Updated for the CPG keynote on Day 3
Day 2 was much, much better than Day 1. It was a day for apps - not causes. Especially vertical apps. Readers know I have been screaming for those.
I watched four sessions on Manufacturing, Auto and Energy; Financial Services and Health/Life Sciences and Consumer Products sectors
While the verticals are vastly different (and Salesforce's groupings are unwieldy in size and coverage), some common threads apply:
Salesforce has big brands working with it in each of the industries - Kawasaki Motors, BMW, Engie Energy, State Farm, Barclays, Johnson and Johnson, NYU Langone Health Frito Lay and Shiseido (cosmetics) among others.
Salesforce is helping modernize some really antique/complex corners of these industries - you have healthcare which is single-handedly keeping fax machines in business, you have equipment dealers who continue with some of the oldest printers in the world, insurance agents who cannot afford tech staff and cramped retail store space
Salesforce is not doing the vertical heavy lifting - yet. The operational systems of record are still the Epics, SAPs, proprietary claims and dealer management systems. However, Mulesoft is freeing up and helping share data locked up in those systems. In the next wave, Salesforce and its AppExchange partners may be able to gradually move into these operational areas.
Salesforce is bringing mobile apps, voice interfaces, machine vision (to help with the CPG store planogram), Einstein AI and Tableau to each of these markets. The end result is pleasing, consumer grade technology that users lap up
Its sophisticated clients are doing neat stuff of their own. State Farm described drone initiated claims processing. Johnson and Johnson talked about how it personalizes its contact lenses with fitting calculators and other tools (and has dramatically improved doctor visits to conversion ratios). Engie is at the leading edge of renewable energy generation, smart grids and digital energy technology. Frito-Lay says it is actually "embracing complexity" with exploding choices in snacks, go to market channels and yet need to drive sustainability in products.
The customers and Salesforce are feeding off each other. They are building a new generation of vertical functionality. It's exciting for their industries and for the enterprise applications sector. We have had way too much focus on horizontal apps.
