The IT Nerd

As we enter the final countdown to the festive period, Salesforce has shared a snapshot of post-Cyber Cyber Week momentum (Nov 29 – Dec 18) through data across commerce, marketing, and service from over 1.5 billion consumers shopping on retail sites:

• Canadian sales continue to grow YoY: Over this period, Canada bucked the trend and saw 5% YoY growth in online sales
  • Meanwhile, global online sales remained flat year-over-year.
• Retailers in for a ‘Return Tsunami’: The post-Cyber Week period saw a ‘returns tsunami’ globally. The percentage of returns more than doubled during the week following Cyber Week and has remained high since. 
  • As consumers become more discerning about discretionary spending, this increase in returns indicates the consumers may be thinking twice about their purchases and returning those that don’t provide the value they’re looking for.
  • Salesforce now predicts over US$131 billion in orders purchased this holiday season will be returned in the new year.
• BOPIS on the rise for last-minute shoppers: In addition, shoppers are turning to the benefits of Buy Online and Pick Up In Store (BOPIS) for convenience as they look to avoid in-store lines and shipping deadlines ahead of peak holidays. BOPIS accounted for 25% of online orders during the first three weeks of December.

Please find the full mid-December moment newsroom post that provides more details here.

Salesforce recently released the next iteration of its Generative AI Snapshot Research Series, The Promises and Pitfalls of AI at Work, surveying 14,000 global workers, including 1,020 in Canada, revealing that despite the promises generative AI holds, a lack of defined policies around its use may be putting Canadian businesses at risk.  

Key highlights from the research:

AI tools are penetrating the workplace without oversight 

• Over a quarter (25%) of Canadian professionals are currently using generative AI at work, and over half (58%) of these professionals are using AI without the approval of employers. 

Users are engaging in ethically questionable activities with AI due to ambiguous or non-existent workplace policies

• Over half of Canadians (54%) have passed off AI-generated content as their own, and another third (31%) would consider inflating AI skills to land a role. 
• However, the onus isn’t entirely on employees — just under a quarter of Canadian professionals (24%) have never completed or received training on how to safely and ethically use AI at work. 
• Certain industries lag behind more than others — for example, 83% of Canadian employees in the professional or business services industry claim their company lacks clear policies.
• In fact, over half (54%) Canadian professionals say their employer has little to no defined AI-use policies in the workplace.

Some Canadian data highlights are below, and more thorough Canadian and global insights at this link.

I’ve gotten a couple of phone calls from clients today who were and still are having issues getting to Salesforce. After a Quick Look at Down Detector, it seems that Salesforce has fallen down and can’t get up:

It appears that the issues started just before 8AM an are still ongoing. A trip to their status page seems to confirm that they have issues:

According to them, these issues have been ongoing for a couple of hours. And there is no ETA for resolution at this point. Seeing how pervasive Salesforce is within businesses big and small, let’s hope that this gets resolved quickly as any sort of Salesforce outage will result in a very bad day for many.

Salesforce’s annual Cyber Week Recap Report going live later this evening which analyzes shopping data from over one and a half billion shoppers globally.

Canadians played a game of ‘discount chicken’, patiently waiting for the best deals of the week – retailers experienced the biggest surge Saturday and Sunday as sales jumped 11% YoY. While Cyber Monday sales grew 4% YoY, as of 4 pm ET sales were still only showing 1% growth indicating last minute shopping into the evening hours.

Global online Cyber Week sales totalled US$298 billion, up 6% YoY from ($281 billion in 2022). Growth was driven primarily by order volume, rather than inflation, signaling increased consumer demand for the first time in over five quarters. 

Canadian Cyber Week Data (by day): 

• Friday: +2% YoY sales growth / 25% average discount
• Saturday + Sunday: +11% YoY sales growth / 26% average discount
• Monday (as of 4 p.m EST): +4% YoY sales growth / 25% average discount
• Cyber Week (Friday-Monday): +5% sales growth YoY

Global Cyber Week Insights: 

• AI wins over shoppers: AI influenced US$51 billion in online sales in areas including targeted offers, product recommendations, and generative AI-powered chat services.
• Consumers shopped mostly on mobile: Mobile phones accounted for a record-breaking 80% of Cyber Week ecommerce traffic, up from 76% in 2022. Given this, social traffic on mobile was a critical acquisition channel – representing 10% of all referrals to retailer websites.
• Discounts rose to meet pent-up demand: After lackluster deals earlier in the holiday season, discount rates rose to 27% globally on average throughout Cyber Week — representing the best deals of the holiday season. Verticals with the highest global discount rates were:
  • Makeup (38%)
  • General Apparel (33%)
  • Skincare (33%)
  • Active Apparel (32%)

You can view full global data available here. 

Here’s some Canadian Black Friday shopping results that came in just moments ago based on Salesforce’s global shopping data from more than 1.5 billion consumers, as well as a link to their holiday insights hub.

Canadian Black Friday Findings (as of 2 p.m. ET):

• Online sales are up 7% YoY globally but down 1% YoY in Canada.
  • In an interesting contrast, the US saw sales jump 16% driven primarily by order volume, rather than inflation, signaling increased consumer demand south of the border.
• Average order value declined YoY to $101.5 (down from $104.4 in 2022) and SKU count declined by 5% YoY as well. 
• Black Friday discounts remained flat YoY at 25%. 

Full Black Friday results will be shared this coming Monday morning, along with Cyber Monday predictions.

As we lead up to Cyber Week 2023, Salesforce has released its latest digital commerce data and predictions for the period.

Here are some of the headlines:

• According to Salesforce ecommerce data, early (Oct. 1–Nov.14) online holiday sales are up 2% year over year (YoY) in Canada. After a couple of years of experiencing inflation and other trends, consumers are shopping cautiously and making their own price comparisons.
• Canadian online traffic declines ahead of Cyber Week: Traffic dipped 3%, potentially due to shoppers waiting to maximize discounts or feeling the pinch of inflation, compared to the 5% growth seen globally YoY..
• Holiday shoppers walk before they run: Consumers browsed but held off on buying in the early holiday season. Product views grew by 1% in Canada compared to last year, but the low increase in sales growth (2%) indicates that consumers are waiting for the biggest and best deals of the season.

As a result, Salesforce predicts that:

• A slow start to holiday shopping will drive a high-volume Cyber Week: Similar to 2022, Cyber Week is anticipated to account for over 25% of all holiday purchases this year. While holiday shopping was spread out through all of November in 2020 and 2021, this year’s more price-conscious consumers are waiting to see what deals come their way on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
• Discount rates are expected to be attractive: As consumers wait for the biggest and best deals of the season, global discounts are likely to reach 29% globally. This is on par with pre-pandemic discount levels.
• Returns are likely to be low during Cyber Week and pick up in December: Only 7% of purchases are expected to be returned during Cyber Week, with thepeak of returns falling during Christmas and the days following (15%) as consumers race to return gifts they did not like before the return windows close.

For more data and predictions have a look at the holiday hub, which will be updated daily over Cyber Week.

As we look ahead to what 2024 will have in store, Salesforce’s top executives have just shared their predictions and insights for the year based on market analysis, customer conversations, and more in the company’s new Future of Tech and AI Predictions & Trends report. 

As a global leader in AI CRM software, Salesforce leaders are on the front lines of the latest trends, technologies, and challenges impacting businesses. Some of the trends and predictions that they have for 2024 include:

• Data will continue to get democratized — and smarter. This means 2024 will see a strong focus on data privacy and compliance.
• AI will transform enterprise, so businesses that don’t embrace AI will be left in the dust.
• AI brings a new era of cyber security, meaning cyber defense will take shape to address new threats.
• AI will hypercharge efficiency and we will all get familiar with the term “semantic query.” As AI grows smarter and more businesses embrace it, we will inch closer to autonomy.
• There are possibilities to use AI for good but only with equitable access.
• AI will modernize work and transform the office into a smarter workplace, plus change how we think about (and measure) human productivity.

The report with all of Salesforce’s 2024 predictions, is available here. 

Appendix

These 2024 predictions follow recent Canadian-specific survey data from Salesforce earlier this fall, which found that:

• On average, employees believe generative AI will save them 4 hours per week. However, 55% agree that they don’t have the skills to use generative AI effectively and safely.
• While 62% of employees use or plan to use generative AI at work, 79% believe generative AI introduces new security risks.

Salesforce today released its State of Data and Analytics report with key trends from over 10,000 analytics, IT, and business leaders across 18 countries, including 600 from Canada. 

The report highlights trends impacting data leaders including strategies used to navigate rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), challenges organizations face in realizing the full potential of their data, and tactics analytics and IT leaders employ to manage increasingly extensive and complex data.

Key insights of this year’s State of Data and Analytics report include:     

• AI advancements intensify demand for trusted, secure data. Advances in AI are fast-moving, and companies are eager to profit from new iterations like generative AI. 84% of Canadian  business leaders are worried about missing out on its benefits. This puts pressure on data management teams to power algorithms with high-quality data. 89% of Canadian analytics and IT leaders say advances in AI make data management a high priority. 
• Security threats and lack of trust hinder data potential. The path to unlocking data’s potential is winding. Only 49% of Canadian business leaders are completely confident in their data accuracy. Both Canadian business leaders and IT and analytics leaders cite security threats as their number one data challenge. 
• Leaders leverage data culture and data governance to reach goals. To maximize data value and trust, analytics and IT leaders lean on data governance. Eighty-six per cent (86%) of Canadian analytics and IT leaders use data governance to ensure and certify baseline data quality. Seventy-nine per cent (79%) of Canadian analytics and IT leaders are investing more in data training in the next year to strengthen internal data culture. 

Methodology

Data in this report are from two double-anonymous surveys conducted from June 16 through July 31, 2023. The first survey generated 5,540 responses from analytics and IT decision makers from 18 different countries across North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. The second survey generated 5,540 responses from line-of-business leaders from the same countries. More details can be found in the report. Cultural bias impacts country-level survey results.

For more information:

• Read the newsroom post for more detail and analysis.
• Download the full report for all insights.

Earlier this week Salesforce announced the general availability of Mulesoft’s Anypoint Code Builder. The product pilots generative AI to help developers reduce costs and speed up software development cycles.

With businesses racing to develop software that can power their business applications, still, Salesforce’s recent State of IT Report shows that 80% of global IT leaders say integration challenges slow their digital transformation. And, 84% of Canadian IT leaders (compared to 86% globally) expect generative AI to soon play a prominent role at their organizations. 

Anypoint Code Builder is an integrated development environment (IDE) that lets developers build APIs and integrations with modern tooling through Visual Studio Code, use natural language prompts to generate code, and access a variety of deployment environment options available for desktop and cloud IDEs.

Anypoint Code Builder is generally available now.

Salesforce had a ton of news announced at Dreamforce this week. Here’s a list of the announcements:

• Einstein Copilot Assistant
  • Salesforce’s next generation of Einstein brings conversational AI assistants to every customer relationship manager (CRM) application.
  • Einstein Copilot allows people to talk to the platform in natural language to generate trusted and accurate recommendations and guidance.
    • It can work alongside employees to do critical tasks such as tips for reducing average customer service call time or calculating the best discounts to move merchandise fast.
  • In addition, Copilot Studio & Skills Builder lets any organization customize the tool with prompts, skills and models, while the Einstein Trust Layer provides configurability for managing sensitive data and a compliance-ready audit trial to keep companies in control.
• Einstein 1 Platform
  • Building custom AI is different from building apps. The Salesforce Platform will now empower anyone to build their own autonomous agents with custom skills, models, prompts, and branding with clicks, not code.
• Einstein for Net Zero Cloud ESG reporting
  • With ESG reporting standards constantly evolving, businesses are having a hard time keeping up. Mandatory ESG reporting comes into effect for Canadian financial institutions in 2024, leaving businesses less than a year to adjust their operations. 
  • These new AI features will automate reporting, save time, and ultimately allow for a smarter and more holistic ESG strategy.
• Expanded AI partnership news with Amazon Web Services and Google Workspace
  • Salesforce is excited to announced a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help fuel business transformation for customers. New integrated solutions between the platforms are designed to help customers access enterprise data while enabling AI-powered personalization with trust and efficiently scaling business applications.
  • Salesforce and Google have announced a partnership to provide new trusted integrations that enable shared users to leverage both Salesforce and Google Workspace contextual data to inform generative AI experience across platforms. The seamless experience for shared users across platforms enables integrated use of Salesforce in Workspace Duet AI and Google Workspace in Einstein Assistant.
• AI-focused Slack innovations
  • Salesforce and Slack announced new product innovations that bring AI, automation and knowledge sharing to the platform, ultimately boosting productivity and transforming how teams work.
  • New built-in AI features to help automate work, allowing Slack users work smarter and save time.
    • Users can review conversations in one click, add connectors from partners like Asana, Google, and Jira, and manage work with Slack lists – from triaging IT requests to reviewing legal approvals.