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  • Salesforce Launches Single Souce of Truth | Benioff: A Computer Science Holy Grail

    Salesforce Launches Single Souce of Truth | Benioff: A Computer Science Holy Grail

    Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says that Salesforce is now entering the fourth stage of computing, the pursuit of Single Source of Truth. The official name is Customer 360 Truth and it is a new set of capabilities that allow companies to connect, authenticate and govern customer data and identity across Salesforce. The goal is to provide a complete view and deeper understanding of every customer so that companies can deliver extremely personalized customer experiences.

    Marc Benioff, co-CEO of Salesforce, discusses Customer 360 Truth at their annual Dreamforce conference with Jim Cramer of CNBC:  

    Single Source of Truth – A Computer Science Holy Grail

    360 Truth is another amazing thing that we’re introducing here (at Dreamforce 2019) that has been the holy grail of computing. It’s what we call SSOT, the single source of truth. We’ve had three amazing waves of computing. They are stems of record, systems of engagement, and systems of intelligence including AI. We’re now entering the fourth stage of computing. It’s the pursuit of Single Source of Truth, and we’ve built that into our platform. 

    This is a computer science holy grail that we’ve been trying to put together for a long time. Now because we acquired MuleSoft and because we acquired Tableau we are closer to providing for our customers the Single Source of Truth for their customer information.

    Enables Companies To Build a Single Source of Truth

    The company describes Customer 360 Truth as a new set of data and identity services that enable companies to build a single source of truth across all of their customer relationships. They say it connects data from across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more to create a single, universal Salesforce ID for each customer.

    All of a customer’s previous interactions and shared preferences are brought together to create a complete view so companies can better serve and even predict their needs, whether addressing a customer service problem, creating a personalized marketing journey, predicting the best sales opportunities or surfacing product recommendations.

    Salesforce Launches Single Souce of Truth | Benioff: A Computer Science Holy Grail

    From the Salesforce Press Release:

    The Holy Grail of CRM: A Single Source of Truth

    Nearly 70 percent of customers say they expect connected experiences in which their preferences are known across touchpoints. However, organizational and technical complexity often gets in the way of meeting these expectations. Companies have legacy infrastructure and data silos, leading to fragmented data and fragile integrations between systems. Inconsistent methods for accessing, reconciling and activating customer data make it challenging for companies to deliver connected experiences across these systems. As a result, companies often have multiple usernames, email addresses, or purchase histories for the very same customer across different systems, and managing a customer’s consent and contact preferences across the business becomes harder as new data regulations come into play. 

    Having a source of truth—a single, trusted place that brings together all the customer data needed to deliver amazing experiences—has been the holy grail of CRM. Today Salesforce is delivering it.

    Deliver a Trusted, Personalized Customer Relationship With Customer 360 Truth

    Customer 360 Truth enhances data management across Salesforce apps and other systems, and provides instant access to consistent, reconciled customer data. Services include:

    • Customer 360 Data Manager: Delivers the ability to access, connect and resolve a customer’s data across Salesforce and other systems, using a canonical data model and a universal Salesforce ID that represents each customer. With a click-based user interface for app and data management, admins can easily establish trusted connections between data sources to prepare, match, reconcile and update the customer profile. The reconciled profile across apps enables employees to pull up relevant data at the time of need from any connected system, such as when a service agent may need to pull a list of past purchases from an order system to better assist in solving a problem.
    • Salesforce Identity for Customers: Removes friction from the login experience and enables a single, authenticated and secure relationship between a customer and all of a company’s websites, e-commerce stores, mobile apps and connected products. Instead of having separate logins and profiles that lead to disconnected experiences, customers now have one login across all of a company’s digital properties. Identity for Customers also elevates trust and compliance with a simple to use two-factor authentication. And it allows companies to obtain valuable customer insights with the ability to analyze engagement and usage with identity reporting and analytics.
    • Customer 360 Audiences: Builds unified customer profiles across known data such as email addresses and first party IDs and unknown data such as website visits and device IDs. It then creates customer segments and marketing engagement journeys from those profiles and delivers AI-powered insights, like lifetime value and likelihood to churn. Customer 360 Audiences goes beyond traditional customer data platform (CDP) capabilities and extends the power of CRM to connect customer interactions across various touchpoints — for example, a customer who was redirected from an email campaign onto the website through a service interaction — and make the profile data available in real-time to optimize the experience. 
    • Privacy and Data Governance: Enables companies to collect and respect customer data use and privacy preferences, as well as apply data classification labels to all data in Salesforce. Companies can easily understand what types of data they have, what uses of data customers have approved and how best to interact with them. These capabilities can help customers address obligations from regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), with respect to data governance and customer consent.

    Introducing the Cloud Information Model

    Salesforce Customer 360 Truth is powered by the Cloud Information Model (CIM), an open source data model that standardizes data interoperability across cloud applications. The publication of CIM is enabled by MuleSoft’s open source modeling technology, providing multiple file formats to make it easy to adopt CIM with varying applications. By easily integrating data in the cloud, developers can build new products that deliver connected and personalized customer experiences. CIM reduces the complexities of integrating data across cloud applications by providing standardized data interoperability guidelines to connect point-of-sale systems, digital marketing platforms, contact centers, CRM systems and more. Developers no longer need to spend months creating custom code. Instead, they can adopt and extend the CIM within days to create data lakes, generate analytics, train machine learning models, build a single view of the customer and more.

    Unleash the Power of Customer 360 Truth with MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

    Customer 360 Truth allows companies to connect siloed customer data sources to a single source of truth, across Salesforce apps or third-party data using MuleSoft. With MuleSoft Anypoint Platform™, organizations can easily build APIs that connect any application, data, or device to Customer 360 in an application network, creating a truly complete customer view.

    At Dreamforce, MuleSoft also announced new innovations and learning modules, empowering anyone to become an Integration Trailblazer and create connected customer experiences.

    Comments on the News

    • “Having a complete view of the customer is not a new idea, but it has been difficult to achieve. Companies have siloed data; disconnected apps; a complex, patchwork of sometimes incompatible services; and no way to connect it all,” said Patrick Stokes, EVP, Platform Shared Services, Salesforce. “Customer 360 Truth overcomes those challenges, creating a single source of truth that is the foundation for delivering smart, personalized customer experiences across every touchpoint.”
    • “In order to truly succeed with delivering a great customer experience, you have to adopt an agile platform that fosters growth and supports constant innovation,” said Rick Fuson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Pacers Sports & Entertainment. “With the Salesforce Customer 360 platform, Pacers Sports & Entertainment has real-time visibility into all aspects of our business and can operate more efficiently across channels, increase per customer loyalty and drive innovation across the organization.”
    • “Connecting customer data and managing consent is more important than ever in light of changing customer expectations and increasing regulations,” said Alan Webber, Program Vice President for Digital Strategy and Customer Experience, IDC. “As a result, companies are prioritizing data unification in ways that will lead to more loyal and valuable customer relationships. Salesforce Customer 360 Truth will help companies break down data silos and deliver the experiences customers expect.”

    Salesforce Customer 360 

    Customer 360 Truth is part of the Salesforce Customer 360, which includes industry-leading apps spanning sales, service, marketing and commerce, and across every customer touchpoint. The Customer 360 Platform is an underlying set of services and APIs including AI, blockchain, mobile, security, voice and other capabilities that allow companies to connect every customer, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation. Salesforce will power more than two trillion B2B and B2C transactions this year for more than 150,000 companies and millions of Trailblazers—those individuals and their organizations who are using Salesforce to drive innovation, grow their careers and transform their businesses.

  • DataWallet Puts You In Charge of Your Data, Says CEO

    DataWallet Puts You In Charge of Your Data, Says CEO

    “DataWallet is basically a digital wallet that holds all of your personal data,” says DataWallet CEO Serafin Lion Engel. “If Twitter was to give you a DataWallet you would see exactly all of the data that you create on Twitter. At the end of the day what DataWallet does is put you in control of your data. What it cannot do is protect you from anything that may happen illegally. So if Twitter really tried to cover up the fact that they were collecting their two-factor authentication data in order to advertise to you it wouldn’t show up but it would be all the more of a scandal.”

    Serafin Lion Engel, founder and CEO of DataWallet, discusses his mission of putting consumers in control of their data in an interview on CNBC:

    DataWallet Puts You In Charge of Your Data

    DataWallet is basically a digital wallet that holds all of your personal data. If Twitter was to give you a DataWallet you would see exactly all of the data that you create on Twitter. You would see all of the data you created yourself that they have collected about you through third-party vendors. Then you can see all of the use cases that they use that data for and you can actually set permissions for how exactly your data can be used. You can download your data and you can delete data. It puts you in full control of the data that you have created on the Twitter platform.

    At the end of the day what DataWallet does is put you in control of your data. What it cannot do is protect you from anything that may happen illegally. So if Twitter really tried to cover up the fact that they were collecting their two-factor authentication data in order to advertise to you it wouldn’t show up but it would be all the more of a scandal.

    Data includes anything that you post, your IP address, your email address, what device you are on, etc. It’s all-encompassing. Twitter also buys a lot of data about you in order to enrich their targeting capabilities. They may buy data from Acxiom about, for instance, your financial situation, whether you have applied for credit or not all in order to more accurately show advertising to you.

    Corporate Trust Is Rooted In How They Use Your Data

    We work with a lot of companies in the advertising industry because a lot of companies do want to do things differently. In ad tech, they are pretty upset about the fact that a lot of companies are doing things that are unethical and they do want things to change. We work with companies in CPG, in consulting, and in a variety of different industries.

    It definitely is a tough sell to companies that try to do things with your data that they would rather not have you know about. There are a lot of companies that in the past have been good data custodians and have not gotten any credit for that. They have not gone out on a limb in order to monetize their users’ data even though they could have. Up until about two years ago, it was not a hot topic, nobody was really paying attention and companies were making a lot of money selling their consumers’ data. 

    However, the companies who have been good data custodians and who have said we do not want to do anything that our consumers wouldn’t give us expressive consent to do with their data are jumping on board with what we’re doing right now. They’re the ones reaping the benefits because consumers will switch to companies that are putting them in charge of their data. Over 87 percent of customers say that the amount of business they do with a company depends on how much they trust it. That trust is rooted in how they’ve used their data.

    New Regulations Don’t Cover Data Usage

    The regulations in California and Nevada are very much focused on the sale of data, which is still a good thing. You can now issue an opt-out request for companies to not sell your data. However, it doesn’t cover usage. If, for instance, you wanted to direct the company to stop using your data for internal marketing purposes you wouldn’t be able to do that. Any data privacy regulation that is intended to put consumers in control of their data is a good thing. However, we also have to take into consideration that a lot of companies like Facebook and Amazon are really profiting from this because they are not a third party vendor. They have their own data and that really benefits them.

    DataWallet Puts You In Charge of Your Data, Says DataWallet CEO Serafin Lion Engel.
  • Amazon Web Services Will Open Data Centers In Spain

    Amazon Web Services Will Open Data Centers In Spain

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced it is planning on opening data centers in Spain, making it AWS’ seventh infrastructure region in Europe.

    Having a local infrastructure region will be a boon to Spanish companies, giving them the ability to address data residency issues and keep complete control over sensitive data. Similarly, the new data centers will provide customers creating applications that comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) another EU-based, secure infrastructure region.

    “Cloud computing is already powering innovation within businesses, educational institutions, public administrations, and government agencies across Spain, and with this AWS infrastructure region, we look forward to helping accelerate this transformation,” said Peter DeSantis, Vice President of Global Infrastructure and Customer Support, Amazon Web Services. “Opening an AWS Region in Spain will drive more technology jobs and businesses, boosting the local economy, while enabling organizations across all industries to lower costs, increase security, and improve agility. We’re excited to have AWS contribute to the future growth of Spain.”

    The announcement follows years of AWS investing in Spain, with their first in-country presence dating back to 2012. In the intervening years, AWS has continued to build its presence in the country, reflecting the growth it has experienced in the region.

    The announcement was welcomed as great news for the country by Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. “This investment from AWS will allow Spain to fully adapt to the digital transformation and develop as an international center of innovation and technology. Cloud computing, in addition to promoting technological progress in the private sector, will enable the Public Administration to improve the services it provides to citizens. A secure cloud is an essential tool for the development of our economy, as well as for the generation of jobs in our country. We highly value AWS’s commitment to the technological development of Spain and the upskilling of our citizens.”

  • Infosys & SAP Announce Alliance to Accelerate Clients’ Enterprise Digital Transformation

    Infosys & SAP Announce Alliance to Accelerate Clients’ Enterprise Digital Transformation

    SAP SE announced a collaboration program with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure at SAPPHIRE NOW 2019. The project, named “Embrace” will also include global strategic service partners (GSSP).

    At the same time, Infosys—“a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting”—has announced Innov8, a new program designed to help “clients transform their business model to one based on predictable OPEX-based costs.”

    According to a press release Infosys issued Tuesday, the two companies are planning a collaborative alliance, to bring the benefits of Embrace and Innov8 to customers “and offer flexible points of entry to the SAP environment for both existing and new cloud users, all within one comprehensive end-to-end business solution.”

    With more than 70 ready-to-deploy artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, analytics and Internet of Things use cases, Innov8 provides a way for companies to invest, innovate and build intelligent enterprises.

    From the Infosys Press Release:

    Dinesh Rao, Executive Vice President, Infosys, said, “Navigating the cloud ecosystem requires a structured strategy that provides a consolidated view into a company’s overall transformation journey. Through Innov8, we are focused on leveraging our industry knowledge and experience to accelerate the delivery of business solutions. Through this collaboration, we are focusing on ensuring that our clients are able to rapidly adopt tomorrow’s business models today.”

    David Robinson, Senior Vice President, SAP Cloud Business Group and Global Lead, Embrace program at SAP said, “SAP is excited about its plans to partner with Infosys to help clients invest in purposeful innovation to build their intelligent enterprise. Innov8 for Embrace leverages Infosys’ industry knowledge and expertise on SAP and cloud technologies. This is a platform that is delivered on a cloud hyperscale environment with SAP digital solutions delivering end-to-end business outcomes at accelerated pace. We couldn’t be more excited.”

    David McIntire, IT Services Research Director at NelsonHall, said “The value of SAP S/4HANA adoption extends beyond IT and into transforming how businesses operate. Innov8 for Embrace has the potential to combine industry-tailored intelligence, applications and processes with simplified OPEX pricing and cloud hosting into an integrated offering aimed at helping companies maximize the business value of adopting SAP S/4HANA.”

  • Adobe CEO Focused On Delivering Innovation

    Adobe CEO Focused On Delivering Innovation

    “We’re in rarefied atmosphere,” says Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. “We’re focused on delivering an incredible innovation roadmap across all three of our clouds. We look forward to sharing more about our forward-looking strategy at the analyst meeting at MAX. We do look forward to the FA meeting. That’s when we lay out the growth opportunities that are ahead of us. We talked last year about how we had a greater than a $100 billion addressable market opportunity.”

    Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, discusses how the company’s incredible innovation is driving its growth and how Adobe Sensei AI is embedded into every one of their products. Narayen was interviewed by Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    Every Enterprise Must Engage Digitally With Customers

    We actually experienced growth across all three of our segments. When you look at Creative Cloud and the net new ARR that we got in that segment of the business, that was a record for a Q3. Many years after the introduction of the product Document Cloud had an exceedingly strong quarter and we’re seeing tremendous adoption of our paper to digital initiatives. On the Experience Cloud again 34 percent revenue growth. 

    Every single enterprise needs to understand how you can engage digitally with customers. I think what’s unique about Adobe is that every customer from a K-12 student to an individual freelancer all the way to the largest enterprises in the world, the breadth of our offerings and our customers is truly fueling this success.

    It’s About Getting These Customers Young

    We’ve always talked about the fact that instead of just a focus on STEM we love STEAM because the world without arts would be an exceedingly boring place. One of the things we actually did this quarter was introduce a new ambassador network in educational institutions. We’re targeting over a hundred colleges. These students are actually being the evangelists for explaining why creative needs to be part of the curricula. Getting that younger generation excited about expressing themselves we certainly believe that’s going to fuel our growth. 

    In addition to that, as we come up on MAX, which is the largest creativity conference in the world in November, I think what you’re going to see from our innovation roadmap across new areas like immersive content, what’s happening with gaming, what’s happening across devices that now have styluses, we announced a new product called Fresco for art and illustration, so the breadth of our products is amazing. It’s about getting these customers young and enabling them to tell their story.

    Focused On Delivering Innovation Across All Three Of Our Clouds

    What is really unique right now about our digital experience solutions is that we have the first mile. The first mile is content management, it’s the web infrastructure, it’s mobile applications that people use to engage with enterprises. We also have the last mile in commerce. That’s the Magento acquisition that we did a while ago which enables you to make every experience shoppable. Magento had a great quarter. We grew their bookings 40 percent year-over-year in Q3. When you talk about the rule of 40, we’re blowing that away when you think about our growth rates as well as our margin.

    We do look forward to the FA meeting. That’s when we lay out the growth opportunities that are ahead of us. We talked last year about how we had a greater than a $100 billion addressable market opportunity. Were growing the top-line at 20 percent. Our Q4 targets show that revenue growth will be north of 20 percent with EPS growth accelerating even above that. We’re in rarefied atmosphere. We’re focused on delivering an incredible innovation roadmap across all three of our clouds. We look forward to sharing more about our forward-looking strategy at the analyst meeting at MAX. 

    The AI of Adobe Sensei Is A Fabric Of All Our Innovation

    Our artificial intelligence framework is called Adobe Sensei and it’s embedded across every one of our products. It’s when you look at a piece of content and say, how did they do that? There’s probably an aspect of Adobe Sensei in that. We have hundreds of trillions of transactions that we’re processing on behalf of high enterprise customers and we can predict in real-time. Our Adobe Digital Index which talks about shopping patterns globally, that’s coming from Adobe Sensei. It’s a part and it’s a fabric of all of our innovation and we’re excited to unveil new innovation soon.

    Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen Focused On Delivering Innovation
  • The Agreement Cloud Is Going To Be The Next Big Cloud, Says DocuSign CEO

    The Agreement Cloud Is Going To Be The Next Big Cloud, Says DocuSign CEO

    “The new cloud opportunity that we see is in the Agreement Cloud,” says DocuSign CEO Dan Springer. “It is going to be the next big cloud because we think this is about bringing multiple clouds together. We work strongly with ERP and strongly with CRM. We’re actually finding opportunities increasingly every day to make the other cloud investments that people are making have more value before them by bringing them together. What connects them is the agreements those companies do.”

    Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign, discusses their launch of the Agreement Cloud and how it will transform companies to more easily work together and “be more agreeable.” Springer was interviewed on CNBC:

    DocuSign Helping Companies Be “More Agreeable”

    We’re super excited about the DocuSign Agreement Cloud. We realize that our customers have said e-signature is a fantastic foundation for their business. But they have a broader set of needs around the way they not only sign agreements but the way they prepare them and the way they manage them after they’ve been signed. So we’ve built out a broader suite of products and that’s what we’re bringing to market today. 

    I think it’s key, the connectedness that Slack is seeing and pushing for is very similar to what we see as well. Companies want to be, in our terminology, more agreeable. Those are the communications they want to have within their companies or their back-office functions that they’ve tried to digitally transform, but also for the front office. They really want to have a customer experience that is what the customers expect so they will be easy to do business with. We see that the Slack moves are very similar to what we’re seeing in the Agreement Cloud.

    The DocuSign Agreement Cloud Explained

    We Like To Talk About How DocuSign Is Unusual

    We’re super excited about the core e-signature business. While we talk about the Agreement Cloud, we think that’s the broader opportunity to really make this one of the most significant cloud opportunities. We don’t in any way want to move away from the excitement we have over the course e-signature business. It’s sort of what brought us to the dance. If you think about the roughly billion dollars of revenue that we will deliver this year the bulk of it will still come from e-signature. The growth opportunities are very broad. 

    We like to talk about the fact that DocuSign is unusual. We serve from the smallest business to the largest enterprise and across all verticals. We are excited to talk about federal. We had our first million-dollar ACVD deal that we just announced in the quarter. So it’s not just that segment, it really is very broad. We think financial services will continue to be a driver for us and as I mentioned federal will be exciting. You’re going to see us continue to expand internationally and domestically. It really is a broad-based opportunity.

    The Agreement Cloud Is Going To Be The Next Big Cloud

    If you think about the overall TAM, e-signature is a $25 billion dollar market. With the broader Agreement Cloud that gets into a magnitude of many billions more, maybe doubling the overall opportunity. When you think about the competitive set it’s so early. We’re only about four or five percent penetrated in the core signature business and less on the broader ones. When we actually talk about competition, we talk about paper and manual processes. This business is so early days. We’re in the early innings. We believe that our biggest competition really is paper and manual processes. We like to say it’s a great competitive set to have because they don’t fight back very hard. It’s just a matter of time before we really are going to be able to replace and modernize those systems.

    When you think about the infrastructure side, it’s a huge part of where the cloud is going. We’ve been much more focused on the application and thinking about that end-user value. But on the infrastructure side, I think it’s a hugely competitive space. It used to be looking like a two-horse race with Microsoft and Amazon. Now looking at some of the other players, such as what Google’s doing, I think you’re going to see more and more competition in that space. I don’t think it’s going to be necessarily bad for those players because it’s a really large expanding market. 

    On the application side, the new cloud opportunity that we see is in the Agreement Cloud. It is going to be the next big cloud because we think this is about bringing multiple clouds together. We work strongly with ERP and strongly with CRM. We’re actually finding opportunities increasingly every day to make the other cloud investments that people are making have more value before them by bringing them together. What connects them is the agreements those companies do.

    The Agreement Cloud Is Going To Be The Next Big Cloud, Says DocuSign CEO Dan Springer
  • AI-Powered Conversational Bots Are Changing the Game, Says LivePerson CEO

    AI-Powered Conversational Bots Are Changing the Game, Says LivePerson CEO

    “T-Mobile literally pulled the hold technology out,” says LivePerson CEO Robert Locascio. “Millions of customer at T-Mobile don’t have to be put on hold. There’s no press one or press two. They go straight to a person. You are messaging them. You are doing what’s natural to you. That’s really what we see as changing the game. We made a big pivot two years ago and launched a whole new platform. There’s a bigger future in bots and AI than there was in chat.”

    Robert Locascio, CEO of LivePerson, discusses how AI-powered conversational bots are being deployed and literally “changing the game” for customers of thousands of businesses using their Maven technology in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    AI-Powered Conversational Bots Are Changing the Game

    We made a big pivot two years ago and launched a whole new platform and I said, “There’s a bigger future in bots and AI than there was in chat that I invented many years ago.” We went for it and as you can see the performance has been really great. I brought Alex Spinelli in about a year ago and he was running the core development team for Alexa. We brought in a lot of people from that group. The difference between us and Alexa is that we have thousands of brands (for our team) to work on. The Delta’s of the world and the T-Mobile’s of the world, instead of just one brand with Amazon.

    We do human interactions also, but we know a lot of those interactions can be automated. Just look at Delta. In a couple of weeks, instead of your flights late and you make a call on the phone and get put on hold, you are going to be able to message a contact center and talk to a bot in real-time to get what you want and change your flight. All of that will happen without you being on hold. That’s really why these brands are gravitating toward us. We are messaging with our friends and family. We are not calling people anymore. So why call a brand?

    T-Mobile literally pulled the hold technology out. Millions of customer at T-Mobile don’t have to be put on hold. There’s no press one or press two. They go straight to a person. You are messaging them. You are doing what’s natural to you. That’s really what we see as changing the game. Right now, Apple just opened up iMessages to businesses. Every business in the world is going to have to be on iMessage through our platform. Facebook Messenger too.

    Maven, LivePerson’s Conversational Engine

    We now have this thing called Brew to You, where right from your seat (in a stadium) you can have a bear and a hot dog delivered to you. But now we have something really cool which is out of the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas. There is a bot called Rose when you check in. She tells you everything about the hotel. She can help you cut the line at Marquee which is their cool club. This is all about people engaging with the brand and talking to this bot that’s just there for you. And after people leave the hotel they keep talking to Rose!

    What we are finding is that we take our technology which is called Maven, we enable the contact center reps to create the bots, deploy them, and own the bots. For example, we have a contact center down in the Dominican Republic and there’s a woman there named Laura that created a bot for GrillMaster, which is one of our customers. They deployed it and sold millions of dollars worth of grills. She was empowered to basically create that bot, deploy it, and change her life. She doubled her salary. That’s the power of this thing.

    AI Has Got to be Democratized

    EqualAI is a nonprofit we set up a couple of months ago. I started to realize that AI has got to be out there in the hands of many. It’s got to be democratized. It can’t just be with the big tech companies. What we want to do is take all the technology that we have (and make it available). It started with watching my two-year-old watching me command Alexa. Alexa turn on the lights. Alexa play music. She’s seen me command this AI and it’s a woman’s voice. I think what we are seeing now is that children are being affected by this. They are going to school, making demands, and following this.

    We have to change the way that we deploy AI and how we manage it. I wanted to bring the best practices into a nonprofit. We now have other people and brands who are joining us and taking part in this. One of the best practices that we are looking at is why do we have a woman’s voice with Alexa? It could be any voice. It could be a man. We have to think about these things before we deploy them to millions of people and we affect their lives.

    AI-Powered Conversational Bots Are Changing the Game, Says LivePerson CEO Robert Locascio

    Also read:

    Deepak Chopra Delivering Reflections on Alexa via LivePerson

  • Huge Wave Of Digital Transformation, Says Salesforce CEO

    Huge Wave Of Digital Transformation, Says Salesforce CEO

    “There’s a huge wave of digital transformation,” says Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block. “A lot of these different technologies are coming together. I have the opportunity and Mark has the opportunity to go around the world and talk to a lot of other CEOs. There’s just this huge imperative around digital transformation. Everybody needs to get closer to the customer. Everybody’s trying to improve that customer experience. That’s where Salesforce really brings value to the table.”

    Keith Block, co-CEO of Salesforce, discusses the company’s blowout earnings announcement and how their growth is powered by a huge wave of digital transformation happening worldwide. Block was interviewed by Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    There’s A Huge Wave Of Digital Transformation

    We are so very excited. We’ve had great execution and lots of customer success. A lot of this is really powered by this wave of digital transformation that we’re seeing all over the world. There’s a huge wave of digital transformation. A lot of these different technologies are coming together. I have the opportunity and Mark has the opportunity to go around the world and talk to a lot of other CEOs. There’s just this huge imperative around digital transformation. Everybody needs to get closer to the customer. Everybody’s trying to improve that customer experience. That’s where Salesforce really brings value to the table.

    There’s a huge TAM for CRM. We’re creating that TAM and we’re executing incredibly well and that’s really driven by customer success. There is this thing referred to as the 360-degree view of the customer. That is all about the walls of sales and service and marketing coming down. That is what our 360-degree platform is all about and our customers are looking for that. They’re looking for growth strategies. That’s why you see these great results.

    It’s About Bringing Companies Closer To Their Customers

    We have been recognized widely as one of the most innovative companies in the world. That takes two forms. One is obviously organic innovation and there’s been plenty of that in our history. That’s why we’ve been so successful and our customers keep coming back. But we also have acquisitions. We’ve got a fantastic history of execution. Whether it is the ExactTarget acquisition, or most recently, a year ago, the MuleSoft acquisition, those have all been wildly successful for our customers.

    I had the opportunity to go to Milan to meet with the CEO of Unicredit (in Italy). We’re glad to welcome them to the Salesforce family. They’re going through a transformation that every financial services institution is really going through. It’s all about improving the customer experience. It’s all about reinventing the business model. It’s all about transformation in the retail bank. Unicredit gets it and we’re thrilled to welcome them to the family. They’re doing some of the things that you see being done at Barclays Bank or Citibank or many of the other great financial services institutions. It’s about digital transformation. It’s about bringing companies closer to their customers and that’s what Salesforce is doing.

    Companies Are Investing In Their Growth

    FedEx is a storied brand. It’s a 50-year-old company, they revolutionized the package industry. Fred Smith is an iconic visionary CEO and now they’re taking it to the next level through customer experience. They’re leveraging Einstein to have predictions and make a better customer experience around knowledge. For example, if you had a challenge in some particular way, and FedEx is high quality, but if there were a challenge an agent can help you by bringing relevant information recommended by Einstein to drive a better experience. There were a million use cases of Einstein just like that in many many industries.

    What we’re seeing all over the world is this wave of digital transformation. That digital transformation begins and ends with a customer. We’re seeing CEOs invest. They’re investing in their future. They’re investing in their growth. They’re investing in customer experience across all industries, all geographies, and all segments. It has never been more important. That’s why you’re seeing this growth and you’re seeing these results (with Salesforce). We’re just co-innovating and co-creating with these customers, these companies. That’s why we’re having so much success on their behalf.

    There Is A Huge Wave Of Digital Transformation, Says Salesforce CEO Keith Block
  • The Over-the-Top Marketing Juggernauts Have Arrived

    The Over-the-Top Marketing Juggernauts Have Arrived

    “Netflix versus Disney is the right comp,” says Laura Martin of Needham. “Netflix just raised price and Disney is now saying they are going to do a $12.99 bundle for Hulu, ESPN Plus, and Disney Plus, That feels like bundling is a smart idea and free services feel like a better value. I think what we are going to get for the first time in over-the-top is the marketing juggernauts have arrived. Guys who market things for a living. This is what Disney does better than any company in the media space.”

    Laura Martin, Managing Directory of investment banking firm Needham & Company, discusses how the game is changing for over-the-top (OTT) with the arrival of Disney Plus, in an interview on CNBC:

    I would call Roku the winning aggregator of all over the top platforms. They’re now in 30 million homes out of 120 million US homes. This means you can’t watch Apple Plus, Disney Plus, Warner Brothers Plus, and Disney Plus without going to Roku because they are reaching 30 percent of connected households. That gives them pricing power against those juggernauts. 

    Netflix versus Disney is the right comp. Netflix just raised price and Disney is now saying they are going to do a $12.99 bundle for Hulu, ESPN Plus, and Disney Plus. You are getting three services for $13. Really, four streams from Netflix is now $14 after the recent price increase. That feels like bundling is a smart idea and free services feel like a better value. I think what we are going to get for the first time in over-the-top is marketing juggernauts have arrived. Guys who market things for a living. This is what Disney does better than any company in the media space. 

    Disney+ Takes Netflix Growth Negative In a Significant Way

    I think it takes Netflix growth negative in a significant way in the US. Bob Iger has said he wants 90 percent awareness of Disney Plus by the time they launch on November 12th. To do that, that means they are putting it in every single theme park, they are buying billboards, they’re going on ABC which they own, they are going on ESPN which they own. They are going on everything. He said it was the most important media launch initiative since he’s been there. Bob Iger got there in 2005.

    The Roku channel is all ad-driven, meaning free. It looks like NBC is going to launch ad-free. CBS has news that is ad-driven. So I think we are going to get 50 percent of viewing with no subscription fee that is ad-driven. I think it is going to be cluttered. In my opinion, you won’t go from three average SVOD subscriptions to five.

    OTT Marketing Juggernauts Have Arrived, Says Needham’s Laura Martin
  • How Non-Amazon Retailers “Leaned Into” Prime Day To Increase Sales

    How Non-Amazon Retailers “Leaned Into” Prime Day To Increase Sales

    “Retailers and brands took advantage of the buzz, the demand, the awareness, that Amazon has created and really rode that wave for great growth,” says Rob Garf, VP of Industry Strategy and Insights for Salesforce. “Retailers didn’t just ignore Prime Day, but they leaned into it. They really recognized this manufactured holiday, recognized the demand that was being created, and really took advantage of the consumers and their willingness to look for a good deal.”

    Rob Garf, VP Industry Strategy and Insights for Salesforce, discusses how retailers “leaned into” Amazon Prime Day, taking advantage of the buzz and overall consumer interest, to initiate their own Prime marketing. Rob was interviewed by Owen Milbury, Senior Manager, Analyst Relations for Salesforce:

    Retailers Didn’t Just Ignore Prime Day, They Leaned Into It

    What we saw is that this manufactured holiday, Hallmark has to be proud, really rose all ships if you well. The tide has risen where we saw 37 percent year over year growth for global retailers other than Amazon. What’s really interesting is that it just didn’t take place over those two days, but rather the entire month of July. We saw July having a ten percent higher growth rate than any typical month. Retailers and brands took advantage of the buzz, the demand, the awareness, that Amazon has created and really rode that wave for great growth. 

    Retailers didn’t just ignore Prime Day, but they leaned into it. What we found was that emails were at a heavy double-digit increase week over week. The other really interesting thing is our team stepped back and we actually looked at the Internet Retailer 500. We subscribed to all of their email lists and we went to their homepages over the last week. What we found was 51 percent of the IR 500, more than half, did some sort of promotion either on their home page or through email. 

    They just didn’t ignore it, they leaned into it. We found that 17 percent of the IR 500 mentioned either Prime Day or Black Friday in July as part of those promotions. They really recognized this manufactured holiday, recognized the demand that was being created, and really took advantage of the consumers and their willingness to look for a good deal. 

    We Saw Two Breakouts, Apparel, and Footwear

    Consumer electronics was certainly big. But we also saw two breakouts, apparel, and footwear. That’s really important because Amazon is leaning into their own private label. So these brands need to think how to differentiate. They didn’t just go to market and give deals. They also promoted limited edition products, special assortments, customizable merchandise, and even looking for subscriptions to be able not only to attract but to retain them over time. 

    The other one was consumer product goods. What was interesting about that was typically what you find in a grocery store they use the retailer as the intermediary, they’re looking generally to leapfrog these retailers. According to Salesforce research, 99 percent have some sort of active direct to consumer (D2C) type of initiative underway. That was no different this Amazon Prime Day. They were taking advantage of the buzz and really looking for ways to engage the consumer directly.

    49 Percent of Orders For Non-Amazon Retailers Were On Mobile

    When you think about the time of the year, most of Europe was on holiday, most of the US was taking time off as well, they’re not tethered to their computer. They don’t have the luxury of sitting down and searching that way. That showed in our data. In fact, 49 percent of orders for all non-Amazon retailers were done on a mobile device. This just speaks to the fact we’re on the go, the phone is the remote control of our daily lives. 

    We’re using it to break through the friction that usually exists between inspiration—I like something and I want to buy it—and then actually purchasing. Just for a point of context, that was a 20 percent increase year over year. It’s become a bellwether for shopping not only during the rest of the year but in particular on Prime Day.

    Retailers Saw Prime Day As a Test Run For Holidays

    Retailers are seeing this as really the test run for the holidays. They’re looking at their mobile strategy. How are they going to breakdown their friction? They want to make sure that they have mobile wallets so that they can really get through the checkout process. They are incorporating artificial intelligence so not forcing the consumer to swipe five times down the phone to find if you like this you might like this. Instead, putting it right above the fold. 

    They are also looking for fulfillment as well. As you are thinking through towards Cyber Week and the overall holiday season, and with it being five or six days shorter between Thanksgiving and Christmas, how are we going to use the store as a fulfillment center? You really bump up against that shipping deadline and need to also be able to fulfill that for several days after. Retailers are really cutting their teeth. They’re really bearing down. They’re looking at Prime Day as a way to get ready and gear up and go full force to back to school, Halloween, and through the holiday season.

    https://youtu.be/JHm8PZ2z1xU
    How Non-Amazon Retailers “Leaned Into” Prime Day To Increase Sales – Salesforce Execs Explain
  • Uber CEO: We Expect This Business To Be Very Profitable

    Uber CEO: We Expect This Business To Be Very Profitable

    “Not only do we expect to hit cashflow break-even, but we expect this business to be very profitable at maturity,” says Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. “I think that going forward our spending declines as a percent of revenue. So when you’re growing trips 35 percent year on year your spending is going to increase. But we’re going to get leverage on the marketing line and we’re definitely going to get fixed cost leverage going forward.”

    Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, discusses the company’s latest quarterly results and predicts that Uber will ultimately be very profitable in an interview on CNBC:

    Uber Is Much More Than a Rideshare Company Now

    The IPO for us is a once in a lifetime moment. It was a really important moment for the company. Some of what we did like the driver appreciation award, almost $300 million that we put in the hands of over a million drivers globally were really important for us to do. It created a messy P&L from an accounting standpoint. I think it is hiding underlying trends that are actually very healthy for the company. If you look at trends for the company which is going to matter long-term, you have got gross bookings over $16 billion growing 37 percent on a year on year basis. You’ve got trip volume, and trips are units, growing 35 percent year on year. You’ve got audience, monthly active platform customers, now over 100 million, growing 30 percent. The actual revenue growth excluding the driver appreciation award was up 26 percent. 

    What I did tell our investors is to expect that to accelerate into the back half of the year. The back half of the year you are going to see if trends stay the same, revenue growth in excess of 30 percent. When you look at profitability, we beat our own internal targets and we beat Street targets as well. We came in at a loss of $656 million. It’s still a big loss but the losses are improving and the take rates are improving. If you back out some of those one-time expenses, we went from a loss of $800 million to a loss of $656 million. We got much more efficient on the marketing front. We actually took marketing as a percentage down while we were still growing the top line over 30 percent as well. This is much more than a rideshare company now, it’s a transportation company. 

    We Expect This Business To Be Very Profitable At Maturity

    We are in a situation as far as the network effect of the company where we don’t need to increase the marketing and incentives. We can go in with loyalty plans both for riders and drivers that are going to add to leverage and ultimately profitability of the company. This is a marketplace company that has over 20 percent revenue margins and revenue margins are increasing year on year. Not only do we expect to hit cashflow break-even, but we expect this business to be very profitable at maturity. 

    I think that going forward our spending declines as a percent of revenue. So when you’re growing trips 35 percent year on year your spending is going to increase. But we’re going to get leverage on the marketing line and we’re definitely going to get fixed cost leverage going forward. I think that this quarter proved that out and we have to keep hitting our marks in the next couple of quarters. It’s a super-competitive marketplace but we are confident. We like what we saw operationally this quarter.

    Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi: We Expect This Business To Be Very Profitable at Maturity
  • Our Machine Learning Platform Helps Brands Retain Their Customers, Says Medallia CEO

    Our Machine Learning Platform Helps Brands Retain Their Customers, Says Medallia CEO

    “We’re a platform that helps some of the biggest brands in the world really understand their customers in live time and communicate with them while they’re in an experience,” says Medallia CEO Leslie Stretch. “Instead of a survey after they’ve left a hotel, they communicate them while they’re there, check in on the experience and improve it. This helps them retain their customer and perhaps sell them another experience. It’s this machine learning platform that does that.”

    Leslie Stretch, President and CEO of Medallia, discusses the company’s IPO and how the company uses machine learning to react to customer signals in real-time rather than after they leave an experience in an interview on CNBC:

    Our Machine Learning Platform Helps Brands Retain Their Customers

    We’re a Silicon Valley tech company. We’re a platform that helps some of the biggest brands in the world really understand their customers in live time and communicate with them while they’re in an experience. So instead of a survey after they’ve left a hotel, they communicate them while they’re there, check in on the experience and improve it. This helps them retain their customer and perhaps sell them another experience. It’s this machine learning platform that does that.

    Anything is a signal to us, a survey, an IOT signal, a transaction, somebody buys something, they have a bad experience at the pool, or they’re on an airline and they don’t quite like the service that they’re getting, they can feed that back immediately instead of waiting until the experience is finished. We’re all about platform and signal. We’re very different from the survey companies, the feedback companies, which are the old experience economy companies. It’s the application of deep Silicon Valley technology to the problem.

    The Customer Is At the Center of Every Digital Transformation

    Customer experience has become really a major theme for every big brand in the world today. I also think that our technology is innovative and very different. The application of machine learning and the platform and just the operationalization of a private Silicon Valley company are really what I’ve done in the past. Just bringing basic blocking and tackling to go to market and marketing and building up the salesforce. So very simple and taking the story out to a bigger market.

    We actually just signed a revenue share partnership with Salesforce. We have a partnership for Marketing Cloud with Adobe. They’re great alliances for us. We can present our machine learning, our unstructured data, into their Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud, and Service Cloud. That’s brand new for us this year. It’s great to go to market with leaders like that. Both Adobe and Salesforce completely understand the customer is at the center of every digital transformation and we are at the center of that.

    It’s Not For the Faint-Hearted, But We Invested a Ton In It

    We spent more than a half a billion dollars building this plot platform. That sets us apart from the traditional simple survey vendor. We’ve spent a ton of money on the privacy layer and on the security layer. We’ve worked already for a decade with some of the biggest brands in the world whose customer information is precious. We’re HIPAA certified for healthcare as well. So we take that very seriously. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but we invested a ton in it and it’s worth it.

    Our Machine Learning Platform Helps Brands Retain Their Customers, Says Medallia CEO Leslie Stretch
  • Salesforce Commerce Page Designer – Creates Experiences With Clicks Not Code

    Salesforce Commerce Page Designer – Creates Experiences With Clicks Not Code

    “We have something brand-new we call the Commerce Page Designer,” says Mike Micucci, CommerceCloud CEO at Salesforce. “It allows you to create experiences with clicks not code. You can literally drag and drop things around on the page and just put them right where you want to. You don’t need to be a programmer or a data scientist to do it. Your marketers and your merchandisers can build those experiences super fast to respond to different market changes.”

    Mike Micucci, CEO of CommerceCloud at Salesforce, announces new enhancements to Salesforce Commerce Cloud in a discussion at Connections 2019:

    You Have To Really Put the Customer Right At the Center

    In today’s industry, it’s not just about showing up and having a pretty picture you have to really put the customer right at the center. When they are there experiencing your brand you’re not delivering just the premium experience but you’re personalizing it to them. It’s not just on the shopping site it’s everywhere they go, from how you engage with them on social all the way through on customer service.

    Putting the customer at the center to deliver a premium, a personalized experience, that’s a differentiator today. That’s what the customers are expecting everywhere they go. That’s is the key.

    Commerce Page Designer Creates Experiences With Clicks Not Code

    Our team has been working all year to get ready for Connections. We’ve got some great news that we’re going to showcase. First and foremost, we have something brand-new we call the Commerce Page Designer. It allows you to create experiences with clicks not code. You can literally drag and drop things around on the page and just put them right where you want to. You don’t need to be a programmer or a data scientist to do it. Your marketers and your merchandisers can build those experiences super fast to respond to different market changes. That’s one of the biggest things that we’re producing.

    The second thing is we also have a lot of new tech for developers. We’re connecting Heroku Solution kit and Commerce together in a whole new way. With this new Heroku Solution Kit, which includes templates to help you build mobile apps, shopping apps, and service cloud apps. They are all right there in front of you so they developers can be super productive with this great environment with Heroku where you can manage and build apps.

    Thirdly is MuleSoft. It takes on average about 39 different systems to pull off a commerce scenario. Those are back-end systems like ERP, your order system, and inventory. What we’ve done with MuleSoft is we made it a lot easier to connect commerce through MuleSoft to all those legacy systems through one unified layer. So today, we’re announcing this new MuleSoft For Commerce Cloud Accelerator so that developers have a whole set of preset of APIs so they can jump-start that process.

    Those are three great innovations. One for all your marketing and merchandisers. Then there are two great innovations for the developers that make them much more productive. Our goal is to help you not only deliver premium experiences but do it really fast.

    Einstein and AI Are Really Reshaping Commerce

    So what is next on the horizon? First and foremost, we always listen to our customers tell us here are the things that they need to drive their business. But what you should be looking for is how Einstein and AI are really reshaping commerce. You’ll see that in how Einstein is not just doing product recommendations but reshaping the entire customer experience.

    Einstein takes away of a lot of those things that you used to do manually, let’s say like visual search where you can shop by pictures, where Einstein will figure out, hey, what’s in that picture and make it really easy to add it to the cart. It can take a lot of the guesswork out of it and just really make the shopping experience delightful. So stay tuned for a lot more AI and a lot more Einstein.

    https://youtu.be/Wpu7zVQTZ-Q
    Salesforce Commerce Page Designer – Creates Experiences With Clicks Not Code – Mike Micucci
  • EmployeeXM – The “Coolest” and “Most Sophisticated” Employee Experience Product

    EmployeeXM – The “Coolest” and “Most Sophisticated” Employee Experience Product

    “There’s a gap between what they think is happening and really what’s going on,” says Qualtrics CEO & Co-Founder Ryan Smith. “So we said, hey, we’re going to go hard into developing the coolest, easiest, and most sophisticated employee experience product (EmployeeXM). We’re going to build that and we’re going to tie it together with the customer experience.”

    Ryan Smith, CEO & Co-Founder of Qualtrics, discusses the genesis of Qualtrics and how it has evolved into a sophisticated and integral platform for the enterprise in an extensive interview with Jason Calacanis:

    We View Ourselves As a System Of Action

    In the beginning, it was very much around being able to collect data, kind of being on the front end of that. You were able to collect data. You were able to put it into an analytical system and then you were able to report on it. Because of that, we were kind of branded as this survey platform for a long time. I’d say over the last eight to ten years all the survey is a form. There’s a form engine that allows you to do anything you could ever want to do with a form. A form can be through text, a form can be through a chatbot, it can be through anything. Then there’s an analytical platform and then there’s a reporting platform.

    A lot of our investment has been into actioning. We view ourselves as a system of action. How do you actually gather data that doesn’t exist? What experience management is — most organizations are in a world where they’ve resigned to the fact that they have all the data that they need. From our standpoint and what we see it’s the opposite. We’ve got operational systems that are telling us what’s happened. But the “why” is able to be collected in ways that never could have been done in 2002 because we have such amazing access to people. We think it’s just starting, especially now that we can go gather the “why” data through 13 or 14 different methods. It all comes together and you get a full picture. You see what happened and now you get to see “why” and that’s pretty powerful.

    If you’re thinking about the Google Analytics side it would be like these people visit our site. These people abandoned their shopping carts. These people are doing this. Or I’m an LA Hotel and I see a bunch of people from LA visiting. I don’t know why they’re visiting. They’re not staying with me. They used Qualtrics and the first ten people say that they’re there for the happy hour menu. The one person shop running IT just pops up the happy hour menu through Qualtrics without changing their whole website. Now they’re at home and they’re delivering a great experience and it only shows up for the people from LA.

    EmployeeXM – Coolest, Easiest, and Most Sophisticated

    If you look at the airline industry one of the interesting things is we power probably all the feedback on the 30 or 40 different airlines around the world. Most people know Qualtrics for the customer feedback because they’ll fly and they’ll get an email or a text that says thumbs-up thumbs-down, how was your experience? What we’ve seen as we launched the XM (Experience Management) platform, and this is what SAP is so excited about, we created this category because of all the uses we were seeing on Qualtrics. Our employee experience was taking off in a way where we were like, whoa, 50 percent of the customer problems have to do with an employee.

    Then at the same time, the average tenure here in the Bay Area is like 18 months. I don’t know one CEO that says we’re going to go recruit and spend all this money but we’re going to bring people in for only 18 months. So there’s a massive gap. There’s a gap between what they think is happening and really what’s going on. So we said, hey, we’re going to go hard into developing the coolest, easiest, and most sophisticated employee experience product (EmployeeXM). We’re going to build that and we’re going to tie it together with the customer experience.

    The Inside Manifests Itself On the Outside

    From the time they start in the company to the time they exit how do we know everything that’s going? Even in the recruiting process, how do we make sure that as a company what we think we’re delivering is being received on the other side? I believe the inside manifests itself on the outside. We’re seeing this across brands. Now we’re seeing the customer and the employee. If you look in an airline, they’re using us on the customer, the employee, the product, and the brand side.

    If you look at when someone goes and shows up to a gate a lot of times they’re upset before they even get there. The employee deals with an upset customer and that impacts the entire experience. When you rate or you think about how your flight was you’re only thinking about the brand. It’s a bunch of experiences tied together. We’re helping organizations manage all their experiences for the first time on one single platform. It doesn’t make sense that you’ve got five different software’s doing this. We’re doing this at an enterprise level. That’s how people are using it.

    EmployeeXM – The “Coolest” and “Most Sophisticated” Employee Experience Product – Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith
  • Jeff Bezos: We Need To Have Billion Dollar Scale Failures

    Jeff Bezos: We Need To Have Billion Dollar Scale Failures

    “At Amazon, we still take risks all the time,” says Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “We encourage it. We talk about failure. We should be failing. Our failures have to grow with the company. We need big failures if we are going to be moving the needle. We need to have billion dollar scale failures. If we are not, we are not swinging hard enough.”

    Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, discusses how to be a successful entrepreneur by being customer obsessed in a conversation at the Amazon re:MARS conference in Las Vegas:

    The Most Important Thing Is To Be Customer Obsessed

    If you want to be an entrepreneur, the most important thing is to be customer obsessed. Don’t satisfy your customers, figure out how to absolutely delight them. That is the number one thing whoever your customers are. Passion. You have got to have some passion for the arena that you are going to develop and work in. Otherwise, you are going to be competing against people who do have compassion for that. They are going to build better products and services.

    You can’t be a mercenary. You have to be a missionary. Missionaries build better products and services. They always win. The mercenaries are just trying to make money. Paradoxically, the missionaries always end up making more money.

    We Need To Have Billion Dollar Scale Failures

    You have to pick something that you actually have a genuine passion for. You have to take risks. You have to be willing to take risks. If you aren’t going to take risks, if you come up with a business idea where there are no risks there, those ideas are probably already being done. There being done well by many many people. So have to have something that might not work. You have to accept that your business is going to be in many ways an experiment. It might fail. That’s okay. That’s what risk is.

    At Amazon, we still take risks all the time. We encourage it. We talk about failure. We should be failing. Our failures have to grow with the company. We need big failures if we are going to be moving the needle. We need to have billion dollar scale failures. If we are not, we are not swinging hard enough.

    Disagree and Commit

    If I have a new idea and I want to see it pursued I do have to build support for it. You need very smart people to embrace the idea and move it forward. We have a framework at Amazon, it’s one of our leadership principals, it’s called disagree and commit. That is extremely useful. After you discussed an idea, you do need to make a decision and move forward. The whole team needs to really commit to that. When I really feel strongly about something and the team disagrees with me I have a helpful phrase that I look to use which is, “I want you to gamble with me on this.”

    The truth is when you are in a position like that nobody knows what the right answer is.  You’re not saying I’m right on this. Go do this. You’re saying I want you to gamble with me on this because I don’t know if it is right either. I disagree and commit all the time. I promise the people when I do it, I’m very clear in saying, “I don’t agree with this. I think it is probably not going to work. But I will never say I told you so and I’m going to be on your team. I will do everything I can to make it work.”

    Broadband Access Is Going To Be a Fundamental Human Need

    A recent big bet (we’ve taken at Amazon) would be Project Kuiper. This is our LEO satellite constellation. The goal here is broadband everywhere. One of the things this does, it’s just the way the systems work, you have equal broadband all over the surfaces of the earth. Not exactly equal, it tends to be a little bit more concentrated toward the poles, unfortunately. You end up servicing the whole world.

    It’s really good because by definition you end up accessing people who are under bandwidth including rural and remote areas. I think you can see going forward that access to broadband is going to be very close to being a fundamental human need as we move forward.

    Amazon’s Jeff Bezos: We Need To Have Billion Dollar Scale Failures
  • The Power is Going From Companies To Consumers, Says Drift CEO

    The Power is Going From Companies To Consumers, Says Drift CEO

    “The most important thing for us and the reason we exist is that all the power is going to all of us, the buyers and consumers,” says Drift CEO David Cancel. “It’s going from companies to consumer buyers. We (as consumers) dictate everything now so every company in the world has to modify how they sell and service to make us happy. This is good news for us but it is a radical shift especially in B2B.”

    David Cancel, CEO of Drift, discusses their new partnership with Adobe and the launch of their joint product called Conversational ABM in an interview with Jeff Barrett:

    The Power is Going From Companies To Consumers

    We’ve been working a while now with Marketo and now that Adobe and Marketo have come together it’s going to the next level. We announced a joint product today called Conversational ABM which is the next step we are taking. We’ve been working mainly with the Marketo side which is B2B and now we are going to start to work with the B2C side with Adobe. We will be working with consumer companies and business companies. We will be doing both.

    The most important thing for us and the reason we exist is that all the power is going to all of us, the buyers and consumers. It’s going from companies to consumer buyers. We (as consumers) dictate everything now so every company in the world has to modify how they sell and service to make us happy. This is good news for us but it is a radical shift especially in B2B. We are not going to put up with it anymore. We have infinite choice. We have lots of options. We just want to deal with companies that are going to make us feel better and have amazing experiences.

    Removing Things That Prevent Real Conversations

    We do a lot of stuff with bots and AI. What’s exciting there to me is not just that part but removing the friction and removing the things that prevent real conversations and real relationships from happening. We’ve been spending so much time putting things into Excel spreadsheets and databases that we have lost sight that business is human to human. It’s you and me. Bots are not buying from each other. So until the bots buy from each other and the world is over it’s all about all of us.

    Right now we are moving and prioritizing. We are going back to basics. We are going back to how selling, marketing, and how business has operated for all of time. We’ve just been in a weird 10-20 year bubble where we’ve extracted that away. We’ve removed the humanity out of it. Now we are now going back to what it was before.

    You Just Have To Be a Normal Human

    It’s kind of funny because you just have to be a normal human. You’ve got to take away the business hat. You’ve got to take away the things we did before which is what adds so much complexity in the tool space. What is the most authentic relationship that we are going to have? How would I want to be treated? When you start to do that it becomes obvious and the tools are not that complicated. We overcomplicate it because we are used to selling to people in a way that makes it this kind of world.

    But guess what, an entirely new generation is coming online now who doesn’t think this is normal. There are entirely new generations coming online globally around the world who don’t think this is normal. So we have to wake up. They think that personally buying is normal. To think that on the business side of things you can only buy from 9-5 when there isn’t a holiday when there is someone available and when they want to talk to you. It made sense to a certain generation. It is now the thing that is going away.

    The Power is Going From Companies To Consumers, Says Drift CEO David Cancel
  • Yext Delivers a New Paradigm in Search, Says CEO

    Yext Delivers a New Paradigm in Search, Says CEO

    “Search has changed,” says Howard Lerman, CEO of Yext. “It used to all be about websites where you’d type in a keyword and you get ten blue links back on a page. Today, when you search you just get an answer. The companies that put answers out there from them are the ones that are going to win in this massive paradigm shift.”

    Howard Lerman, CEO of Yext, discusses how Yext helps businesses adapt to the new paradigm in search by inserting brand verified answers into all the major search platforms in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    Yext Delivers a New Paradigm in Search

    Taco Bell with they’re 7,000 stores is a partner of Yext. But we don’t just partner with food companies. We added 350 new enterprise logos last year with 128 and Q4 alone. That’s nearly one logo per day. We live in an era of too much information and much of it is wrong. In this era of too much information, Yext delivers a new paradigm in search that enables consumers to get brand verified answers on all the major search platforms like Siri and Google and Alexa even the Chinese search engine Baidu.

    So the overseas tourists from China that come and go to luxury brands or need to eat can find information or they can find facts in Mandarin. They don’t use Google when they come to the United States.

    The Ultimate Authority on a Business is the Business Itself

    Morgan Stanley has over 14,000 Wealth Advisors. They all use the Yext platform to manage all the facts about every one of their advisers. They can log in, update their photo, they can say whether their a CFP and what languages they speak. They put it into Yext and boom it’s updated everywhere. We stand for the truth. The ultimate authority on Old Navy, the ultimate authority on Taco Bell, the ultimate authority on Morgan Stanley or New York Presbyterian Health is the business itself.

    So when you look up a doctor and you’re looking up a doctor that treats certain conditions and accepts certain insurances you need to make sure that you get the right answer. The ultimate authority on the doctor is from the hospital and the doctor itself. That’s what Yext stands for. We put customers, the brand itself, with brand verified answers in all these different services. Every customer journey starts with a question and when you use Yext your customers can get a brand verified answer.

    Companies That Put Answers Out There Are Going to Win

    Yext Brain is an extension of Yext that lets customers create any type of entity they want with custom objects in their platform. They can publish events. They can publish menus. They can publish products. If you’re in the financial services industry you can publish a credit card. These are all new types of entities that companies can put into Yext to deliver answers to their customer at that exact moment of intent. Search has changed. It used to all be about websites where you’d type in a keyword and you get ten blue links back on a page. Today, when you search you just get an answer. The companies that put answers out there from them are the ones that are going to win in this massive paradigm shift.

    Does Wendy’s have gluten-free menu items? Do they have vegetarian items? How many calories are in a Whopper? How many calories are in a Big Mac? What about the new Burger King Impossible Burger. These are the types of questions people ask. The number one question someone asks when they visit New York Presbyterian health, that’s one of our customers, is they want to find a doctor that can treat their condition, that accepts their insurance, and is near them. If New York Presbyterian Health can’t answer that question the consumer is going to go ask the question to a different provider.

    Yext Delivers a New Paradigm in Search, Says CEO


  • Text Conversations Build Customer Relationships, Says Twilio CEO

    Text Conversations Build Customer Relationships, Says Twilio CEO

    “We are starting to see companies where not only can they text you but you can text them,” says Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson. “That’s the nature of a conversation. That’s how you build relationships over time. It’s two way. The leading companies are figuring out that actually if you create this dialogue it creates great customer relationships and ultimately creates loyalty with customers. They feel connected to you.”

    Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio, discusses on CNBC how texting has evolved to two-way communications with customers which is helping drive loyalty and growth. 

    Every Company Should Build Great Digital Experiences To Compete

    Focusing on customers and focusing on growth is the only way you can (hit a billion-dollar run rate). That’s the only way you can do it. I remember talking to the company several years ago when we crossed the $100 million run rate. I pointed to the billion-dollar number and said this is a market and this is a company that can be one of the rare companies that can graduate from the $100 million status to the $1 billion status.

    I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished. But every step of the way all you can do is focus on customers and continue to be attached to a secular trend. That trend is every company out there needing to focus on building great digital experiences for their customers in order to compete in the modern economy. That’s what we do.

    Text Conversations Build B2B Relationships

    We just launched a new product a couple months ago called Conversations. It’s not uncommon today, but a few years ago it was novel when a company could text you. Maybe a table is ready for a restaurant or your flight is boarding. Any of those kinds of things. Several years ago that was amazing. And we luckily power a lot of those companies. 

    Nowadays, we are starting to see companies where not only can they text you but you can text them. That’s the nature of a conversation. That’s how you build relationships over time. It’s two way. The leading companies are figuring out that actually if your create this dialogue it creates great customer relationships and ultimately creates loyalty with customers when they feel connected to you. 

    Text Messages Are Just The Beginning

    Think about Tesla. Tesla’s a company where you can text the service manager. Your car is in service and they might try to call you your phone rings and when you don’t know the number you don’t answer it. Now they can text you and tell you what needs fixed and you can text your approval. The companies who really understand how to build a great customer experience are figuring out that text messaging, not just text messages and notifications, is just the beginning. Building relationships is a two way thing. 

    Every Company Needs To Use Digital To Connect With Customers

    We just focus on the long term. We focus on customers. We focus on helping customers achieve their goals. We focus on the biggest trends that are going on in the industry which is every company needing to use digital to connect with their customers. When times are good and when times are bad every company needs to focus on growing their business, making their customers happy, and making their customers become loyal repeat customers. That’s the business that we’re in.

    Text Conversations Build Customer Relationships, Says Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson
  • Domino’s AI-Powered ‘Piedentifier’ Stars in New Ad Campaign

    Domino’s AI-Powered ‘Piedentifier’ Stars in New Ad Campaign

    Domino’s software engineers and digital ad team have created a unique AI-powered ‘Piedentifier’ to launch it’s Super Bowl week marketing blitz. Domino’s is encouraging people to send in a photo of any pizza, even if you made it yourself, and it’s system will determine what type of pizza it is and give you ten points toward a free pizza in their rewards program.

    ‘Piedentifier’ launching for Super Bowl week marketing blitz

    Ritch Allison, CEO of Domino’s Pizza, discussed the new Piedentifier ‘Points for Pies‘ ad campaign with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    Domino’s AI-Powered ‘Piedentifier’ Ad Campaign

    We’re going to give Piece of the Pie Rewards points for any pizza. Our customers are going to be able to use our great technology to take a picture of any pizza, send it up to us, and earn ten points toward a free Domino’s Pizza. The great thing about this is our team got together and created something called the ‘Piedentifier.’ What it does is it uses your phone to look for what they have referred to as the open-faced expression of crust sauce and cheese. Anything that looks like a pizza and you’re getting ten points.

    Today we’ve got more than 20 million active members of our Piece of the Pie Rewards program. We don’t know the exact number of how many customers will come on board with us, but as the leader in the pizza category, we see this as a great opportunity not only to grow the overall pizza category, but also to invite new customers in to download our app and to try our product. We feel that when customers try our product we’ve got the opportunity to bring them back again and again.

    This Sunday is a huge day for us. On Super Bowl Sunday, we’re typically up about 40 percent over a normal Sunday. We’ll sell about 2 million pizzas and about four million chicken wings. Each year, it’s the biggest day of the year for us. It tends to not matter which teams are in the game. Certainly in individual cities maybe it does, but broadly across the US it’s a huge day no matter who’s playing.

    Average Franchise Makes $140K Per Year EBITDA

    Opening up a Domino’s Pizza store is still a terrific return for our franchisees. Across the globe cash on cash returns are better than three years in our business. Just a few weeks ago at our Investor Day, we released again our unit level average for our franchisees in the US. Once again it went up. We’re expecting it to be somewhere between $137,000 and $140,000 a unit in the US on EBITDA on a Domino’s Pizza store that you can open for $350,000.

    Driving is Still a Great Opportunity

    Driving for Domino’s is a great opportunity because of the volume that we do out of our stores. In a lot of cases, drivers are able to come in and earn a lot more than they can driving for some of these other businesses. As we continue to tighten down our territories through our fortressing program, it’s giving our drivers the opportunity to get more runs per hour. That means more tips per hour and in turn, higher wages.

    In addition to a job that earns a decent wage driving at Domino’s is also an opportunity potentially to be a franchisee in the long term. Over 90 percent of our franchisees today started as drivers or started in as CSRs answering our phones in our stores.

    Self-Driving Cars Will be Here Someday

    Self-driving cars will be here someday. We don’t exactly know what day but we’re working hard to really try to understand how our customer interface with that car when it pulls up to their curb. They’re used to having a uniformed Domino’s pizza delivery expert bring that pizza to the door. So we’re learning. As the technology evolves we’re going to learn how the customer wants to interact with us and we’ll be ready when it does get here.


  • Yum CEO: Driverless Cars, Robots Making Pizzas, This is All In Our Future

    Yum CEO: Driverless Cars, Robots Making Pizzas, This is All In Our Future

    Yum Brands which owns Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut and other restaurant brands are at the forefront of technological innovation. Yum also isn’t afraid to experiment with seemingly outlandish ideas either such as their announcement of the Toyota Tundra Pie Pro which makes pizza on the go.

    Yum Brands CEO Greg Creed recently discussed Yum’s use of technology:

    We Love Our Relationship with Grubhub

    “We love our relationship with Grubhub, it’s a great partnership,” says Yum Brands CEO Greg Creed. “By the end of the year in the U.S., we’ll have about 2,000 KFC’s and probably close to 4,000 Taco Bell’s delivering. In the stores that are already delivering we’re getting check increases and incremental sales that are coming from it, so we’re very excited about this partnership. We think it obviously bodes well for the future sales growth for both KFC and for Taco Bell in the U.S.”

    Driverless Cars and Robots Making Pizzas is Our Future

    Pizza Hut has partnered with Toyota to develop a zero-emission Tundra PIE Pro, a mobile pizza factory with the ability to deliver oven-hot pizza wherever it goes. The full-size pizza-making truck was introduced at Toyota’s 2018 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show presentation.

    “I love our partnership with Toyota,” added Creed. “This is really about technology, this is about robotics, this is about what the future is envisioning. Driverless cars, robots making pizzas, this is all in our future. Is it in our future next week? No, but is it in our foreseeable future, absolutely. Everything that we can do to make the brands more relevant, make them easier to access and more distinctive, that’s what will lead to continued success, not just for Pizza Hut but also at KFC and at Taco Bell.”

    Pizza Hut Partners with Toyota on the Tundra PIE Pro

    Pizza Hut has partnered with Toyota to develop the one-of-a-kind, zero-emission Tundra PIE Pro, a mobile pizza factory with the ability to deliver oven-hot pizza wherever it goes. The full-size pizza-making truck was introduced at Toyota’s 2018 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show presentation.

    “Nothing tastes better than a fresh Pizza Hut pizza straight out of the oven,” said Marianne Radley, Chief Brand Officer, Pizza Hut. “The Tundra PIE Pro brings to life our passion for innovation not just on our menu but in digital and delivery in order to provide the best possible customer experience.”

  • AT&T CEO Defends 5G Evolution Marketing Following Sprint Lawsuit

    AT&T CEO Defends 5G Evolution Marketing Following Sprint Lawsuit

    AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson defended AT&T’s aggressive 5G E marketing following the filing of a lawsuit by Sprint. During the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, some of their competitors criticized them, saying AT&T is “slapping 5G stickers” on upgraded 4G phones.

    Stephenson says that 5G Evolution (5G E), represents new technology that they are deploying that delivers radical increases in speed and performance on their network.

    Description of 5G Evolution on AT&T website.

    Randall Stephenson, Chairman and CEO of AT&T, defends their 5G E marketing amid a lawsuit filing by Sprint in an interview with CNBC:

    It’s an Evolutionary Step to 5G

    It’ll play itself out obviously. We feel very comfortable with how we’ve characterized the new service that we’re launching. What we do is go into a market and we turn up a significant block of spectrum, wireless airways that we own. I mean it’s rather dramatic. We’re deploying new technology that I won’t go into the details of it, but when we go into a market and we turn up this technology and we light up this spectrum our customers are seeing radical increases in speed and performance on the network.

    This is a step that’s required to get to ultimate 5G. It’s an evolutionary step to 5G, a critical step. So we are characterizing this 5G E, 5G Evolution. We’ve obviously done our homework. We’ve done a lot of work around how we characterize this. We’re being very clear with our customers that this is an evolutionary step.

    It’s Not a Play Everybody Can Run

    But this is a dramatic step-change improvement in what the customers experience where we turn this up. I fully understand why our competitors might be upset with this. It’s not a play everybody can run. It’s a play that we really like. It’s a play that’s going to differentiate us in the marketplace as we begin to roll this out over the course of this year.