Salesforce Xchange EMEA Recap

Salesforce Xchange EMEA has just ended! This year, the event took place in the beautiful city of Copenhagen on June 12 – 14 and focused on Commerce Cloud, one of the latest Clouds of the Salesforce platform. Many people attended the conference to understand better the latest trends in E-commerce, learn more about Salesforce Commerce Cloud, or simply network with their peers. For my first participation, I went there with a single ambition: LEARN! I would like to share with you some of my key takeaways.

Cloud technology has transformed E-Commerce.

There is a buzzword that you hear all the time around E-Commerce: Omnichannel.
Omnichannel is about harmonising the buying experience across different channels (e.g. social, mobile, online, in-store, etc.). Nowadays, customers can collect product information in many different ways and buy at almost every moment. To remain competitive, brands need to serve their customers at all touch points and show some flexibility: “Buy anywhere. Fulfil anywhere.”

Several years ago, companies would be limited by technology and had an E-commerce solution for the sole purpose of selling their product online. In-store and online transactions would be managed by different systems, and most companies would not have a 360-degree view of their customers. Cloud technology has changed that! Salesforce Commerce Cloud is managing both the Digital and the Store transactions on a single platform, making it possible to blur the line between various channels.

Mobile is the main traffic driver

In order for retailers to keep pace with the competition, it is essential for them to realise that mobile has become the main traffic driver. By the end of Q1 2017, more than 50% of the traffic was coming from mobile! *

In fact, mobile is not just simply driving the visit growth; it is also driving the order growth. Salesforce Shopping Index (Q1 2017 vs. Q1 2016) shows that the order growth on mobile was 85%!

As a brand, ask yourself these questions. Do you need a mobile-optimized solution for your customers to purchase your company’s products? If you have one, can your customers purchase your products within a few clicks, or do you make it difficult for them?

Artificial Intelligence is here

I knew that artificial intelligence was coming. I probably didn’t realise how quickly it was coming! During the conference, I was given a simple demo showing how AI features can be deployed on the Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform. With a few clicks, you can enable AI, and the machine starts learning and taking action! Product recommendations and predictive sorts are some examples of the already available features.

From the conference, I felt that AI would rapidly become the key differentiator in selecting a Commerce platform in the future as it can help to boost online revenues significantly.

Can your company afford not to transform?

During the event, I spent a lot of time discussing with different companies that have already been engaged in some sort of transformation journey. I found that most retailers in the fashion industry were already at an advanced stage. In some other industries, companies were looking for additional information to clarify their strategy and were considering what would be their next steps.

How far are you in your journey? Have you started to transform?

After reading this blog, you might have the impression that everything has now become simple! In fact, it has not. Change is always painful, and it requires people to modify their habits and learn new things. Technology is now available to support your transformation, and Salesforce is a great platform to start with!

Sir Winston Churchill, in his famous “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech in 1940, warned the British people of the hardships to come in fighting WWII. I would not go that far when speaking about business transformation, but you should keep asking yourself a question: can my company afford not to transform?

* https://www.demandware.com/shopping-index/

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Salesforce Xchange EMEA Recap

Cloud technology has transformed E-Commerce.

Mobile is the main traffic driver

Artificial Intelligence is here

Can your company afford not to transform?

How far are you in your journey? Have you started to transform?

Raphael Favier

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