Key takeaways from Dreamforce 2023
Nearly 50,000 attendees over three days embarked on the TrAIlblazer-Journey to San Francisco this year for the Dreamforce 2023. And of course, the biggest Salesforce Event was all about AI. Besides the hype — what are the key takeaways from an architecture perspective?
Einstein 1 Platform
With the introduction of Hyperforce and the ‘Infrastructure as a Code’, Salesforce is shifting too. Salesforce already teased that the underlying architecture would be harmonized. With the announcement of Einstein 1, Salesforce promised to break down the data silos created by Salesforce’s acquisitions (ExactTarget, Demandware, Pardot, …) and different clouds such as Marketing Cloud or Commerce Cloud. Salesforce CO-CEO Parker Harris stated in the Architecture Keynote that Einstein 1 would be coming within the next 12 months. Having the data on the same platform should make the integration between all the clouds much easier and simpler. This could significantly reduce the amount of integration work required to deliver certain capabilities. And yes, of course, delivering new AI capabilities is one of the main drivers behind that.
Data Cloud comes of age
Putting all the marketing around AI to one side, the clear next big thing for Salesforce is the Data Cloud. It is finally coming of age after last year’s failed Genie narrative. This year the product was presented in earnest, and Salesforce was able to outline the capabilities, especially when it came to the integration with the core platform.
Under the hood, rather than relying on the SObject structure, Data Cloud uses a different method of handling data relying on different ways to structure data e.g., Data Lake Objects (DLOs) or Data Model Objects (DMOs) and a few more. And Data Cloud is not only a data warehouse/data lake — with the announced Data Cloud-Triggered Flow, automations can be triggered from Data Cloud in the core platform based on DMO criteria or calculated insights (CIOs). The integration via Flows allows architects to reconsider whether an operation should be run on the core platform or can be handled within Data Cloud.
With Data Cloud Enrichment, data can be brought back to the core platform as a related list or a custom field — so it’s easily accessible to users on the UI layer. To reduce the cost barrier (and to allow customers to play around), Data Cloud will be free (up to 10,000 profiles) for Salesforce Enterprise or Unlimited Edition customers.
Overall, the package around Data Cloud looks promising, and I expect further growth in this area.
Salesforce finds its way to China
After the announcement with Alibaba a few years ago, Salesforce’s ambitions to bring their solution to the Chinese market fell silent. Salesforce and Alibaba renewed their partnership more than once over the years, but it took until the end of 2023 before Salesforce finally became available in China. Now, thanks to a huge booth in the Moscone South, everybody knows it: Salesforce has arrived in China. Based on Hyperforce, Salesforce has launched their solution based on AliCloud. It’s live — it’s working — it’s fast.
For Salesforce customers, which wanted to be compliant with the Chinese privacy and data protection law, it was difficult to solve. Currently, most of them ended up with an isolated local China solution, while the rest of their BUs/markets use Salesforce. A huge trade-off and a lot of overhead to consolidate and manage IT & Business around that. With Salesforce on AliCloud this issue can be resolved, but this needs to come along with a strong Governance, as the solution obviously results in a Multi-Org setup.
Salesforce isn’t planning to bring their full portfolio to China — Marketing and Commerce Cloud would not have that much of an impact in China anyway, since everything happens on WeChat. Salesforce will adjust their solution and come up with social commerce and a WeChat solution. Some features and industry cloud solutions are on the roadmap for Early ’24.
Salesforce invests in Industry Solution
Salesforce is increasingly pushing for industry cloud solutions that bundle different features and capabilities into one offering and provide an industry-specific data model. In some areas, Salesforce even provides out-of-the-box business processes. If you’re new to Salesforce, this will make it a lot easier to get started. Even for existing Salesforce customers, the industry solutions are packed with features and plenty of options to take your control of Salesforce to the next level and are definitely worth a look — e.g., on Automotive Cloud or the new and revamped NGO Cloud.
Personal Note
I was honored to co-host an architecture session together with the fantastic and lovely, Lilith Van Biesen, on the “Architect’s Approach to Governance.” We had so much fun and joy preparing for the session. It was crazy how many people approached us afterwards and the feedback we’ve received has been very positive. Thank you so much! For those of you who couldn’t make it, Lilith and I are working on a solution to make the session available to everyone.
