by doing the minimum and no more, has made headlines. But here’s the thing — is quiet quitting really about slacking off at work, or about employers giving employees the freedom to lead a more purposeful, fuller life outside their jobs?

In an age when businesses are expected to engage in social issues in bigger and more visible ways, the next step is giving employees the tools, support, and time they need to do just that.

Prioritise employee engagement to boost morale, productivity, and retention.

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This post originally appeared on the U.S.-version of the Salesforce blog.

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Packed with sessions featuring environmental experts and thought leaders, Dreamforce 2022 inspired the Salesforce community to take action for a more sustainable future. Attendees were empowered with practical tools and strategies to help them go net zero.

This was also the most sustainable Dreamforce ever, with many steps taken to reduce our carbon footprint:

• Dreamforce was 100% beefless and porkless for the attendee lunch. This helped conserve millions of gallons of water. 
• The lunch program offered 100% compostable packaging with containers, napkins, and utensils that could be tossed in the green bin.
• Once Dreamforce was over, attendees could drop their conference badges and lanyards in designated bins for recycling. 
• Instead of receiving backpacks and other giveaways, Salesforce is giving all attendees the opportunity to offset their travel-related emissions to Dreamforce – by supporting carbon offset projects and reducing greenhouse gases.
  
  Carbon projects at Dreamforce Net Zero Vista contributed to Salesforce’s commitment in growing 100,000,000 trees by 2030. 3,000 Salesforce employees also planted 5,000 native seedlings in partnership with not-for-profit organisations Literacy for Environmental Justice and Golden Gate Audubon Society. 
• Rather than providing packaged water, water stations were available throughout the campus for attendees to refill their own bottles.

^{Net Zero Treehouse located in the Net Zero Vista at Dreamforce.}  

Change-makers inspire sustainable transformation

Net Zero keynote with Dr Jane Goodall

World-renowned environmental advocate Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE spoke with Marc Benioff to kick off the Net Zero Summit at Dreamforce. Jane declared that it is ‘a new day for our environment’ and that it is critical for us to use innovative thinking to go net zero. She shared her own journey and experiences as a primatologist and anthropologist leading to her efforts in environmental leadership today. 

“We are part of the natural world, and not separate from it,” Jane said. “But today, we feel separated from it.”

This feeling of separation has led many people to think they can have unlimited economic development on a planet with finite natural resources. According to Jane, business has an important role to play in climate action by being a platform for change and an essential source of innovation.

“Business must drive and support the ‘ecopreneurial’ thinking our planet so desperately needs,” shared Jane. “Through innovation, education, and mobilisation, we will continue to thrive together, as a planet, as a species, as people.”

During the conversation, Marc revealed that Jane influenced him to focus on forests, and was the inspiration for the 1t.org platform to grow, restore and conserve one trillion trees. Jane also shared that her dream of empowering young people to take climate action inspired her to establish the community action programme Roots & Shoots. Today, the program’s participants include young people from kindergarten to university age in countries across the world. The participants in Roots & Shoots are empowered to help people, animals and the environment. These projects enable them to make impactful change and inspire others to do so too.

Watch ‘A New Day for the Environment’ — Net Zero keynote here.

ASEAN Business Spotlight: PETRONAS

Energy and utilities companies have a unique role to play in the transition to a clean and equitable energy future. 

With sustainability embedded in their business over the last two decades, PETRONAS has committed to achieving net zero by 2050. The company has embraced technology-driven innovation to help it become more agile and meet its sustainability goals. In partnership with Salesforce, it deployed PETRONAS360 to enable all partners, customers, and executives to access a single source of truth. This helped their teams to pivot, be agile, fail and recover quickly on their digital transformation journey.

Aadrin Azly, Chief Digital Officer, PETRONAS spoke about the company’s sustainability vision and its evolving partnership with Salesforce. According to Aadrin, PETRONAS began with a focus on nation-building and then international growth, but today it is increasingly focused on the transition to clean energy. 

“The energy transition has to happen in a fair, equitable and measured manner — so we focus not only on delivering clean energy, but also to those who need it the most and in an affordable way,” said Aadrin.

“Sustainability solutions, like carbon tracking and methane tracking are of interest to us. We’re also working with Salesforce to meet our target of deploying 90% of our applications on the cloud.”

In ‘The Energy & Utilities Future: Agile Energy Transition’ session, Azureen Azita Abdullah, Head of Downstream Digital & Innovation, at PETRONAS, shared how the Malaysian energy provider is making the transition to net zero. 

“Now we have a clear roadmap for energy transition, and we are escalating this whole ecosystem to our nation and hopefully catalysing it for the whole region,” said Azureen.

Sustainable Transformation is Everyone’s Job

While businesses have an important role to play in conserving the environment, they can also do this in a financially sustainable manner. In the very insightful discussion, ‘Sustainable to the Core‘, a global panel of thought leaders examined how organisations can embed sustainability into their business model. 

According to Kathy Varol, Purpose Strategy Expert and Consultant for CSR & ESG, businesses should realise they can’t have unlimited growth on a finite planet. Her advice to companies embarking on their sustainability journey was — “Identify a purpose for your company and use environmental, social, and governance as a framework to bring that purpose to life — holistically across the organisation with accountability, control and metrics.”

David Reynolds, CEO, Department for Trade and Investment, South Australia, shared how his state has pursued sustainability goals and facilitated the transition to renewable energy. This enabled the Department, a public sector organisation, to show private corporations that sustainability can be used for economic development and turned into a business advantage. Orlando Ferreira, CFO, IDB Invest shared his views on sustainability from a development banking perspective.

“Nine out of ten projects that fail do so not because of credit issues, but because ESG criteria were not put into place,” said Orlando. “Sustainability is not just the right thing to do, but the right thing for business itself.”

Paul Polman, Business Leader, former CEO of Unilever, and co-author of “Net Positive” concluded that sustainability is a story of hope. 

“There are the right demand signals from the market today, especially from Gen Z and the millennials on sustainability. But we need to move faster, and everyone has a place and role to play.”

Watch ‘Sustainable to the Core’ here.

Climate action, here and now

To empower businesses to take climate action, Salesforce introduced the first-of-its-kind Net Zero Marketplace at Dreamforce. The platform makes carbon credit purchases simple and transparent, allowing any organisation to accelerate climate positive impact at scale. ^{Attendees were able to offset their travel-related emissions to Dreamforce and learn more about the Net Zero Marketplace.}

Net Zero Marketplace, built on Commerce Cloud, connects buyers and ecopreneurs — environmentally-focused entrepreneurs who lead and drive climate action worldwide. 

It is this type of environmental focus and commitment that is driving Browzwear, a 3D apparel design company, to reduce waste in the fashion industry. Supported by Customer 360, Browzwear has scaled its operations to help more than 1000 fashion companies on their sustainability journey.

Dreamforce was a great opportunity for the Salesforce community to come together and be inspired by Trailblazers, thought leaders, environmental experts, and activists. It showed how each of us has a role to play in going net zero, and showcased tools and strategies to help us get there — together.

Watch all the Dreamforce episodes on Sustainability on-demand here.

Catch all the magic from Dreamforce 2022 on-demand on Salesforce+

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