Salesforce Brings the Customer Data Platform to the World’s #1 CRM

Salesforce (New york stock exchange:CRM), the worldwide leader in CRM, today unveiled its Customer Data Platform (CDP) with generation x of Customer 360. New platform services will enable companies to unify disparate customer data in their entire organization after which personalize every engagement with different single look at the client. Customer 360 goes beyond traditional CDP abilities and extend the strength of CRM with consumer-scale data management and activation.

"Customers today won't accept fragmented encounters, and firms notice that developing a single look at the client is important to earning their loyalty," stated Bret Taylor, President and Chief Product Officer, Salesforce. "With Customer 360, we still extend our platform in new ways, empowering brands to unify data and personalize customer engagement at scale."

Customers Expect an amount of Personalization They’re Not Receiving

The majority of the interactions that buyers have with brands today are disconnected and for that reason underwhelming. The most recent Salesforce Connected Customer report finds that 78 percent of consumers expect consistent interactions having a company whatever the department they’re coping with, yet only 50 % of companies tailor their engagement with different customer’s past interactions.

The task for businesses is they are swimming inside a deluge of customer data. Many are attempting to unify data from legacy systems, disconnected channels, multi-funnel attribution and elsewhere. They should also stick to rules like GDPR and adjust to new channels like voice and chatbots. Within this reality, delivering personalized and integrated engagement is tough, and customers frequently spend the money for cost. A store is not likely to understand the customer who just contacted customer support for any damaged product is identical one which also got a marketing email for your same product.

Generation X of Customer 360 Delivers Integrated Customer Engagement

At Dreamforce 2018, Salesforce introduced Customer 360, which enables companies for connecting Salesforce apps and make up a unified customer ID to construct just one look at the client. Furthermore, by extending the strength of Customer 360 with MuleSoft, companies can connect any application, databases or device across any cloud as well as on-premise. Today, Salesforce is expanding Customer 360 with new advancements that can make it simpler to bridge fragmented customer data over the entire organization and let companies to provide integrated customer engagement at scale.

Generation x of Customer 360 will enable:

• Data Unification and Consent Management: Brands can unify all their customer data to produce wealthy customer profiles. Including known and unknown data for example cookies, customer first-party IDs and much more. With Salesforce’s consent management framework, companies also be capable of easily gain customer consent wherever they engage-from e-mail marketing to digital advertising.
• Advanced Audience Segmentation: Segmentation abilities allows companies to recognize specific categories of individuals to build relationships in tangible-time according to census, engagement background and other customer data available. For instance, a business can build a crowd of female shoppers thinking about running footwear according to information collected from a mix of web surfing activities across several online stores, marketing email interactions, previous purchases and much more.
• Personalized Engagement Everywhere: When a brand knows what audience segment they’d prefer to achieve, it may then activate the client data across marketing, commerce, service and beyond. What this means is companies won’t skip a beat, reaching customers and prospects across channels like ads, email, social, mobile and web which are all integrated to provide a continuing knowledge about the company.
• Optimization According to Einstein Insights: With artificial intelligence, companies can evaluate and understand when and how to interact with people to drive customer loyalty and improve business performance. Customer profiles are continuously updated according to their behaviors - as customers click an advertisement, browse an ecommerce catalog, purchase a product and open an e-mail. This enables brands to leverage AI they are driving probably the most relevant mixture of product and funnel recommendations to optimize funnel engagement and client satisfaction.

“Enterprises are getting a hard time recording all their customer data in one location. With the much data arriving from a large number of sources, it’s challenging for companies to keep an eye on everything, not to mention utilize it for their benefit to provide the connected encounters that buyers want,” stated Sheryl Kingstone, Research V . P . & Gm at 451 Research. “A large amount of solutions available claim that they can solve these common challenges, but miss the objective. What Salesforce is announcing today is really a proper advance in assisting companies truly understand their clients via a single lens and interact together one-on-one across marketing, commerce, service and beyond.”

“Pacers Sports & Entertainment hosts countless games, concerts and occasions every year for countless fans in Indiana. Since teaming track of Salesforce, we’ve had the ability to improve fan engagement and make loyal relationships” stated Todd Taylor, CMO, Pacers Sports & Entertainment. “We are now able to achieve fans using the content most significant for them, deliver personalized customer support and evaluate the best way to interact to ensure that they're happy and involved plus the entertainment encounters that people deliver. Customer 360 is really a breakthrough innovation that we’re excited to consider once we keep growing the relationships we've labored difficult to create with this fans.”

Salesforce Connections 2019: The Client Engagement Event of the season

A large number of marketing, commerce and customer support professionals from top brands are uniting in Chicago, Illinois from Next Month-19 to blaze new trails in better, smarter customer engagement. Loudspeakers include leaders from Salesforce customers for example Conagra, e.l.f. Cosmetics, The Indiana Pacers and much more. Agency partners including DEG, Linked by Isobar-area of the Dentsu Aegis Network, MRM//McCann, Publicis Sapient and Wunderman Thompson may also be present.

Tokio Marine & Nichido Selects Salesforce to Exceed Customer Expectations at Every Touchpoint

Salesforce (New york stock exchange: CRM), the worldwide leader in CRM, today announced that Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Limited.-among the largest property and casualty insurance firms in Japan-selected Salesforce to unify every customer touchpoint across its corporate and purchasers, sales departments, insurance companies and marketing divisions onto just one CRM platform. With Salesforce, Tokio Marine & Nichido will receive a 360-degree look at its customers, a much deeper knowledge of their demands and the opportunity to deliver highly personalized services and products at scale.

The interest rate of innovation within the 4th Industrial Revolution has brought to popular for financial services companies to supply customer encounters that meet diverse needs. To deal with this shift, Tokio Marine & Nichido established a mid-term strategic business plan titled, “To Be considered a Good Company 2020-'Becoming No. one in Quality’ Exceeding Customers’ Expectations.” The program may be the company’s dedication to using technology to boost its services and products and transform customer encounters.

Tokio Marine & Nichido selected Salesforce to aid its 50,000 insurance companies and something million agents in Japan. With Salesforce, the companies may have we've got the technology they have to obtain a complete look at their clients as well as their needs, and also the agents may have the various tools to improve productivity and make much deeper, reliable customer relationships. Additionally, the organization is unifying its business on Salesforce across its corporate and purchasers, sales departments, insurance companies and marketing divisions-getting every customer touchpoint onto just one CRM platform to provide personalized engagement at scale and exceed customer expectations all the way.

“The insurance market is dealing with a time period of transformational change as policyholders demand seamless and transparent encounters with insurance providers,” stated Rohit Mahna, SVP and GM, Salesforce Financial Services. “They expect their insurance professional to understand their individual needs and supply personalized service at each touchpoint. We're excited to work with Tokio Marine on their own journey to being a true customer-focused company which help them navigate the altering industry landscape.”

Tokio Marine & Nichido’s digital transformation with Salesforce includes Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, Community Cloud, Einstein Analytics, Marketing Cloud, Pardot and also the Salesforce Lightning Platform.

About Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Limited.

Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Limited., is among Japan’s earliest and largest non-existence Insurance providers, which traces its roots to 1879. Getting business network in 38 regions, Tokio Marine stand having a solid profitability and financial stability having a  (Positive) rating from Standard & Poor, & Aa3 (Stable) by Moody’s.

With more than 17,000 highly experienced and qualified employees worldwide, Tokio Marine emphasizes on personal relationships using its customers and it is dedicated to supplying all of them with professional risk management and efficient claims handling services.

MuleSoft Recognizes Leading Partners for Accelerating Digital Transformation at MuleSoft CONNECT 2019

MuleSoft, provider from the leading platform for building application systems, today announced the winners from the MuleSoft Partner Awards. The annual awards recognize top partners for delivering business outcomes to customers at scale. The winners were announced at MuleSoft CONNECT Bay Area, certainly one of six global conferences for digital business where CIOs, IT leaders and developers combined efforts to realize the chance for application systems they are driving digital transformation inside their organizations.

The MuleSoft Partner Awards recognize partners over the Americas, Asia Off-shore and EMEA for scaling their group of experts through training and certification programs, driving customer growth and delivering business outcomes for purchasers.

The SI and VAR Partner of the season Award recognizes partners using the finest market impact by ACV in 2018:

• MuleSoft Global SI and VAR Partner of the season 2019: Deloitte
• MuleSoft NA SI and VAR Partner of the season 2019: Deloitte
• MuleSoft EMEA SI and VAR Partner of the season 2019: Capgemini
• MuleSoft APAC SI and VAR Partner of the season 2019: Deloitte

The Development and Emerging Partner Award honors partners using the greatest development in their MuleSoft business when it comes to training, certifications, new customer possibilities and project implementation.

• MuleSoft NA Growth & Emerging Partner of the season 2019: Infosys
• MuleSoft EMEA Growth & Emerging Partner of the season 2019: Accenture
• MuleSoft APAC Growth & Emerging Partner of the season 2019: HCL Technologies

The Practice Development Partner of the season Award recognizes partners using the greatest degree of practice development, measured as a whole certifications and annual development in certifications.

• MuleSoft NA Practice Development Partner of the season 2019: Acumen Solutions
• MuleSoft EMEA Practice Development Partner of the season 2019: Deloitte
• MuleSoft APAC Practice Development Partner of the season 2019: Whitesky Labs

“Our partners have achieved an explosion within the this past year as they’ve evangelized the chance of API-brought connectivity by developing knowledge of MuleSoft technology and integration guidelines. By leveraging the most popular framework they are driving business change, agility and speed present in MuleSoft Catalyst, partners orient themselves towards driving business outcomes for the customers,” stated Brent Hayward, senior v . p . of worldwide channels and alliances, MuleSoft. “Our 2019 award winners have shown excellence in building application systems and function reliable and proper advisors for purchasers. We're wanting to celebrate the worth these partners have sent to our joint customers and expect for their ongoing development in next season.”

Organizations within the MuleSoft Partner Program provide talking to and services for MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform, an answer for API-brought connectivity that produces a credit card applicatoin network of apps, data, and devices, both on-premises as well as in the cloud. With Anypoint Platform, organizations can unlock new revenue channels, improve customer encounters and drive innovation. Combined with power MuleSoft Catalyst, partners can leverage common processes, guidelines and sources to allow API-brought connectivity for purchasers, which makes it simpler to provide agile infrastructure that accelerates follow-on project possibilities. By leading with this particular approach, partners delivers much more value, agility and speed to customers and expand their role from implementation provider to reliable consultant and alter agent.

CIOs Standardize on MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform to Drive Digital Transformation With API-led Connectivity

MuleSoft, provider from the leading platform for building application systems, today announced that CIOs all over the world depend on MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform™ to produce new revenue channels, deliver differentiated customer encounters while increasing operational efficiencies through API-brought connectivity. A large number of clients are leveraging Anypoint Platform to alter the clockspeed of the business, mixing MuleSoft's technology and methodology to accelerate digital transformation.

The CIO’s new role like a business catalyst

Organizations today they are under growing pressure to maneuver faster to be able to stay relevant. Based on 2010 Connectivity Benchmark Report, 89% from it leaders say integration obstacles are slowing digital initiatives. Additionally, 92% of respondents say their company’s integration needs span beyond IT to encompass an array of business functions. The opportunity to connect and reuse technologies are important to overcome integration obstacles, enable the development of start up business models and accelerate the interest rate of economic.

With MuleSoft, CIOs are embracing a brand new operating model, where IT abilities are distributed through the business with multiple-use APIs instead of concentrated in one team. APIs emerged because the software foundations of innovation. MuleSoft supplies a technique for unlocking data and abilities through APIs and positively fostering digital environments around individuals foundations. Using Anypoint Platform, organizations can make new digital services through API-brought connectivity to allow innovation across teams and make application systems to rapidly adjust to consumer tastes and market shifts.

CIOs bet on MuleSoft they are driving digital strategies and deliver business results

MuleSoft empowers organizations in each and every industry - retailers, hospitals, manufacturers, universities as well as government departments - to provide better encounters for their customers, patients, students and constituencies, faster:

• Scott Grain, CIO, Sprint: “To stay ahead we wanted to locate new methods to move fast and also to better serve our customers. With MuleSoft, we’re in a position to boost efficiency and enhance the customer experience by leveraging API-brought connectivity. By unlocking data from various applications - both on-premises as well as in the cloud - we enable different business teams to gain access to data faster. We could develop a foundation to unveil new mobile and e-commerce initiatives faster, allowing Sprint to pay attention to the client.”
• Kiran Vankamamidi, group VP and CIO, Driscoll’s: “Driscoll’s is leveraging its leadership position in the crossroads of berry distribution and agriculture technology to satisfy the interest in better berries worldwide. We selected MuleSoft to streamline your way from your network of independent growers all over the world to consumers in supermarkets. Anypoint Platform enables us to unlock mission-critical data and applications over the business-from order fulfillment and shipping to warehouse and offer chain-making certain fresher fruit, reliable delivery and greater efficiency between systems. With MuleSoft’s API-brought connectivity approach, we're automating core business processes and developing technologies to improve grower production and profitability.”
• Ronald Blitstein, EVP and group CIO, Sagicor Financial Corporation, Limited: “For greater than 175 years, Sagicor has concentrated on supplying world-class financial services to the customers. APIs built on MuleSoft’s platform play a substantial role in the way we deliver from the growing demands from the business, the way we expand home plate of proper options and just how we innovate. We’re leaning around the Anypoint Platform to lessen our time for you to innovation and boost IT agility. This can help our operating companies improve overall business velocity, enhance efforts to attain our ‘connected insurance company’ vision, and drive growth. By utilizing API-brought connectivity to integrate our systems of record, systems of engagement and systems of insight, we’re able to produce a single look at the client, eliminate manual processes, identify underserved needs and demographic segments, and improve operational in addition to financial visibility to higher serve our customers and also be.”
• Daniel Pettman, CIO, BaptistCare: “At BaptistCare, we're always searching at methods for improving and simplifying our customer support and delivery across our aged care and residential services clients. With MuleSoft, we’re in a position to move fast and serve our customers by leveraging API-brought connectivity. We're rapidly and simply integrating various applications and knowledge - from your CRM system to the YouChoose tool where customers can personalize the help they require online in a few minutes - supplying connected customer encounters and reducing project delivery timelines from several weeks to days.”
• Esat Sezer, former CIO, Coca-Cola Enterprises: “MuleSoft’s API-brought method of connectivity and application network vision were key competencies for all of us to attain speed and scale within our digital transformation journey. With MuleSoft, we’re in a position to modernize our legacy platforms and drive a decrease in operating costs, allowing us to pay attention to innovative and transformative database integration. By enabling the reuse of APIs on Anypoint Platform, our company could concentrate on rapidly delivering new customer encounters while increasing productivity, doubling how big the applications i was developing yearly.”

The engine for digital transformation

With MuleSoft, Salesforce has become recognized among the top companies in share of the market within the Integration Middleware functional market in IDC’s latest Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker, H2 2018. MuleSoft is well in order to its next milestone of $1 billion in revenue. Its explosive growth is fueled through the global interest in Anypoint Platform because the engine for digital transformation. MuleSoft can also be the only real company named an innovator both in Gartner’s 2019 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Integration Platform like a Service1 (iPaaS) and 2018 Magic Quadrant for Full Existence Cycle API Management2.

Salesforce Positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2019 Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation for the Thirteenth Consecutive Year

Salesforce [New york stock exchange: CRM], the worldwide leader in CRM, today announced that for that thirteenth consecutive year, Salesforce continues to be positioned by Gartner, Corporation. like a Leader in the June 2019 Magic Quadrant for Sales Pressure Automation. Vendors were evaluated for his or her capability to execute and completeness of vision. Salesforce can also be rated #one in the Sales segment worldwide according to 2018 total software revenue, holding a 32% share of revenue within the Sales segment, based on Gartner.*

“Today’s sales cycles are fast-paced, and demanding-and the only method to create personalized buying encounters for each customer is as simple as leveraging artificial intelligence,” stated Adam Blitzer, EVP & GM, Salesforce Sales Cloud. “With Einstein artificial intelligence, every field repetition and inside sales rep can access AI-driven predictions, insights, automation and suggestions to become more lucrative from prospecting to closing deals and invoicing.”

Einstein Artificial Intelligence forces a brand new degree of automation in Sales Cloud that allows every salesman they are driving much deeper relationships and serve customers.

Gartner defines sales pressure automation (SFA) as “systems that offer the automation of sales activities, processes and administrative responsibilities for organizations’ sales professionals. Gartner views SFA to become foundational technology, carried out to automate an organization’s core sales processes.”

Salesforce Named a Leader in Data Management Platforms by Independent Research Firm

Salesforce [New york stock exchange: CRM], the worldwide leader in CRM, today announced that Salesforce was named an innovator by Forrester Research in the report, The Forrester Wave™: Data Management Platforms, Q2 2019.

Salesforce’s Data Management Platform (DMP), Audience Studio, belongs to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which helps marketers to understand, personalize and interact their clients across every touchpoint. Audience Studio provides marketers having a platform to capture customer data, segment audiences with Einstein AI for engagement across all channels and obtain a better knowledge of customer preferences.

“The mixture of customer expectations for personalization and transparency with regards to their information is the truth for today’s marketers,” stated Bob Stutz, Chief executive officer of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. “Marketing Cloud Audience Studio provides built-in consumer consent controls, advanced audience segmentation with the strength of Einstein and extends activation beyond programmatic advertising to any or all internet marketing channels.”

Salesforce Marketing Cloud may be the leading internet marketing platform. With Salesforce Marketing Cloud, marketers can know their clients, personalize marketing with Einstein, build relationships them across email, mobile, social digital advertising and much more, and evaluate the outcome to enhance campaign performance.

How B2B Salespeople Can Thrive With Self-Service Commerce Technology

Within the Business to business world, self-service commerce is really a game-changer. We've got the technology brings consumer-like digital buying abilities towards the complex realm of Business to business, improving the exchanging experience for customers and salespeople.

Self-services are work at increasing the customer experience that it is become table stakes for Business to business companies. A 2017 Salesforce study discovered that 89% of Business to business decision makers think that self-service commerce will have an issue within the development of their business within the a long time.

Additionally to increasing the customer experience, self-service commerce equips salespeople having a tool for creating a new type of relationship with buyers -Body that enables these to provide customers with guidance and strategy, instead of simply order taking.

So, as self-service in Business to business turns into a more broadly adopted commerce funnel, it’s vital that you understand how it might help profits teams thrive.

Why self-services are victory-win for the customers and purchasers teams

As increasing numbers of buyers use self-service choices to analyze and buy online, salespeople may rightfully feel some worry about the way forward for their jobs. However, self-service commerce in Business to business should not be considered a menace to the sales role. Rather, it can benefit salespeople transform how they communicate with and assist their clients.

Actually, self-service in Business to business delivers a variety of advantages to both customers and purchasers teams, including:

• Improved customer intelligence: Self-service commerce sites collect a whole lot of data about customers that may be distributed to existing CRM systems. Salespeople can easily see every customer’s purchase history, delivery needs, and customised prices structures. Equipped with these details, salespeople tend to be more efficient when they’re before clients. They are able to get into conferences understanding the customer’s history, and concentrate on upselling, mix-selling, and offering recommendations like a proper partner.
• Frictionless buying: The Business to business shopping process could be complicated, particularly if buyers have to call sales representatives for small, routine orders. A self-service option gives buyers the ability to create purchases similar to they'd as consumers, lowering the friction connected with Business to business buying. At a time where business buyers tend to be more digitally savvy than in the past, an intuitive self-service experience will go a lengthy way toward cultivating loyalty by reduction of obstacles on the road to purchase.
• Additional time to construct relationships: Self-service enables people to complete simple transactions by themselves, which releases sellers to pay attention to the things they're doing best -- building and looking after relationships with customers. Furthermore, a salesperson’s day frequently involves lots of administrative work that buyers can perform themselves inside a self-service atmosphere. With increased time available, salespeople can reallocate time to obtaining new clients and looking after relationships with current ones.

Takeaway: Differentiate the services you provide to stick out

The field of Business to business selling is altering so dramatically that you'll require an electronic tool inside your briefcase to have interaction with customers today. Buyers expect so that you can purchase something as complex as machinery exactly the same way they're buying footwear on Zappos. Which means a fundamental ecommerce site won't work.

One method to stick out within an industry where leading companies embrace digital is to help make the process as intuitive and straightforward as you possibly can. Purchase dynamic ecommerce systems where you can personalize your website for every customer, such as the company’s branding, tailored product recommendations, and personalized prices structures. Customized sites produce a 1:1 relationship that keeps buyers loyal for that lengthy term.

Your organization’s salespeople will also help differentiate the company by cultivating valuable, consultative relationships with customers. While digital revolutionizes the way in which companies communicate with one another, the sales rep won’t disappear in the near future. Salespeople can generate loyalty offline by becoming proper advisors for purchasers, further strengthening trust.

Within the finish, self-service within the Business to business marketplace enables buyers to seize control of the buyer experience while giving the company capacity to integrate sales with customer data to higher predict and understand buyer needs and concentrate on the ongoing customer relationship.

3 Ways Small Businesses Can Grow Faster With Video

This past year, Americans received 26 billion robo-calls - prerecorded messages from spammers - on their own phones. That’s up 46%, and there is a similar spike in undesirable email, texts, and - yeah - LinkedIn demands. Junk e-mail has arrived at a crescendo and when you’re in sales, marketing, or customer support, more noise means less attention.

For small companies, which makes competition with bigger, competent brands even harder. However, you can change this tsunami of unrequested outreach into a benefit should you send more powerful signals - like video.

Video is simpler than ever before to produce and it is among the best methods to humanize your organization. It requires someone to record and someone to watch, so when you have a personalized video inside your inbox, it activates curiosity. Who sent this? Did they invest everything time only for me? You are able to harness this attention-grabbing and explanatory capacity to grow business in three vital ways.

1. Drive more pipeline

Nearly all marketers (52%) report video is the most effective tool because it’s fun and efficient. Videos take less cognitive effort to look at than articles do in order to read, so buyers prefer them, and individuals are more inclined to open emails or explore websites which contain videos. And that’s just getting viewers in.

Videos also simplify complex topics which help people retain information. Based on Vidyard research, an astonishing 90% of consumers state that product videos enable them to make buying decisions and 64% state that watching a relevant video means they are more prone to buy.

“64% of prospects say watching a relevant video means they are more prone to buy.”

VIDYARD  2018 VIDEO Running A Business BENCHMARK REPORT

Videos don’t need to be an costly endeavor, either. Vidyard’s Chalk Talk explainer series cost one bucket of colored chalk and a few hrs. However if you simply do purchase a marketing with video platform, you are able to start out a step further with the addition of calls to action (CTAs) to videos to capture more leads and people engaged.

2. Close more deals

You may expect that video’s advantage could it be lets sales people break right through to cold prospects. But the likes of League and LeadIQ have found that videos grow increasingly more effective because the purchase progresses.

Their sales people, like individuals at a number of other SMBs, use videos to:

• Answer technical questions
• Explain contracts
• Reduce no-shows
• Generate interest with micro demos

Sales people who send personal videos are convinced that prospects recognize them at occasions, despite getting never met.

Their prospects share videos using the entire buying committee and feel a larger personal attachment because video creates relationships. Consequently, video earns 3x more responses and, in some instances, cuts deal cycles in two.

Getting began is straightforward, too. Your team can certainly record and share videos with tools such as this free GoVideo chrome extension.

3. Retain more customers

The enjoyment, effective, and bond-building explanations which make video ideal for marketing and advertising also turn it into a good fit for customer care.

Customer care managers at startups like Miovision and Dynatrace react to clients’ questions with video walk-throughs and provide onboarding video libraries that increase renewal rates.

With video, support reps can respond to questions rapidly without having to sacrifice value, growing client satisfaction. Plus, each video is really a quasi-face-to-face interaction that strengthens the connection.

Customer support managers may use video to:

• Rapidly respond to questions
• Onboard customers
• Encourage renewals

Grow further with video

The greater customers learn how to tune out junk e-mail, the more suitable video becomes. Video enables you to definitely signal that you’re a genuine person too, and also to connect with techniques that attract and retain more customers - regardless of the number of robo-calls they get.

MuleSoft Sets Standard for Successful API Strategies

MuleSoft, provider of the leading platform for building application networks, today announced the next major release of Anypoint Platform™ with the launch of Anypoint API Community Manager and other significant advancements across the platform. API Community Manager uniquely combines a full-featured API portal and industry-leading digital experience capabilities, transforming how teams collaborate across the entire lifecycle of an API program. Until now, there has not been a single solution that brings together full lifecycle API management, personalization, forums, chat, support case management, and engagement analytics. For the first time, companies can easily build connected digital experiences for their API products with API Community Manager, empowering anyone to quickly begin collaborating and co-creating value with a broader ecosystem of developers, partners and employees.

To realize the full value of establishing this API ecosystem, companies not only need best-in-class technology capabilities in a single solution, but they also need an informed strategy for how they will engage their ecosystem to co-create value and drive business growth. An API program is a coordinated effort to manage the creation and usage of APIs in support of a broader digital business strategy. With this release, MuleSoft is also the first to productize how to build a successful API program by further extending MuleSoft Catalyst with Catalyst Mobilize, a packaged set of proven best practices and methodologies built on experience working with thousands of organizations across industries. Now any company can create and nurture a thriving API ecosystem in order to open new business channels, launch new business models and increase operational efficiency.

Digital transformation requires every company to create and nurture a thriving API ecosystem

APIs are now the standard way for an organization to expose business capabilities out to a broader ecosystem of developers, partners and employees to accelerate innovation and co-create value. However, creating and nurturing this API ecosystem requires a new set of capabilities that do not exist within most organizations.

“In this digital age, companies must shift their mindset around APIs from a technology to a strategic business approach to create value for their customers and get ahead of the competition. This requires an organization to understand its partners and developers and build API products that directly meet their needs. It also requires delivering digital experiences that turn developers into evangelists by providing them what they need to be successful,” said Mark Dao, chief product officer, MuleSoft. “This release represents an important moment in the industry – providing companies with both the product and organizational capabilities to easily build and engage API ecosystems so they can innovate faster and deliver business value together with their partners and developers.”

Setting the new standard for successful API strategies

Until now, customers have had to use a combination of technical content management solutions and generic social engagement tools to build developer portals and drive engagement. With the release of API Community Manager, companies can create customized digital experiences that promote API products, support API ecosystems and increase engagement between developers, partners and employees – all in a single product without writing any code.

API Community Manager extends MuleSoft’s Anypoint Exchange, allowing organizations to build on the assets that they already have and meet the expanded needs of a broader set of cross-functional stakeholders, including developers, partners, API product managers and other line-of-business users.

Anypoint API Community Manager includes the capabilities to:

• Build API portals in minutes with out-of-the-box templates
• Customize API portals to create engaging, pixel-perfect branded experiences
• Personalize these branded experiences based on the API consumer's role and needs
• Foster communities of partners and developers that ultimately drive API adoption
• Auto-populate interactive API documentation from Anypoint Exchange
• Increase developer engagement through forums, chat and case management
• Measure ecosystem engagement and track API program business metrics, including cost savings, revenue generated and most popular APIs

MuleSoft is also the first to combine industry-leading digital experience capabilities with a packaged approach to defining an API strategy. MuleSoft Catalyst is a unique operating model that enables customers to adopt a methodical approach to integration known as API-led connectivity. With this release, Catalyst Mobilize is expanded to provide a guided approach to establishing an API strategy, from planning API programs and creating a foundation for a digital business to building a digital platform and measuring the value of integration and APIs. It includes proven best practices, playbooks, API program workshops, and API strategy blueprints based on MuleSoft’s expertise working with more than 1,600 customers globally.

Successful API strategies empower customers to innovate faster

With MuleSoft, customers across industries can create thriving API ecosystems as part of their API strategy. For example, banks can establish open banking platforms to connect digital services, retailers can securely expose inventory data to third parties to create new shopping experiences, and healthcare providers can develop partnerships to deliver better care.

“APIs allow us to be agile and innovate rapidly,” said Sheila Jordan, CIO, Symantec. “MuleSoft has helped us use APIs to standardize and accelerate integration of new technologies, as well as create new business models for continuous improvement. MuleSoft has also allowed us to improve how we operate with our extensive partner ecosystem.”

Damian Giuffre, chief digital officer, federal government agency IP Australia, said, “With almost 100% of our customer interactions taking place digitally, we needed to revamp our agency’s digital channels. IP Australia looked to MuleSoft to help modernize how we deliver digital services and communicate with customers using APIs to underpin our customer-facing systems. By building an application network, we’re able to expose APIs to help create digital marketplaces so that third-party software developers can build new applications around IP Australia’s data and services. With this API program, we’re able to jointly create value with our partners to deliver the best experience for our customers.”

Additional highlights from the Anypoint Platform May 2019 release

In addition to the launch of API Community Manager, MuleSoft has continued investing in driving depth in its core integration and API management capabilities.

The Anypoint Platform May 2019 release also includes additional advancements in API management:

• Automated policies: secure any API with policies that can be automatically applied and audited for compliance
• API products: simplify API consumption and management by grouping multiple APIs as products
• Business operations dashboard: track how API products or individual APIs are contributing to the overall success of an API program through a customizable dashboard that tracks revenue, order volume, unique customers and more

Other significant enhancements include:

• Anypoint Flow Designer: 10 new, prebuilt templates to automate common tasks across Salesforce, Slack, Box, Twilio and Google Drive
• Anypoint Partner Manager: fully-integrated B2B solution that simplifies partner management through partner onboarding templates, transaction tracking, and monitoring across APIs and EDI transactions

Salesforce Delivers myTrailhead, Ushering in a New Era of Learning for the Future of Work

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the global leader in CRM, today announced the general availability of myTrailhead, a learning experience platform that empowers organizations to create a culture of learning to continuously re-skill and skill up their employees. As the Fourth Industrial Revolution reshapes how we live and work, 33% of all in-demand skills will be new by 2020. With myTrailhead, organizations can skill up employees at scale with a reinvented and fun approach to learning that is customizable to their brand and personalized for every employee.

“Business leaders recognize that investing in their people and building a deep culture of learning is a key strategy to moving their company forward,” said Sarah Franklin, EVP of Developer Relations and GM of Trailhead, Salesforce.

Shifting to a Continuous Learning Model in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Fourth Industrial Revolution brings an incredible wave of new innovations from artificial intelligence to robotics. With technology changing so rapidly, companies need to look beyond traditional, one-size-fits-all education platforms and seek out new approaches to learning. In fact, workplace learning is a proven driver of success—employees who spend more than five hours a week learning are 39% more productive, 47% less stressed and 21% happier on the job. Yet, a majority of companies lack a culture of learning, creating a gap between the organization's need to rapidly embrace new technologies and their employees’ existing skill sets. Companies need to close this gap to succeed and put a focus on learning at every stage of their employees’ career.

Introducing myTrailhead: Create a Culture of Continuous Learning

With myTrailhead, companies can combine the power of Trailhead, Salesforce’s personal learning cloud, with their own brand, voice and tone in just a few clicks. Using the guided set-up, companies can easily pull in their existing content (including videos or presentations), create custom new content or use the existing free, public Trailhead content to create their own culture of learning. Using myTrailhead, employees can learn what they want, when they want, and managers have visibility into their organization’s existing skill sets and areas for improvement. Now, organizations can:

• Scale Onboarding — Help employees skill up at any level or stage in their career with custom learning paths called Trailmixes. For example, when an employee is being onboarded, their learning journey starts with an automated custom Trailmix assigned to them and built specifically for their role. Assignments could include a welcome video from a company’s CEO, a trail on navigating the first few months on the job, or even an overview of a company’s history and core values. Once an employee reviews the content and takes a short quiz, they’ll earn points and badges, which can be shared on their profile to showcase the new skill.
• Empower Employees to Re-skill and Upskill — Employees can learn what they want, when they want with bite-sized content that’s available on desktop or on the go with mobile. The free, public Trailhead library includes more than 500 modules spanning tech skills (like Blockchain Basics) to soft skills (like Cultivating Equality at Work), with new content added every six weeks. For example, a service agent can learn how to better leverage AI-powered insights within their console or take a module to learn how to build an Einstein bot.
• Track and Measure Learning — Leaders have a complete view of their employees' skills and expertise with Trail Tracker, an app available on Salesforce AppExchange, which assigns, tracks and reports on badges earned by their team with pre-built reports and dashboards. Managers can also use Trail Tracker to drive and incentivize performance by giving employees real-time feedback and recognition for demonstrating new skills and inspire them to reach goals with assignments, ranks and leaderboards.
• Create Integrated Learning Across Salesforce — Built on the Salesforce Platform, myTrailhead integrates with Salesforce applications like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud. In-app recommendations surface relevant learning with automated assignments, recommendations and notifications triggered by events. For example, if a sales rep is having trouble figuring out when to convert a lead to contact in Sales Cloud, a trail would appear that would help them learn the process.