The IT Nerd

Salesforce today announced a new study from IDC that finds Salesforce and its ecosystem of partners in Canada will create 71,700 new jobs and $36.8 billion in new business revenues by 2026. The study also finds that Salesforce is driving immense growth for its partner ecosystem in Canada, which will make $8.08 for every $1 Salesforce makes locally by 2026. 

Building digital HQs solves for urgent transformation needs

IDC forecasts that cloud-related technologies will account for 27% of digital transformation IT spending this year, growing to 37% in 2026, as businesses focus on establishing digital HQs to deliver customer and employee success from anywhere. Remote work, contactless customer engagement, and sustainability efforts are becoming more prevalent than ever, and IDC expects this trend will only continue. 

As more companies build out their digital HQs to support an increasingly remote workforce, Salesforce technologies have helped its customers adjust to uncertainty – enabling remote work and remote contact with customers, and making it possible to develop new products in weeks, not months.

IDC also conducted a survey of 525 enterprises across eight countries on cloud deployment and the benefits and challenges of cloud computing. Of the 74% of survey respondents who say their organizations have a formal digital transformation strategy, 97% rate cloud computing as important to that strategy. The survey also found that Salesforce solutions have enabled:

• 47% of customer respondents to expand their workforce to more suburban and rural areas.
• 38% of customer respondents to expand their workforce to new populations (for example, stay-at-home parents and people with disabilities).
• 36% of customer respondents to support a more flexible work environment.

Salesforce technologies can also help companies plan for a more sustainable future. IDC forecasts that from 2021 to 2024, global migration from on-premise software to the cloud could reduce as much as 1 billion metric tons of CO2. Salesforce itself has set a goal of pursuing 100% renewable energy for its global operations by 2022, and currently delivers a carbon-neutral cloud to all its customers. And, according to IDC’s customer survey, 39% of Salesforce customers surveyed look to Salesforce as a source of support in reaching their own sustainability objectives.

Salesforce partner ecosystem drives worldwide acceleration of growth

IDC predicts that the use of Salesforce and its ecosystem’s cloud services will generate $308 billion in the customer base this year and more than double that in 2026, at $724 billion. Today, the ecosystem of Salesforce partners delivering cloud services to customers is five times as big as Salesforce itself, and will be more than six times as big in 2026. The study also found that 2026 ecosystem revenues are forecast to be 3.5 times those in 2020

Salesforce paves pathways to help unlock career opportunities in the Salesforce Economy

23% of new jobs created in the Salesforce customer base this year leverage significant digital skills — such as using automation tools, the Internet of Things ( IoT), and other complex applications. Trailhead, Salesforce’s free online learning platform, and its Trailblazer Community, which accelerates this learning through peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and support, empower anyone to learn digital skills for the growing Salesforce economy. 

How Salesforce is creating jobs to fuel the Salesforce Economy

Salesforce has a number of programs and initiatives to help create the jobs of the future—and to fill them with well-equipped candidates:

• The Trailblazer Community is a global network of millions of people who help each other learn new skills and succeed with Salesforce. The Trailblazer Community offers an online platform to connect from anywhere, as well as more than 1,300 active regional and interest-based groups around the world. Members share their guidance and expertise and support each other as they build careers and companies with Salesforce. To date, 3 in 5 Trailblazers credit their participation in the Trailblazer Community with helping them get a new job or promotion.
• Trailhead has empowered more than 3.5 million people globally to learn in-demand skills for the future of work. With Trailhead, learners can skill up for free from anywhere and earn globally-recognized credentials for careers in the Salesforce ecosystem. Trailhead provides guided career paths for Salesforce roles, and is introducing three new roles to create entry points into some of the fastest-growing fields today: Marketer, Sales, and Designer. 
• The Salesforce Talent Alliance is an initiative that connects partners to job candidates trained on Salesforce via Trailhead and brings new talent into the fast-growing ecosystem. This year, two Talent Alliance partners are Salesforce’s Partner Innovation Awards recipients for demonstrating excellence in expanding the Salesforce economy by training and hiring new and diverse pipelines of talent:
  • Cognizant, in collaboration with Salesforce, the University of Montana and ATG, a Cognizant Company built a 12-week paid Salesforce training program called Aim Higher, which has developed more than 175 new Salesforce credentialed consultants in the past two years.
  • Bucher + Suter is a Salesforce independent software vendor (ISV) partner that champions and is a sponsor of Noser Young, which is a leading IT Trainer in Switzerland. Through the Noser Young partnership, Bucher + Suter takes on apprentices every year to help with their education in IT.

What is the Salesforce Economy?
IDC defines “The Salesforce Economy” as the footprint of Salesforce and its partner ecosystem on the economy at large. This includes the revenues and jobs directly generated in the Salesforce customer base from the use of Salesforce and its partners cloud services, as well as jobs created indirectly in the economy by local spending by direct employees and Salesforce and its partners themselves.

Salesforce’s multi-faceted partner ecosystem is a driving force behind the Salesforce Economy’s massive growth and includes:

• The Salesforce partner ecosystem can help customers grow faster. Throughout a customer’s journey, partners fill technology whitespace and offer solutions across products, industries, and regions. The Salesforce partner ecosystem includes consulting partners, ISVs, and resellers that bring the power of apps and expertise to solve any customer challenges. 
• Launched in 2006, Salesforce AppExchange is the world’s leading enterprise cloud marketplace, with over 6,700 partner listings and more than 9 million installs. 

Additional Resources

• Download a full copy of the IDC White Paper, “The Salesforce Economic Impact”.
• Explore data from the IDC White Paper in Tableau.
• Hear more about the impact of the Salesforce Economy in this Newsroom Q&A.
• Learn more about the 2021 Partner Innovation Awards here.
• Learn more about Salesforce’s partner ecosystem here. 
• Visit the Salesforce AppExchange: http://www.appexchange.com 
• Read more about Salesforce’s Pathfinder Program and the top 3 lessons learned about training the tech workforce of the future here

IDC Methodology

The Salesforce Economic Impact Model is an extension to IDC’s IT Economic Impact Model. It estimates Salesforce’s current and future share of the benefits to the general economy generated by cloud computing, and it also estimates the size of the ecosystem supporting Salesforce using IDC’s market research on the ratio of spending on professional services to cloud subscriptions; the ratio of sales of hardware, software, and networking to spending on public and private cloud computing; and the ratio of spending on application development tools to applications developed.

Note that the ecosystem may include companies that are not formal business partners of Salesforce but that nevertheless sell products or services associated with the Salesforce implementations.

IDC White Paper, sponsored by Salesforce, “The Salesforce Economic Impact,” doc #US48214821, September 20, 2021

Salesforce today announced Health Cloud 2.0, technology designed to empower businesses and governments to deliver better health and safety for their employees, customers and communities.

As we navigate a future that’s a hybrid of digital, in-person, and on-site, focus has shifted to ensuring health, safety, and effective business operations in the new normal — which is key to building trust and business continuity. Now, COVID-19 testing, vaccination, contact tracing, wellness assessments and delivering healthcare from multiple settings are critical as organizations in every industry are looking for ways to be together safely with their customers and employees.

Salesforce understands these needs intuitively. This week the company is deploying Dreampass, a new part of the Health Cloud 2.0 portfolio, at its three-day, hybrid digital and in-person Dreamforce conference. Dreampass enables robust and scalable COVID-19 safety protocols to be implemented for in-person attendees, including managing proof of vaccination, integrating with testing vendors and delivering automated personalized communications throughout the process to help ensure a safer environment for attendees, staff, and the community.

Empowering connected experiences for health and work

The Health Cloud 2.0 portfolio of products will be available to any business in any sector: 

• Dreampass is designed to help deliver safer in-person events for employees, customers, and communities with capabilities including attendee registration management, COVID-19 vaccine and/or testing status verification and testing vendor integration to help issue testing kits. Dreampass then allows admission upon integrated test results with a personalized QR code. In the case of protocol changes or possible exposure, notifications and messaging also can be sent to the attendee directly.
• Contact tracing allows organizations to manually contact trace more safely and securely by collecting only limited, necessary data from individuals who are infected or potentially exposed and creating visual maps of contacts to monitor for potential outbreaks.
• Vaccine management helps governments and organizations manage vaccine programs at scale quickly, including inventory management, appointment scheduling, outcome monitoring, public health notifications, and more.
• Value-based care from anywhere enables healthcare organizations topersonalize patient experiences and deliver hybrid healthcare experiences in multiple care settings. It is also designed to help bring care teams together to achieve better patient outcomes, helping to improve business productivity and public health operations.

For more on Health Cloud 2.0, watch the Dreamforce ‘21 keynote here.

Salesforce today announced that it is a Net Zero company across its full value chain and has achieved 100% renewable energy for its operations. Salesforce developed emissions reductions strategies across Scope 1, 2 and 3 in four key categories—work from anywhere, infrastructure, business travel, and supply chain. 

Salesforce is also unveiling Sustainability Cloud 2.0 to accelerate customers’ path to Net Zero,

empowering organizations to track and reduce their carbon emissions and become a sustainable business. New innovations include Slack-First Sustainability for better collaboration with suppliers, a carbon-offset ecosystem, and industry specific climate action plans.  

Together, we can sequester 100 gigatons of carbon by restoring, conserving or growing 1 trillion trees; energize an ecopreneur revolution to develop innovative climate solutions; and accelerate the Fortune 1000 to reach Net Zero.”

Sustainability is essential to becoming a trusted enterprise. Customers want to do business with companies that are fully committed to climate action. In fact, 58% of people are willing to spend more with businesses that fight climate change. 

Salesforce Expands Net Zero to its Entire Value Chain (Scope 1, 2 and 3) 

Salesforce is continuing to drive towards a 1.5°C future by focusing on six sustainability priorities: emissions reduction, carbon removal, trillion trees & ecosystem restoration, education & mobilization, innovation, and regulation & policy. 

Today, the company is releasing its Climate Action Plan to offer a blueprint for others to accelerate their journey to Net Zero. 

Salesforce achieved Net Zero emissions by: 

• Committing publicly to the shared, global goal of achieving a just and equitable transition to Net Zero, in line with a 1.5°C future.
• Prioritizing reducing emissions as quickly as possible and aligning its own full value chain emissions (Scope 1, 2, and 3) to the global trajectory of ~50% emissions reductions by 2030, and near-zero emissions 2040. With Sustainability Cloud, Salesforce identified the most impactful opportunities to lower its carbon footprint.
• Compensating for any remaining emissions by purchasing renewable energy and carbon credits of high credibility, impact, and co-benefits. In the long-term using removal credits only and in the near term using a combination of avoidance and removal credits.

In 2021, Salesforce achieved 100% renewable energy, purchasing enough renewable energy to match all electricity it uses globally. Since first committing to this goal in 2013, Salesforce has been working to accelerate the global transition to clean and renewable sources of electricity with the aim for a future where renewable energy is powering the world around the clock.

To address climate change, businesses need to decrease emissions and increase carbon removals from the atmosphere. Salesforce is focused on deploying natural carbon removal tools, including trees and oceans, while scaling technology-based carbon removal solutions. From ecopreneurs to enterprises—innovation is needed to expedite the path to decarbonization. 

Sustainability Cloud 2.0 Accelerates Companies to Net Zero, Faster

More than 70% of people believe emissions reduction should factor into business operations, yet tracking a company’s full value chain emissions is complex and time consuming. With Sustainability Cloud, Salesforce was able to reduce its carbon accounting process from more than six months to just six weeks.  

Sustainability Cloud is designed to help customers track and reduce their emissions and take action through a full view of their environmental footprint with investor-grade data for customizable ESG reporting. This data is essential for third-party audits, financial filings, corporate reputation, and building trust with all stakeholders. Customers including Clif Bar, Crowley Maritime, ISDI, MillerKnoll, Uhuru Corp, and Xero are already using Sustainability Cloud to track their carbon emissions and take action. 

Today, Salesforce is introducing Sustainability Cloud 2.0 to help businesses accelerate to Net Zero by making progress on the six sustainability priorities and turn commitments into action. In the next generation of Sustainability Cloud, companies will see the following: 

• Suppliers are a significant part of the carbon reduction equation. Companies will get investor-grade scope 3 reporting with Slack-First Sustainability, allowing them to effortlessly connect and securely collaborate at scale with suppliers around sciencebased emission reduction targets through Slack Connect.
• Every industry has unique needs. Businesses will be able to visualize their fastest path to Net Zero with Climate Action Planning, which includes forecasting, scenario planning and built-in decarbonization plans.
• Climate action needs everyone to mobilize and collaborate. Salesforce is investing in building an Open Exchange Ecosystem, in which customers will be able to purchase and manage high-quality carbon credits from ecopreneurs, advocate for science-based climate policies, and democratize sustainability by educating teams.

Nature-Based Solutions Are Critical to Addressing the Climate Crisis

At Salesforce, the environment is a key stakeholder, and we know trees are one of the most effective solutions we have to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. That’s why Salesforce is a founding partner of1t.org, a movement to conserve, restore and grow 1 trillion trees by 2030.

Through Dreamforce Gives, Salesforce is donating $1M to American Forests and One Tree Planted to advance tree equity and urban canopy in lower income communities and neighborhoods and to reforest disaster-affected areas. 

• Dreamforce Gives: American Forests will focus its efforts in Dallas, Phoenix and Rhode Island — areas that are grappling with extreme heat and have been identified by

American Forests’ Tree Equity Score as having high disparities in tree canopy — and plant more than 1,700 trees in underserved communities across these areas. One Tree Planted will plant trees globally to support urban reforestation and tree equity in lower income communities and neighborhoods.

• Global Citizen: As part of the company’s commitment to the planet, Salesforce is partnering with leaders and activists for Global Citizen, a movement to mobilize millions of people around the world to defend the planet and defeat poverty. Inspired by the actions of global citizens and as part of Global Citizen Live event, taking place on September 25th, and in partnership with 1T.org, Salesforce will fund the restoration, conservation, and growth of an additional 30 million trees by this year driving forward its overall goal of 100M trees by the end of the decade. 
• Trees for Jane: Salesforce is also a proud supporter of Trees for Jane, a new campaign to protect and restore the world’s trees and forests, inspired by Dr. Jane Goodall. Trees for Jane aims to stop deforestation while also empowering individuals to plant and care for their own tree or trees in their backyards, rooftops, or with local community groups.

The protection of our planet requires everyone — governments, investors, businesses, individuals — working together, today, to take climate action.

More Information:

• Tune into Dreamforce today at 10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. BST
• Check out the Tableau & American Forests’ Tree Equity Score Explorer dashboard  
• Learn more about the 2021 Salesforce Economy study
• Learn more about Salesforce’s commitment to climate action here
• New Sustainability Cloud innovations are expected to be generally available in 2022 

Today, Salesforce rolled out three new Einstein Automate products to help every Salesforce customer, regardless of technical background, use low-code tools to automate time-consuming, manual processes and integrate data across systems right from their digital HQ. 

Einstein Automate is a portfolio of workflow automation, integration, digital interactions, and AI capabilities embedded across Salesforce Platform. The new products include MuleSoft RPA (Robotic Process Automation), Einstein Document Reader and Digital Process Automation. 

As organizations shift to digital-first customer experiences, they need automated workflows to handle time-consuming tasks, such as verifying user account information. In fact, a recent MuleSoft survey found 77% of IT and business decision makers are already using or plan to use automation solutions to increase productivity. Salesforce customers are no exception to this, with an average of 38.2 billion processes automated and 116 billion Einstein predictions completed daily as of July 2021. 

Einstein Automate’s capabilities make it easy to click, create and ship workflow automation to manage and track manual tasks. Customers can simply select one of the hundreds of pre-built, industry-specific best practice workflows, or use powerful low-code tools to build custom workflow automation, in just a few clicks. 

Today, they’re announcing: 

• MuleSoft RPA: New robotic process automation capabilities replace repetitive tasks with bots that can intelligently process documents, enter data, or take action on the user’s behalf, all without code. With MuleSoft RPA, these bots work for any system or application, including PDF documents, spreadsheets and even disconnected legacy systems.
• Einstein Document Reader: Use Einstein’s capabilities to scan documents such as drivers licenses and I-9s, and take action on that data with just a few clicks in Salesforce Flow — reducing human error and improving accuracy. 
• Digital Process Automation: Build branded digital experiences fast with drag and drop tools that empower business users to define automation rules and logic, extract information from documents and integrate into automated workflows — all without writing code.

Automate any workflow with Einstein Automate

In addition to the new capabilities from MuleSoft RPA, Einstein Automate enables users to: 

• Integrate disparate apps and data to Salesforce using clicks. MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce allows administrators and other users to use a growing library of pre-built connectors and templates to quickly automate integrations from multiple sources. 
• Automate lengthy business processes with simple, reusable workflows. Salesforce Flow allows anyone to build automated business processes that trigger changes to data or events like creating a follow-up task when a deal closes or alerting a support manager of an escalation. Business users can also guide employees through processes without needing to jump between different systems or apps. With Salesforce Flow, complex workflows are easily streamlined with clicks and the option to extend with code.  
• Orchestrate complex, multi-user processes across systems. Flow Orchestrator allows users to coordinate complex, multi-user processes and approvals, like applying for a car loan, into a streamlined workflow. Using low-code technology, anyone can include AI-generated next steps that prompt users to take action and identify delay-causing bottlenecks for an enhanced employee and customer experience. 

Scale automation faster with out-of-the-box and workflows

Organizations can leverage the largest library of pre-built, industry-specific solutions to implement and scale automation more quickly than ever before.

• Start with out-of-the-box industry workflows. With over 900 out-of-the-box industry specific, best practice workflows, Salesforce and OmniStudio give everyone the ability to build and scale automation quickly. 
• Extend with pre-built automation solutions. AppExchange features more than 70  workflow templates, actions, and pre-built bots built by Salesforce and partners on the Einstein Automate collection page. 

Pricing and Availability 

• Salesforce Flow, MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce, AppExchange and Digital Process Automation are generally available today.
• Einstein Document Reader is currently in pilot. 
• Flow Orchestrator is expected to be available in open beta in October 2021.
• MuleSoft RPA is expected to be generally available in 2022.

Today, Salesforce introduced new AI-powered innovations for Marketing Cloud that help companies humanize every interaction; make trusted, first-party data the foundation of their digital strategy; and optimize marketing impact with unified analytics.The innovations announced today include Einstein Engagement Scoring in Salesforce CDP, Einstein Designer, Interaction Studio Templates, and Datorama Connectors.

In this digital-first world, companies need to deliver moments that are connected, relevant, and human in order to develop trusted relationships that build loyalty and grow revenue. In fact, 84% of marketers say that customer expectations are changing as digital experiences become more sophisticated. To deliver on these expectations, companies must harness the power of data and leverage AI— while also respecting privacy and using data with consent. 

Today’s news builds on the recently announced innovations that combine the power of Slack and Salesforce to help marketers build digital HQs that transform collaboration and deliver insights fast, improve their strategies through streamlined workflows, and enable quicker decisions.

Know your customer to engage with relevancy

According to the State of Marketing Report, 60% of customers are open to the use of AI to improve their experiences. Marketers’ top AI use cases include driving recommendations, personalizing the overall customer journey, and automating customer interactions. 

Customers can use AI in combination with cross-cloud data to target their most active subscribers

Einstein Engagement Scoring in Salesforce CDP helps marketers use AI in combination with cross-cloud data to target their most active subscribers within Salesforce CDP, an enterprise customer data platform that supercharges customer interactions everywhere. This capability improves engagement, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction across every touchpoint. For example, marketers can use Einstein Engagement Scores in Salesforce CDP to omit users unlikely to engage with emails or mobile, and instead utilize other channels like advertising or social media to engage with them.

Humanize every moment with real-time personalization

Eighty percent of marketers say that engaging customers in real time is their number one challenge. Marketing Cloud innovations announced today help meet this need through:

Customers can create relevant content with the help of AI in seconds

• Interaction Studio Templates deliver personalized interactions with templates that now extend and simplify personalization to customers via ATMs, point-of-sale systems, and call centers.
• Interaction Studio Integration with Experience Cloud provides personalized web, mobile, and portal experiences based on real-time engagement.
• Interaction Studio Integration with CRM gives sales and service teams real-time visibility into customer behavior, segmentation, and next-best actions.
• Einstein Designer creates relevant content with the help of AI in seconds using variations of available images, copy, and headlines. 

Optimize marketing impact with smarter insights

According to the Marketing Intelligence Report, the top three improvements marketers are seeking to make over the next year include optimizing marketing spend, developing a strategic view of overall marketing performance, and gaining a stronger ability to understand and engage customers. AI innovations in Marketing Cloud that meet these needs include:

Customers can use out-of-the-box analytics apps and AI-driven insights understand the business impact of their marketing efforts

Datorama Connectors and Apps for Salesforce CDP and Interaction Studio enable marketers to understand the business impact of their first-party, data-driven marketing and advertising. With out-of-the-box analytics apps and deeper Einstein Marketing Insights, companies can optimize return on investment (ROI) and customer lifetime value (LTV).

Availability

• Einstein Engagement Scoring in Salesforce CDP is generally available today.
• Interaction Studio Templates are generally available today.
• Interaction Studio Integration with Experience Cloud is generally available today.
• Interaction Studio Integration with CRM will be generally available to customers early next year.
• Einstein Designer will be generally available to customers early next year.
• Datorama Connector and App for Salesforce CDP is generally available today.
• Datorama Connector and App for Interaction Studio is generally available today.

Today, Salesforce announced innovations both to its Service Cloud and Sales Cloud.

Service Cloud 360: New AI, Digital Channel Innovations Drive Effortless Customer Experiences

Even as customer requests surge and businesses face shortages in available agents, 83% of consumers today expect to be able to immediately interact with a customer service representative who will be able to resolve even complex problems. 

New Service Cloud innovations include:

• New AI powered workflows built into the Customer 360 platform enable customer service businesses to predict, route, and solve customer needs — sometimes before the customer is even aware a problem exists. These innovations empower service teams to quickly respond to major incidents, automate how cases are routed throughout the organization, and eliminate repetitive tasks that bog agents down.
• New digital contact center innovations for chat, video, and voice offer new ways to make service interactions more convenient for both customers and service teams. This digital HQ brings together agents’ workspace, voice capabilities, workforce engagement, and Slack to connect employees, partners, customers, and apps on one screen.

Sales Cloud: New Innovations Help Companies Sell Smarter and Grow Revenue Faster

Between rapidly changing markets and demand for sales roles growing 65% in the past year, leaders require tools that support a new way of digital-first selling to meet customer expectations.

New Sales Cloud innovations include:

• Revenue Intelligence: Equipping sales leaders with insights throughout the entire sales and revenue cycle, from closing deals to setting forecasts to building new pipelines, is imperative as sales organizations evolve from relying on intuition to hard data. 
• Sales Enablement: Smooth onboarding, training, and development experiences for sales reps are essential to creating engaged teams; retaining and attracting strong talent; and ultimately closing deals.
• Subscription Management: Companies can deliver a unified customer experience built on the Salesforce Customer 360 platform, empowering customers to manage subscriptions from any self-service channel on their own, and more.

This news is on the heels of Salesforce’s strong Q2 earnings results and in the lead up to Dreamforce where you can expect more announcements.

Hot on the heels of its announcement of Salesforce+, Salesforce today publishes its seventh annual State of Marketing report, which examines how marketers navigated the shift to digital during the pandemic and how they plan to keep pace with customer expectations. In short, engaging with customers effectively is more difficult than ever as they remain committed to their pandemic-prompted digital habits and brands face steep competition on crowded digital channels.

Data highlights from the report include:

• Canadian marketers are optimistic and ready to rise to the challenge even as 71% say meeting customer expectations is more difficult than a year ago.

• 73% of Canadian marketers say customer experience is the key competitive differentiator, 7% less than the global average.
• 77% of marketers feel their work provides greater value now than it did a year ago.
• Digital channels take precedence as digital ads, digital content, video and social media rank in the top 5 channels with increased value in the past year.

• 92% of Canadian marketers say their digital engagement strategy has changed since before the pandemic.
• 91% of marketers say their marketing channel mix has changed over the past year.
• Data is paramount for creating effective customer experiences, as 73% of Canadian marketers say their customer engagement is data-driven (5% less than the global average.)

• Marketers expect a 23% increase in the number of data sources they use by 2022.
• Marketers have shifted toward known digital identity sources such as email addresses and social IDs and away from anonymized digital identities such as cookies and device IDs. 

Canada-specific data is below:

Salesforce today announced Salesforce+, an all-new streaming service with compelling live and on-demand content for every role, industry and line of business, all in one place.

Salesforce+ includes live experiences, original series, podcasts, and other programming. With engaging stories, thought leadership and expert advice, Salesforce+ will illuminate the future of technology in the digital-first, work anywhere world and inspire millions of Trailblazers to learn new skills, pursue new career opportunities, and drive change in the world. 

The current Salesforce+ lineup features:

• “Leading Through Change” launched in March 2020 as a weekly program focusing on how business leaders were dealing with the global pandemic. With more than 60 episodes, the series has had more than 700 million views and won the 2021 Content Marketing Award for Best Content Marketing Program.
• “Connections” showcases some of the most innovative marketers from companies like IBM, Levi’s, and GoFundMe. The COVID-19 pandemic has flipped marketing on its head and made long-standing playbooks and tactics obsolete. Salesforce President and CMO Sarah Franklin talks with some of the best and brightest marketing minds about how they are connecting with their audiences in a whole new way.
• “The Inflection Point” features CEOs from leading brands such as Coca-Cola, PayPal, Honeywell, and Workday sharing how their personal backstories, professional influences and values inform their leadership. Hosted by Monica Langley, who spent 27 years as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, the series reveals a different side of some of the world’s top executives.
• “Boss Talks” is a career advice series hosted by Salesforce’s Chief Philanthropy Officer Ebony Beckwith and designed to inspire professional growth. In conversations with the likes of NFL player Kelvin Beachum Jr. and Mona Monica Kattan of Huda Beauty, Beckwith dives into topics such as dealing with imposter syndrome and unlocking workplace authenticity.
• “Simply Put” is a short-form video series hosted by Emmanuel Acho that makes complex business problems easy to understand, focusing on topics like how to build an ecommerce business and how to grow digital sales. 

In the coming months, Salesforce+ will debut more original content featuring leaders in fields like sales and service, as well as a new series on how Trailblazers from underrepresented communities are re-skilling to find new career opportunities and create generational wealth.

Salesforce+ will be available to a global audience just as Dreamforce, the world’s largest software event, arrives in September. Dreamforce is a family reunion designed to bring together the entire Salesforce community — customers, partners, employees, students, and more — to learn, connect, have fun, and give back. Salesforce+ will help make the Dreamforce experience more personalized with live and on-demand content that viewers can tailor to their interests.

With the launch of Salesforce+, Dreamforce and broadcasts like the Success Anywhere World Tour, Connections, and TrailheaDX will include both point-in-time live experiences and new, on-demand brand experiences, complemented by a slate of original programming. 

Viewers can also customize the Salesforce+ experience, selecting content relevant to roles, industry, or topic. For example, members can view and watch a collection of content on sales, financial services, or artificial intelligence.

The Dreamforce experience includes four broadcast channels with more than 100 hours of innovative and inspiring content:

• Prime Time Channel: The best of Dreamforce includes the latest news and announcements from Salesforce and the most inspiring stories of customer success and transformation from Marc Benioff, Salesforce executives, global leaders, and changemakers. 
• Trailblazer Channel: Viewers can learn from fellow Trailblazers — pioneers, innovators, and life-long learners — and discover how to use Salesforce to build a successful career, company, and community. The latest Customer 360 product innovations come to life here as well, with sneak peeks at the Salesforce product roadmap.
• Customer 360 Channel: Success stories direct from the Trailblazers who have lived them, and behind-the-scenes content highlighting innovations from the Salesforce experts who created them. 
• Industries Channel: Stories of how industry innovators are driving growth and reimagining their industries in an all-digital, work anywhere world.

Registered Dreamforce attendees will get first access to Salesforce+ by signing up for a digital front-row seat at Dreamforce 2021.

Salesforce today announced it has completed its acquisition of Slack Technologies, Inc.

Companies around the world have learned one thing over the past year—if you don’t have a digital way to connect with your employees, customers, and partners, you don’t have much of a chance of surviving. 

Headquarters are no longer on Madison Avenue or Main Street—they are in the cloud. Every business—in every industry—has to optimize for a digital-first customer, employee, and partner experience.

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink and reshape everything about how and where we work. That’s exactly what the combination of Salesforce and Slack is all about—creating the business operating system for the new world of work.

With the world’s #1 CRM, companies can sell, service, market, conduct commerce, and more from anywhere. Slack has transformed the way we work with its trailblazing digital platform for business communication, which is used by millions of people around the world and enables entire organizations to work far more efficiently and effortlessly.

Together, Salesforce and Slack will deliver the Slack-first Customer 360 that gives companies a single source of truth for their business, and a single platform for connecting employees, customers, and partners with each other and the apps they use every day, all within their existing workflows.

The combination of Salesforce and Slack also brings together two of the software industry’s most dynamic communities, creating an open and extensive ecosystem that will deliver the next generation of digital-first apps and workflows for business.

Salesforce and Slack are already making a huge difference. IBM’s 380,000 employees are working together in Slack, with numerous workflows across Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud powering customer success across locations and time zones.

As part of Salesforce, Slack will be positioned to accelerate and extend its mission to make work life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive. Slack will continue to operate under the Slack brand, driving forward a continued focus on its mission, customers, and community. Slack will continue to be led by CEO and Co-Founder Stewart Butterfield.

On Tuesday, August 17, 10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. BST, Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor and Slack CEO and Co-Founder Stewart Butterfield will host an event to share more about how the two companies are creating a powerful platform for the digital-first, work anywhere world. You can tune into the event here. 

For Canadian consumers, actions speak louder than words when it comes to corporate values. According to new survey data from Salesforce Canada, the vast majority of Canadians (87%) want to shop with brands or companies that are open and honest about their values. Half of Canadians care so much about a company’s values that they’ll actively research them before deciding to shop from it.

Sustainability is a clear top priority (84%) for Canadians coming out of the pandemic. Brands now need to reassess to determine how they’ll prioritize their values, internally and externally, and communicate it back to their consumers. 

Other key stats include:

CANADIANS HAVE SPOKEN: COMING OUT OF THE PANDEMIC, CONSUMERS OVERWHELMINGLY WANT TO SHOP WITH BRANDS THAT ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE AND USING THEIR BUSINESS AS A PLATFORM FOR CHANGE

The vast majority of Canadians (83%) want to support brands/companies that prioritize values and profit equally. 

• Majority of Canadians (87%) want to shop with brands/companies that are open and honest about their values. 
  
• Half of Canadians will even actively search for a brand/company’s values before shopping with them.
  

AUTHENTICITY MATTERS: CANADIANS EXPECT BRANDS TO DO MORE THAN DECLARE THEIR VALUES – THEY NEED TO WALK THE WALK

• 91% of Canadians ranked Trust as one of the most important values to them coming out of the last year. They want to trust that the brands they shop with are acting in the best interest of society. 
  
• 51% of Canadian shoppers said that brand can earn their trust by publicly acknowledging when they make mistakes or missteps
  
• 45% of Canadian shoppers said that a brand can earn their trust by providing transparency when it comes to their supply chain (ie. the vendors, suppliers and partners they work with) 
  
• 38% of Canadian shoppers said that brand can earn their trust by quantifying and sharing their efforts publicly 
  
• 35% of Canadian shoppers said that brand can earn their trust by having transparent hiring practices

A CLOSER LOOK: SUSTAINABILITY IS A TOP PRIORITY FOR CANADIAN SHOPPERS COMING OUT OF THE LAST YEAR

• 84% of Canadians say sustainability is their top priority coming out of the pandemic.
  • Boomers (55+) find it more important (86%) than any other generation
    
• About 2 in 3 most Canadians (62%) say brands/companies have the greatest responsibility to address climate change.
  
• 35% of Canadians would sacrifice shipping time in order to purchase a product that is more sustainable, over half (54%) would sacrifice nice packaging and 1 in 3 (29%)  would even be willing to sacrifice price. 
  
• Five years ago, only 9% of Canadians made an effort to shop with sustainably minded brands. Today, that number has more than tripled with 34% of Canadians planning to spend their dollars with sustainable businesses over the next two years.

A GENERATIONAL LENS: MILLENNIAL AND GEN Z SHOPPERS ARE BOLDLY VOTING FOR VALUES WITH THEIR DOLLARS

• A quarter (23%) of Millennials/Gen Z (18-34) started shopping with a brand because it openly supported a cause that mattered to them
  
• When discovering that a brand’s values don’t align with their own, 1 in 4 Canadian millennials will unfollow the company on social media. Another 23% will actually stop buying their products.

About the survey: 

From June 18^th to June 20^th 2021 an online survey of 1,522 randomly selected Canadian adults who are Maru Voice Canada panelists was executed by Maru/Blue. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size has an estimated margin of error (which measures sampling variability) of +/- 2.5%, 19 times out of 20. The results have been weighted by education, age, gender and region (and in Quebec, language) to match the population, according to Census data. This is to ensure the sample is representative of the entire adult population of Canada. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.