Why and how to collaborate with a Salesforce Consulting Partner in the era of Salesforce AI

The impact of AI on reality is already evident across today’s marketing, sales, service, and finance departments. In this article the increasing importance of collaborating with a Salesforce Consulting Partner will be discussed in the era of Salesforce AI, highlighting the transformative impact of AI on business operations.
We have witnessed record growth for Salesforce amidst a pandemic and widespread technology adoption. As we enter 2024, it is evident how significantly new technologies, including AI, are influencing business operations.
The Salesforce Ecosystem encompasses diverse stakeholders, with the partner ecosystem being a key component.
Source: Salesforce Consulting Partners
In this article the increasing importance of collaborating with a Salesforce Consulting Partner will be discussed in the era of Salesforce AI, highlighting the transformative impact of AI on business operations. It emphasizes the diverse roles of Salesforce partners, including consulting, ISVs, and resellers, and provides practical tips for selecting an ideal consulting partner.
Furthermore, the article delves into the advancements in Salesforce AI technology, such as Einstein Copilot, and explores how partners are integrating AI into their operations to address client concerns and enhance customer experiences.
Through insights from major Salesforce partners like Accenture, IBM, Deloitte, and Capgemini, the evolving landscape of AI integration in business operations will be illustrated and the strategic importance of adopting AI solutions in 2024 will be emphasized for improved efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Table of contents
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What are Salesforce Partners?
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How to choose a Salesforce Consulting Partner?
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Salesforce AI: What to expect in 2024?
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Salesforce Partner AI Day 2024
Let’s start with the Salesforce Partner environment.
What are Salesforce Partners?
Most of the companies that implement the Salesforce CRM platform have trained people who can maintain, implement, and customize the solutions to fit operational needs.
However, in the dynamic world of new realities and business cases, other businesses focus on Salesforce implementation for specific industries or Salesforce clouds. They share expertise and knowledge with other people now.
Here‘’s a brief summary table outlining the main types of Salesforce partners:
Salesforce Consulting Partner |
Salesforce Consulting Partners focus on building successful businesses by leveraging their expertise, leading unique practices, and implementing innovative tools. They provide strategic consulting services to their clients. |
Independent Software Vendor (ISVs) |
ISVs develop solutions for the Salesforce ecosystem that are available on the Salesforce AppExchange. They create standalone products or integrated solutions that enhance the Salesforce platform. |
Reseller Partner |
These partners primarily sell Salesforce licenses but may not be directly involved in the implementation process. They act as intermediaries between Salesforce and the end-users, facilitating the licensing process. |
How to choose a Salesforce Consulting Partner?
Selecting the ideal Salesforce Consulting Partner for your project is key to successfully implementing Salesforce and reaching your goals while minimizing risks and financial burdens. Here are some practical tips to steer your decision-making process:
Objectives
Understand your Salesforce project goals and requirements clearly to find a consulting partner who can meet your needs, whether it’s implementation, customization, integration, data migration, or ongoing support.
Salesforce Certifications
One aspect of expertise is the certifications held by the consulting team members. These credentials serve as a competitive advantage, distinguishing individuals within the Salesforce community. Certifications vary based on the Salesforce product and area, serving as an indicator of relevant expertise.
Customer success stories
Review the consulting partner’s industry-specific case studies to gain insight into their experience. These case studies can typically be found on the consultancy’s website, social media platforms, and their listing on the Salesforce AppExchange.
Customer reviews
Additionally, seek out customer reviews, testimonials, and feedback from past clients to assess the consulting partner’s reputation and performance. You can find official reviews on the AppExchange Consultants listing.
Project Management
Ask about the consulting partner’s approach to project management and the resources they allocate to ensure projects are delivered on time and within budget.
Customer Support
Examine the post-implementation support and maintenance services provided by the consulting partner. Ongoing support is vital for resolving issues and implementing enhancements.
Security and Compliance
Confirm that the consulting partner has a track record of meeting relevant security and compliance standards tailored to your organization’s requirements.
Future Scalability
Choose a partner capable of scaling and adapting your Salesforce solution to meet your organization’s evolving needs and long-term growth objectives.
Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the Salesforce Consulting Partner landscape and have a good grasp of the essential criteria to consider when selecting the right consulting partner for your project, the next section of the article will dive into Salesforce AI CRM.
Salesforce AI: What to Expect in 2024?
Salesforce’s first release of its generative AI technology in 2023 marked a significant milestone, reshaping the landscape of organizational interactions. Their primary focus was on enhancing customer experiences and amplifying team productivity, enabling the integration of this powerful tool across Salesforce’s suite of clouds. The resulting AI-generated content dynamically adapts to evolving customer information and needs, streamlining personalized content creation processes and providing significant time savings.
One of the biggest Salesforce AI updates was released in 2024. Einstein Copilot is seamlessly integrated into the side panel of any Salesforce application interface, this feature facilitates interaction with conversational AI assistants for both internal users and customers.
The Einstein Copilot studio, comprising of prompt, skills, and model builders, empowers businesses to customize and deploy AI-powered applications efficiently. This autonomy empowers admins to oversee AI processes, promoting transparency and reducing inherent biases.
In addition to Einstein Copilot, Salesforce has incorporated AI updates across its product lineup. For instance, Sales Cloud Einstein assists sales teams in creating personalized and compelling content aligned with current trends and news. Einstein for Service enhances customer and field service operations, resulting in improved customer satisfaction, cost savings, and better decision-making.
Einstein for Developers boosts coding with tailored suggestions from organizational data, ensuring security via the AI Trust Layer. This includes vulnerability scanning and inline suggestions within the Salesforce IDE, leading to better code and fewer errors across Salesforce platforms. These updates extend to other Salesforce clouds and applications, offering a range of additional features.
AI predictions and auto-generated content stand at the core of Salesforce’s offerings, facilitating personalized communication across multiple channels like emails, social media posts, and website pages, utilizing a variety of templates. This not only streamlines content creation but also amplifies sales effectiveness through compelling messaging and precise lead generation, all achieved without requiring coding expertise.
Einstein Trust Layer
As mentioned earlier, Einstein Copilot consists of three components, one of which is the model builder. The model builder plays a crucial role in ensuring data privacy and is further strengthened by its integration with the Einstein GPT Trust Layer, which enhances security and compliance.
Additionally, users have the flexibility to create and utilize their own data modules, simplifying AI integration and model training while saving time and resources. This feature seamlessly operates with existing data from various departments such as sales, service, and marketing.
The Einstein GPT Trust Layer, an essential part of the AI cloud, sets a leading standard for trusted enterprise AI. It addresses concerns about data privacy and security, enabling organizations to confidently leverage generative AI.
By preventing large-language models (LLMs) from retaining sensitive customer data, the Einstein GPT Trust Layer instills trust and reliability. Data masking, a fundamental aspect of this layer, involves replacing sensitive data with non-sensitive placeholders to uphold data confidentiality effectively.
Salesforce Partner AI Day
Recent interviews with Salesforce partners such as Accenture, IBM, Deloitte, and Capgemini have sparked questions about the role of AI in business operations and the most prevalent concerns among customers. The evolving landscape of AI is reshaping the industry, and Salesforce Partners are proactively engaging in this transformative era. They are addressing anticipated concerns and preparing for future challenges related to partners integrating AI into their operations.
Salesforce, recognizing the significance of insights into AI from partners, conducted interviews during the World Tour London: AI Day. These discussions shed light on how generative AI is influencing and reshaping various industries.
AI in practice: use cases with Salesforce partner clients
AI is reshaping industries, and Salesforce Partners are actively involved in navigating this transformative landscape. They are addressing prevalent concerns and preparing for future challenges related to the integration of AI by their clients.
Accenture and Google Cloud have joined forces to launch the Gen AI Center of Excellence, where they guide customers in adopting modern AI practices from Accenture and how to leverage advanced generative AI technology from Google Cloud. Currently, the companies are developing assets tailored to the specific needs of their customers. They firmly believe that AI represents a strategic investment, emphasizing the importance of trust and customer relationships. Collaborating with partners ensures that customers receive industry-specific functional and technical expertise.
Google and Accenture highlighted common areas of inquiry from their customers, such as AI implementation for marketing, including text generation for emails and image generation for websites and ad campaigns. Additionally, customer operations pose challenges, focusing on enhancing agent effectiveness, resolving customer issues promptly, and optimizing sales processes. Another significant area involves modern engineering and development, where code generation accelerates developers’ efficiency, allowing their work to reach the market more rapidly.
Another partner we should look at is IBM. They’ve already set up their own generative AI studio, making them one of the Salesforce partners that practice what they preach by creating and implementing AI solutions within their own operations.
A practical example from their clientele showcases the automatic generation of personalized chat responses, providing valuable support to field service technicians and product engineering specialists.
Future and outcomes of AI in business operations
Accenture shared valuable insights on guiding customers through the implementation of generative AI in a secure and trusted manner. The initial focus lies on the meticulous selection of use cases, a responsibility expertly handled by Salesforce Consulting Partners. Building on this, decision-makers and strategists are urged to set achievable goals. The crucial decision of whether the impact will be on the brand, or the customer reinforces the necessity for complete control over solutions, with a clear identification of the main decision driver.
IBM echoes these sentiments by emphasizing the significance of paying attention to AI assets, coupled with strategic considerations in sales, customer service, and marketing. Recognizing that many organizations are now AI-ready, with higher returns on investment per employee cost. This indicates a shifting focus towards human-centric, user-centric design as the core of AI in business operations. Trusting partners emerges as a key element in navigating this transformative journey.
AWS, in alignment with what appears to be the general consensus, stated that systems are positioned as drivers for boosting productivity and creating unique, personalized experiences. The focus on the concepts of data and analytics highlights the importance of tackling specific use cases, implementing effective strategies, and navigating the intricate challenge of establishing trust. This is all part of holistic reinvention practices in response to current implications that involve making AI accessible and available to a wider audience.
What is next?
In essence, the impact of AI on reality is already evident across today’s marketing, sales, service, and finance departments. This is already leading to swifter and more personalized customer experiences, accompanied by a noticeable increase in employee productivity. As we navigate the transformative AI landscape, setting achievable goals becomes crucial for visible improvements in overall metrics influenced by AI.
There is no doubt that your organization should consider AI implementation now and can commence with consulting services that stand out by seamlessly merging deep industry expertise with advanced AI technology. Employing an experience-led approach, the goal is not to replace but to augment your team, enhancing their skills and maximizing their contribution. This concise conclusion underscores the immediate benefits and strategic importance of integrating AI into your business in 2024 and beyond.