What It’s Really Like To Be a Salesforce Financial Services Solution Engineer
If you’re familiar with Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, you know that it’s a very powerful tool for our customers. But creating customer solutions in the financial services sector can be challenging.
If you’d like to hear more about what it’s like to work as a trusted customer advisor, read on, and hear from James Georgiou, one of our experts from the financial services team.
About James
James is a financial services Senior Solution Engineer based in the UK. He joined Salesforce just over a year ago but has predominantly worked in the financial services space from his time at HP, DXC Technology and more recently at Fiserv. He loves the industry and enjoys talking to customers who are embarking on truly transformational change. His key focus areas are Payments, Fintech, and Wealth and Asset Management.
What sets financial services apart from the other industries?
James: In the last few years, the financial services sector has been going through unprecedented technology-led changes. Many executives look to their IT departments to improve efficiency and facilitate game-changing innovation, while somehow also lowering costs and continuing to support legacy systems.
Meanwhile, FinTech start-ups are encroaching upon established markets, leading with customer-friendly solutions developed from the ground up and unencumbered by legacy systems. Customers have had their expectations set by other industries and are now demanding better services, seamless experiences regardless of channel, and more value for their money.
These attitudinal changes make the Financial Services extremely unique compared to other industries that Salesforce serves and the pace of change shows no signs of slowing.
What attracted you to becoming a Solution Engineer?
James: I feel that solution engineering is the perfect place for me. As a naturally curious person, there is nothing I love more than meeting with customers and uncovering their business and goals. I enjoy all aspects of the role — the direct customer contact, learning about the customer’s business drivers, and being a part of the conversation as they work towards their vision. The crazier the goal, the better! Salesforce has the ability to deliver such creative solutions. It’s inspiring to be a part of it!
I am also enjoying the challenge of being the ‘Trusted Digital Advisor’ to our customers. Nowadays the responsibilities of a solution engineer have shifted to being more consultative to our customers, understanding their strategy and their pains to advise on the best course of action. Being a ‘Trusted Digital Advisor’ means bringing personal experience and best practice to direct customer success whilst also calling on our deep industry knowledge as the industry experts.
Considering the fast pace of change in the FinServ industry, what are the challenges of your role?
James: I think that the most challenging part of my role is keeping up with the ever-changing product set that Salesforce offers. Being a Core Solution Engineer I am expected to know about the whole suite of our products, but with the 3 annual releases, a year and all the amazing acquisitions we’ve done like Mulesoft or Tableau, staying on top can be quite hard.
This is why the role started to shift. It’s impossible to be an expert in everything but we need to know enough to conversate on the solutions but also know who to call in and when for a more detailed discussion. We often call ourselves the quarterbacks of the sales process — we have to coordinate resources such as bringing in specific cloud experts, working with our design team whilst also project managing the variety of deliverables we have committed to a customer. I think the days of Solution Engineers just being there to do a demo have now passed. We do so much more than that which is why the role has so much variety and excitement.
What does your average day as a Salesforce FinServ Solution Engineer look like?
James: I genuinely believe no two days are ever the same. One day I could be speaking to a small insurance firm in the City of London, the next I could be speaking to a great Fintech startup doing some amazing things in the industry. Having such a variety of customers and understanding their pain points is extremely interesting and challenging at the same time.
I spend a lot of time doing what we call ‘Discovery Calls’ with our existing and prospective customers so that we can better understand their challenges to make the right recommendations. These calls are often the foundation for our customer demos. A lot of time is spent on building and fine-tuning a tailored and relevant demo to showcase the value Salesforce platform can bring to the customers.
Finally, enablement. This could be running enablement sessions for apprentices and graduates on the Financial Services Cloud or attending webinars on our latest releases. I also make sure to dedicate some of my time to reading about Financial Services and I am often attending industry events to keep up with the key industry trends.
What would be your one piece of advice for someone who’s thinking of becoming a FinServ Solution Engineer?
James: First and foremost — passion for the industry! Keep reading on the subject, there are so many great podcasts and websites now that allow you to stay on top of the key things happening in the industry.
In my experience, there are many diverse backgrounds that make up the best and most successful Solution Engineers. There is often a misunderstanding that technical ability is essential. While this is valuable, having strong business acumen is just as important. I think knowing whether you want to be seen as a technical or business Solution Engineer will allow you to better articulate the strengths and value you can bring to the role.
