FS Dreaming: A Dreamforce Recap for Financial Services
Financial services (FS) geeks were out in full force at Dreamforce last week, and — as a recovering bank geek — I was in awe of the things I was seeing and hearing.
From TD Bank to Travelers Insurance and so many financial services teams in between, some of the smartest people in our industry were talking about how they are leveraging Salesforce, evolving their centers of excellence, and using Salesforce tools to revolutionize customer, member, and employee experiences.
I would be lying if I didn’t say it was an exciting week of thought leadership for the financial services sector. One of the best things about Dreamforce, in my opinion, was hearing about the amazing things FS organizations have done in the past year, or what they are planning to do in the coming months.
Below are some of my key takeaways from Dreamforce 2023.
1. The year of AI
While many financial services companies have been using AI for a few years and have AI models already built, this new wave of AI capabilities is exciting (and — for regulated industries — maybe a little frightening). To continue to innovate at the same pace AI is moving requires enterprise-wide governance of AI models, inputs, and outputs.
At the FS keynote, leaders at PenFed Credit Union admitted that running a regulated entity means approaching AI cautiously for consumers and members while understanding that things can go wrong fast. So they take a very calculated crawl-and-walk approach, grounded in evaluation and monitoring, and adjusting the models.
Leaders at Travelers Insurance, however, talked about focusing on AI for the past five years. Data and analytics is everything to insurance. They calculate risk-to-benefit ratios for a living, so when looking at generative AI (GenAI) they find the benefits outweigh the risks, and feel strongly that GenAI will create opportunities for their employees to focus on moments that matter with their customers.
One comment that resonated with me, as a former bank geek, was that FS organizations have amassed significant amounts of data to feed their AI models, helping ensure accuracy. If you’ve ever looked at the transaction data alone from a banking core, you’ll know that the amount of information — even when you depersonalize it — is extremely valuable to driving customer experiences with AI.
2. Data, data, data
With the continual and rapid evolution of Data Cloud and the announced Financial Services Cloud (FSC) data model for Data Cloud, we are just scratching the surface on the value Data Cloud can provide FINS organizations.
As a former database admin, I love all things data. Data in the financial services industry comes with its own challenges. It was enlightening for me to hear how TD Bank is leveraging Data Cloud to deliver personalized connected experiences and understand customer needs. In the keynote, leaders at TD Bank shared that they created over 200 personalized triggers that drove 3–4x engagement rates — a strategy that’s transforming their customer experience.
3. Thinking about Thought Machine
Thought Machine is the banking core that redefines what a core system should do. I first met the team from Thought Machine in 2019 at NYC World Tour. As a recovering banker who understood the challenges of data ownership, data stewardship, and being shacked to the “big three” core systems, I was immediately smitten.
Fast-forward to the announcement during the keynote that Salesforce and Thought Machine are partnering to create out-of-the-box connectors between FSC and Thought Machine, and my bank-geek dreams of combining a headless core with FSC may finally come to fruition.
Anyone who has tried to implement FSC and bring in the core banking data knows how this will revolutionize banking systems. I’m really excited to see what the future holds for this partnership. Now, to convince banking executives that a core migration is worth it …
4. Transformation
I attended an amazing session with leaders at Huntington Bank on how they established a center of excellence to drive their digital transformation, using Salesforce as their enterprise platform. It was great to hear how they have engaged business stakeholders, looked at prioritization, and gained buy-in from all lines of business on the platform.
Speaking of transformation, David Deitch — senior director of financial services at Slalom — took the stage with the team from Vanguard Charitable to talk about cross-cloud transformation strategy. As a product owner, I have also asked myself, “How do we enact change and drive transformation?” and it was refreshing to be able to attend sessions on how organizations are tackling this challenge.
5. Service excellence with Service Process Studio
This ignited my inner call-center technologist. While I’ve implemented service processes in a variety of different ways with Salesforce, I’m really excited about what we’re able to do with Service Process Studio.
The idea behind Service Process Studio is to lower costs and increase efficiency while driving excellence in both customer and employee experience. Salesforce has focused on the top 10 service use cases for banking and created templates in Service Process Studio to enable digital agility for banks implementing Salesforce in their call centers. Service Process Studio also streamlines process orchestration, allowing agents to focus on the customer and create a better all-around customer experience.
6. Dreamforce is the place to connect
This year, more than ever, I came away from Dreamforce grateful for all the connections with old friends, new friends, and like-minded people who are excited about technology, financial services, and consulting. From breakfasts, happy hours, and dinners to rocking out to my favorite band at Dreamfest with other banking techies, the connections are what turn a really good conference into a great one. A big thank-you to all the people who made time in their chaotic Dreamforce schedules to share a coffee (or a phone charger).
That’s a wrap!
It’s hard to encapsulate all the learnings from three-plus days of conversations, sessions, panels, connections, and keynotes into a single summary. I learned that transformation doesn’t just happen — it’s deliberate — and AI is a shiny new tool, but it needs to be fed with data from inside and outside Salesforce. Salesforce is continuing to innovate on its industry clouds, and as a FSC expert, I’m excited to see how the roadmap unfolds over the coming months. I’ll continue to be curious and excited about how all my FS clients, friends, and prospects continue their journeys on the Salesforce platform.
Slalom is a global consulting firm that helps people and organizations dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. Learn more or contact our Salesforce experts today to schedule a demo.
