Salesforce showcased the transformative power of its latest AI and cloud-based solutions to more than 2,000 customers, partners and associates at Salesforce World Tour Essentials Dubai, held at Madinat Jumeirah.
The seniority and number of attendees demonstrated the surging interest in AI and digital transformation solutions in the region, with organisations from across a range of sectors eager to learn more about new technologies that will enable them to fully leverage their data and grow their business in the face of a variety of converging challenges.
The event also drew attention to the vital role played by technology – particularly by Salesforce’s wider ecosystem – in creating a pipeline of tech talent that provides valuable employment opportunities while driving AI and digital transformation in the region. The event was supported by 49 partner sponsors, featured more than 50 sessions by more than 20 guest speakers.
IDC estimates that Salesforce and its partner ecosystem, fueled by AI-powered cloud solutions, will generate $5.1 billion in net new business between 2022 and 2028. The report estimates a net gain of 21,800 jobs through AI-powered cloud solutions in the United Arab Emirates by 2028*.
The Salesforce ecosystem of partners in the Middle East has grown 29% in FY24 but the more significant improvement is in the area of certifications with an increase of 35% in total and 29% more consultants. These partners are helping organizations across all sectors to raise employee productivity and transform with real-time insights and new levels of customer experience.
“Every CEO I speak to knows they need to make major investments in AI to fuel growth and strengthen customer relationships. At Salesforce, we’re excited by the strides our customers and partners in the Middle East are taking to succeed in the AI era. World Tour Essentials Dubai offers the perfect showcase of the region’s potential as a centre of innovation,” said Lori Steele, President and CRO, Salesforce EMEA.
“Organizations in the region are striving to grow their businesses while managing ever-higher customer and stakeholder expectations,” said Thierry Nicault, Area Vice President, Middle East, Salesforce. “Companies want to embrace technology and leverage their data, but the pace of change often leads to confusion and an inability to act, stifling innovation and agility. We wanted to use Salesforce World Tour Essentials Dubai to demonstrate how our customers can raise productivity, improve visibility, and transform their entire operations by deploying AI and digital tools in a smart way. By embracing the power of AI, organizations in the public and private sector can seize opportunities for growth and contribute to the wider project of economic diversification.”
Getting the right AI with the right data at World Tour Essentials Dubai
The keynotes, talks and presentations at Salesforce World Tour Essentials Dubai focused on how organizations can navigate challenges by embracing the latest AI, data and CRM solutions to build trust, drive efficiency, transform customer oversight, and grow their businesses.
Keynote speakers from Salesforce included Lori Steele, President and CRO, EMEA; Marc Mathieu, Senior Vice President of AI; Steve Corfield, EVP and GM, Global Sales; Thierry Nicault, Area Vice President, Middle East; and Marco Hernasanz, EVP & CEO EMEA South.
Salesforce customers operating in sectors including government, retail, real estate, energy, and banking offered valuable insights into how they overcame their challenges, revealing how Salesforce solutions such as Data Cloud and the Einstein 1 Platform have helped them transform operations. Participating organizations, including the Saudi retail giant Cenomi and Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center, shared their digital transformation journeys.
Data Cloud is a data platform that unifies all of a company’s data on Salesforce’s Einstein 1 Platform, giving every team a 360-degree view of every customer to drive automation and analytics, personalize engagement, and power trusted AI. Data Cloud creates this holistic customer view by turning volumes of disconnected data into a single, trusted model that’s easy to access and understand. Salesforce’s Einstein 1 Platform integrates the company’s suite of applications spanning sales, service, marketing, ecommerce, analytics, and industry solutions. By seamlessly fusing generative AI, data management, CRM capabilities, and trusted systems, businesses are empowered to increase productivity, unleash deeper customer relationships, and boost margins.
Nine out of 10 IT professionals say generative AI has forced them to change the way new technology is implemented and used, according to Salesforce research. Respondents say they need intuitive user interfaces that make it easy to interact with AI in the flow of work; AI models to fit their use cases; and access to trusted customer and business data to ground the AI models and ensure relevant outputs. With Data Cloud, customers can unlock their trapped data and bring together all of their business and customer data into one place for AI.
In December, Salesforce launched Hyperforce in the UAE, its trusted platform architecture. Hyperforce harnesses the scale and agility of the public cloud to easily deploy Salesforce solutions and provide its global customer base with enhanced flexibility to grow globally and serve locally.
Delivered through a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Hyperforce represents a significant advancement of the Salesforce platform. It enables new options to secure and store data in-country, which is critical for regional and global organizations in regulated industries such as the government, financial services, and telecommunications to stay ahead of evolving privacy regulations and an increased emphasis on data security and residency.
