Tata Chemicals Launches ChemForce™, a Salesforce-Powered CRM to Transform Customer Experience

Tata Chemicals Limited today announced the launch of ChemForce™, a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform designed to transform the way the company engages with customers and manages relationships across India. ChemForce™, powered by Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud, brings together sales and customer data on a unified platform to enhance transparency, responsiveness, and efficiency, while empowering sales teams to focus on delivering greater customer value.

The launch marks a significant milestone in Tata Chemicals’ digital journey, aimed at strengthen customer relationships by helping to ensure every interaction is consistent, responsive, and fully tracked. By creating a single source of sales and customer data, the company will drive more transparency and efficiency worldwide, freeing up sales teams to focus on customer value rather than manual processes.

Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud is set to modernize Tata Chemicals' operations, offering a specialized solution for the industry's unique needs. By leveraging contextualized data, AI, and analytics across the entire value chain, Tata Chemicals can deliver a distinctive experience to its customers and distributors, supported by valuable insights.

Comments on the News

Commenting about the initiative, Mr Subodh Srivastav, CMO, Tata Chemicals, said, “With this launch, Tata Chemicals is taking a strategic leap forward in our digital transformation journey. By integrating comprehensive customer and sales data onto a unified platform, we will enhance our ability to deliver consistent, timely, and personalised engagement. This will be crucial in driving sustainable growth by enabling data-driven decision-making and fostering stronger customer relationships across our global operations.”

Vikrant Deoras, Chief Information & Digital Officer, Tata Chemicals, said: “The launch represents a crucial step in our digital transformation journey. By implementing core enterprise applications such as this, we are not only enhancing transparency and consistency in customer engagement today but also building a strong digital backbone for tomorrow. It will enable us to harness the power of data and AI, driving smarter decisions and creating a truly connected, customer-centric organisation.”

Mankiran Chowhan, Managing Director - Sales, Salesforce India, said, “Our partnership with an industry pioneer like Tata Chemicals goes beyond technology; it's about co-creating the future of customer and distributor engagement. Tata Chemicals is building a truly connected ecosystem, turning every interaction from a simple transaction into an intelligent and distinctive experience with Salesforce’s AI-driven platform. This deepens relationships across their entire value chain and sets a new benchmark for excellence, turning their network into a powerful engine for sustainable growth."

Manu Singla, Partner, Deloitte India, also said about the initiative that, “We are proud to partner with Tata Chemicals on the design and implementation of ChemForce™, a platform that reimagines how customer relationships are built and sustained in a digital-first world. It directly addresses the challenges of fragmented customer data and manual sales processes by enhancing transparency and decision-making, and empowering sales teams to deliver greater customer value. This collaboration reflects Deloitte’s commitment to enabling large enterprises to embed digitization at the core of their business, laying the foundation for future innovations including AI-driven customer insights and personalization at scale.”

The new platform will significantly improve customer experience by enabling faster responses, better follow-ups, and a personalized engagement journey. It will boost sales processes, allowing for smarter and quicker decision-making. The platform will empower teams with real-time data, actionable insights, and seamless collaboration across functions and regions. By creating a single source of truth for customer and sales information, thereby reducing duplication and increasing operational efficiency.

ChemForce™ will be used by Tata Chemicals’ sales teams across its operations in India. Over time, the platform will also evolve to integrate with other functions as well as customers and distributors, further strengthening customer centricity.

Salesforce Announces Its Groundbreaking 1st Fully Autonomous AI Agent

Salesforce has just unveiled the Einstein Service Agent, their groundbreaking fully autonomous AI agent designed to revolutionize customer service interactions. The CRM software company claims that Einstein Service Agent makes conventional chatbots obsolete with its ability to understand and take action on a broad range of service issues without preprogrammed scenarios, helping make customer service far more efficient. 

1. Dynamic Understanding:

Unlike traditional chatbots — which can only handle specific queries that have been explicitly programmed into their system and don’t understand context or nuance — Einstein Service Agent is intelligent and dynamic.

Built on the Einstein 1 Platform, Einstein Service Agent interacts with large language models (LLMs) by analyzing the full context of the customer’s message and then autonomously determining the next actions to take. It analyzes the full context of customer messages, understanding nuances and context.

2. Generative AI Responses:

Built on the Einstein 1 Platform, it generates conversational responses using generative AI. These responses are grounded in a company's trusted business data, including Salesforce CRM data — tailored to a company’s brand voice, tone, and guidelines with a few clicks.

For service organizations, this means they can offload a large number of tedious inquiries that bog down their productivity so they can focus on tasks that require a human touch.

3. Efficiency and Availability:

Einstein Service Agent operates 24/7 across self-service portals and messaging channels. It offloads tedious inquiries, allowing human agents to focus on tasks requiring a personal touch.

4. Clear Guardrails:

Companies can define privacy and security guardrails using the Einstein 1 Platform, which leverages the Einstein Trust Layer to perform functions like masking personally identifiable information (PII) and defining clear parameters and guardrails for Einstein Service Agent to follow.

5. Cross-channel and multimodal innovation:

Einstein Service Agent can assist customers anytime across self-service portals and messaging channels, like WhatsApp, Apple Messages for Business, Facebook Messenger, and SMS. Because Einstein Service Agent understands text, images, video, and audio, customers can send photos when their issue is too difficult to explain in words.

For complex issues, the new AI agent seamlessly hands off to human agents.

Currently in pilot, Einstein Service Agent will be generally available later this year, transforming how service teams operate and enhancing customer experience. 

Google Drops Plan of Acquiring Hubspot

Google has reportedly walked away from a potentially massive deal to acquire CRM provider HubSpot. This merger could have significantly benefited Google Cloud, but the plans were abandoned. HubSpot, a top B2B data provider, had previously been in the news for its acquisition of Clearbit, which aimed to enhance HubSpot's customer intelligence capabilities.

Google's decision not to acquire HubSpot has not been explicitly disclosed, but there could be several reasons behind it. Google may have reevaluated the strategic alignment between its existing offerings and HubSpot's CRM services. If the acquisition didn't fit well with Google's long-term vision or business goals, they might have opted out.

The acquisition, now in shelved, was seen as a strategic move to bolster Google's competitiveness against Microsoft in the customer relationship management (CRM) sector. If the acquisition would have materialized then this could have significantly shake up the market, as Google Workspace already challenges Microsoft's Office platform, and adding HubSpot could have been intensified this rivalry further.

The tech industry is dynamic, and market conditions can change rapidly. Google might have reconsidered based on competitive pressures, regulatory concerns, or other external factors.

In an another speculation of dropping this acquisition, pricing negotiations could have been a reason as negotiation often hinge on valuation and pricing. If the terms didn't align with Google's expectations, they might have decided against the acquisition.

Integrating two large companies with different cultures, technologies, and processes can be complex. Google might have anticipated challenges in merging HubSpot seamlessly into its ecosystem.

Google may have explored other avenues for growth or investment. Sometimes, companies choose to invest in internal development or explore partnerships instead of acquisitions.

It is to be noted however that Google hasn't officially disclosed their reasons.

Salesforce's New Revenue Lifecycle Management Allows Businesses to Scale, Automate the Entire Quote-To-Cash Sales Process

Salesforce has recently announced new capabilities for Revenue Lifecycle Management that can significantly enhance the quote-to-cash sales process.

Revenue Lifecycle Management is for direct sales users who require quoting. In addition, it is for users who manage and administer the Revenue Lifecycle Management environment, including building products and defining pricing.

A flexible metadata model allows businesses to deploy the precise product capabilities they need, empowering them to automate processes anywhere they transact, including third-party integrations. Capabilities include Product Catalog Management, Price Management, Transaction Management & CPQ, Contract Lifecycle Management, and Dynamic Revenue Orchestration.

Enhancing Salesforce’s quote-to-cash portfolio, which includes Salesforce CPQ and Salesforce Billing, this full-lifecycle solution offers numerous capabilities, including:

• Unified Platform: Businesses can now scale and automate the entire quote-to-cash process, from quoting and contracting to fulfilling orders, all on a unified platform. This platform integrates sales, finance, and legal teams.
• AI Integration: Salesforce's Einstein AI capabilities play a crucial role in automating processes and guiding quoting decisions throughout the revenue lifecycle. For instance, Contracts AI uses generative AI to recommend the right contract clauses, speeding up contract cycles and improving accuracy.
• Omni-Channel Selling: Through a unified product catalog, businesses can sell via direct sellers, partner channels, or self-service channels (such as storefronts and in-app user flows). Modular features empower seamless buying experiences across any channel and Salesforce application.
• Monetization Flexibility: As products-as-a-service become more common, subscription management functionality automates processes from amendment to renewal, ensuring a smooth experience for both customers and sales teams.

In summary, Salesforce's Revenue Lifecycle Management aims to transform seller experiences and monetization strategies, making them deployable across direct, indirect, and self-service channels.

Salesforce to Build Its 1st AI Center Building worth $4 Billion in London

Salesforce has recently announced that it has chosen London as the location for its first AI Center, which is part of a significant $4 billion investment in the UK's AI economy. The AI Center will be situated in London's Blue Fin building and aims to foster collaboration among industry experts, partners, and customers to advance AI innovation.

This move also includes a commitment to upskilling opportunities, with Salesforce Ventures investing over $200 million in UK companies like ElevenLabs, the text-to-speech and AI voice generator, and AutoGenAI, the world’s leading AI bid writing engine.

The opening of this AI Center is a strong indication of Salesforce's confidence in the UK as a global technology hub and its potential for major growth in the AI sector. The UK AI market is expected to reach over $1 trillion by 2035, and Salesforce's investment is poised to play a significant role in realizing this opportunity.

The center is set to officially open on June 18, 2024, and will support the creation of 500,000 AI-related jobs in the UK.

This strategic decision aligns with Salesforce's vision of AI as a transformative technology and their dedication to ensuring it serves as a force for good. It's a clear message to customers and partners that Salesforce is deeply committed to working closely together to harness the benefits of AI.

In addition, Salesforce continues to provide further upskilling opportunities through Trailhead, the company’s free online learning platform. To date, Trailhead has helped more than 7 million people build their skills and prepare for the future of work with AI. In the UK alone, users have earned 2.9 million badges on Trailhead from having completed learning modules and projects.

"AI has the potential to drive major growth for UK businesses – with the UK AI market predicted to reach over $1 trillion by 2035", said Zahra Bahrololoumi, CEO, Salesforce UKI.

The UK's AI sector is attracting significant investment from a variety of companies. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are continually investing in AI technologies and have a strong presence in the UK's AI market. BrainPool AI, a company that provides AI consultancy and helps clients build custom AI solutions. Graphcore has secured a substantial amount of investment and is known for developing software to power driverless vehicles.

Moreover, SFC Capital known for leading in terms of UK equity deals in AI, participating in numerous deals since 2013. Mercia Asset Management Invests outside London, often partnering with universities to support AI spinous.

These companies, among others, are contributing to the UK's position as a hub for AI innovation and development. The sector is seeing growth across various industries, including cybersecurity, healthcare automation, chatbots, and self-driving cars, reflecting the diverse applications of AI technology.

Salesforce Q1 Fiscal 2025 Results: Revenue of $9.13 Bn; To Pay $0.4 Bn in Dividend to Stockholders

Salesforce has announced its first quarter fiscal 2025 results, which ended on April 30, 2024.

Salesforce's CEO, Marc Benioff, expressed optimism about the company's position in the AI CRM market and its potential to help companies connect with their customers through AI over the next decade. Amy Weaver, President and CFO of Salesforce, highlighted the company's disciplined profitable growth and significant progress in their capital return program.

Key highlights —

First Quarter Revenue: $9.13 Billion, an increase of 11% Year-Over-Year (Y/Y), and also up 11% in Constant Currency (CC).

Subscription & Support Revenue: $8.59 Billion, up 12% Y/Y.

GAAP Operating Margin: 18.7%, and non-GAAP Operating Margin: 32.1%.

Current Remaining Performance Obligation: $26.4 Billion, up 10% Y/Y, and also up 10% in CC.

Operating Cash Flow: $6.25 Billion, up 39% Y/Y, and Free Cash Flow: $6.08 Billion, up 43% Y/Y.

The company returned $2.2 Billion in share repurchases and $0.4 Billion in dividend payments to stockholders.

For the upcoming second quarter of fiscal year 2025, Salesforce has initiated revenue guidance of $9.20 Billion to $9.25 Billion, which would represent a 7% - 8% Y/Y growth.

The full year FY25 revenue guidance remains at $37.7 Billion to $38.0 Billion, indicating an 8% - 9% Y/Y growth. However, the full year FY25 Subscription & Support Revenue Growth Guidance has been slightly lowered to just below 10% Y/Y.

The backbone of Salesforce's income is its subscription- based model, which provides a consistent and predictable revenue stream. This model supports ongoing innovation and value delivery to users.

These factors combined have contributed to Salesforce's robust financial performance and its ability to maintain a trajectory of growth.

For more detailed information, you can refer to the full earnings call transcript or the official press release.

Google to Buy Hubspot in Its Largest Acquisition Deal Ever

Google's parent Alphabet Inc is reportedly in talks to acquire HubSpot, which would mark its largest acquisition to date. The acquisition is seen as a strategic move to bolster Google's competitiveness against Microsoft in the customer relationship management (CRM) sector. This move could significantly shake up the market, as Google Workspace already challenges Microsoft's Office platform, and adding HubSpot would further intensify this rivalry.

In a research note seen by Reuters, Cowen analyst Derrick Wood said, "It does appear that Google has aspirations to try to take market share from Microsoft in the productivity suite, and they can use HubSpot to bundle applications together for clients."

HubSpot, known for its marketing software catering to small and medium-sized businesses, could provide Google with additional leverage in the cloud-based applications space. The potential deal has been a topic of discussion among analysts and investment bankers, highlighting the implications it could have on the industry.

Looking at Google or its parent Alphabet's largest acquisition to date. In 2011, before Alphabet Inc was incorporated, Google acquired Motorola Mobility for a staggering $12.5 billion, this was primarily a strategic move to gain Motorola's vast trove of Patents. In 2006, Google purchased YouTube (2006) for $1.65 billion in Google stock, YouTube has grown to become one of the most visited websites globally.

Hubspot's current market cap is $30 Billion. So, if Hubspot deal got sealed it will be largest acquisition, till date, for Google as well as its parent.

It's worth noting that while talks are ongoing, no official deal has been announced yet. This acquisition could have a considerable impact on the CRM market, where Microsoft currently offers Dynamics 365 products. It will be interesting to see how this potential acquisition unfolds and what it means for the future of cloud services and CRM solutions.

Financial Terms

While discussions are ongoing, no definitive agreement has been reached yet regarding the financial terms of the potential acquisition of HubSpot by Alphabet Inc, Google's parent company.

HubSpot's shares surged by approximately 32% over the past year, elevating its market capitalization to $30 billion.

Notably, HubSpot reported a first-quarter FY24 revenue of $617.4 million, which represents a 23% increase compared to the first quarter of FY23. The subscription revenue, which makes up a large part of HubSpot's business, gained 23% to reach $603.8 million.

The company anticipates full-year 2024 revenue in the range of $2.55 billion to $2.56 billion. As of March 31, 2024, HubSpot had $447.79 million in cash and equivalents.

An acquisition of HubSpot by Alphabet would represent a significant move, potentially enhancing Alphabet's competitiveness in the customer relationship management (CRM) sector, particularly targeting smaller businesses. This strategic move could help Alphabet better compete with major CRM players like Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp, and Salesforce Inc. However, regulatory scrutiny and integration challenges remain factors to consider in this potential deal. Stay tuned with IndianWeb2.com for further updates as the situation develops.

Mastercard and Salesforce Announce New Integration to Speed Up Resolution of Transaction Disputes

Mastercard and Salesforce have recently partnered to enhance trust across the ecosystem by addressing transaction disputes more efficiently. As consumers seek easier and safer shopping experiences, this integration aims to speed up the resolution of transaction disputes and reduce associated costs.

 

Image ~ Salesforce.com

Disputes and chargebacks, where consumers notice unrecognized transactions and request chargebacks from their banks, pose a significant challenge to the payments industry. Projections suggest that by 2026 there could be 337 million chargebacks annually, an increase of 42% from 2023 levels.

The integration will streamline the way issuers, like banks and other financial institutions, view and manage transaction data, such as disputes and decisions. It will enable a quicker, more efficient and transparent response to dispute inquiries.

The partnership will integrate Salesforce’s Financial Services Cloud (FSC) with Mastercard's dispute resolution services, providing a powerful one-stop-shop for intake, managing disputes, reporting and preventing chargebacks.

Mastercard’s services include Ethoca Alerts, which provides near real-time notifications when a financial institution raises a chargeback and Ethoca Consumer Clarity, enabling the provision of rich merchant and purchase insights to issuer back-office teams.

Powered by the Einstein Platform, FSC unifies customer relationship management (CRM), AI, merchant and consumer data, development, and security capabilities into a comprehensive platform. Every bank agent and team member working on a dispute gains better visibility from start to finish, leading to an improved customer experience.

Infosys and SAP Emarsys Partner to Enhance Businesses' Customer Engagement Across Multiple Channels

Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, has announced a collaboration with SAP Emarsys, a cloud-based omnichannel customer engagement platform. This partnership aims to empower businesses to enhance their customer engagement across multiple channels.

Through this collaboration enterprises will be able to orchestrate complex industry-specific cross-channel marketing campaigns, reach customers in real-time, and drive customer loyalty through personalization. By harnessing AI capabilities of the platform and Infosys Topaz, an AI-first set of services, solutions and platforms using generative AI technologies, businesses can unlock the value of data from across organizational silos to enable data driven insights and predictive analytics to boost revenue growth.

Key highlights of the collaboration:

• Leveraging Infosys Cobalt and Topaz: The collaboration will utilize Infosys Cobalt and Infosys Topaz to drive revenue growth and improve customer experiences.
• Orchestrating Marketing Campaigns: Enterprises will be able to create high-impact marketing campaigns and reach customers in real-time, driving customer loyalty through personalization.
• AI Capabilities: By harnessing AI capabilities of the platform, businesses can unlock the value of data from across organizational silos, enabling data-driven insights and predictive analytics to boost revenue growth.
• 360-degree View of Campaigns: The synergy between Infosys and SAP Emarsys will provide clients with a comprehensive view of campaigns, blending digital channels with in-store experiences to create seamless customer journeys.

This collaboration is set to create a new era of customer engagement, generating faster insights across the customer lifecycle and facilitating a push towards innovation to deliver engaging shopping experiences across multiple touchpoints.

Dinesh Rao, Executive Vice President, Co-Head of Delivery, Infosys, said, “We are delighted to collaborate with SAP Emarsys to bring groundbreaking omnichannel marketing solutions to our customers. We look forward to helping businesses streamline their marketing processes, seamlessly blending digital channels and creating a new era of customer engagement and generating faster insights across customer life cycle.”

SAP Emarsys is recognized for its ability to automate highly personalized and engaging omnichannel customer experiences, which is crucial for businesses looking to improve their customer engagement and drive growth.

Brian Falzone, Chief Operations Officer, SAP Emarsys, said, “Our collaboration with Infosys will supercharge customer engagement and the way our customers leverage data to make strategic decisions. With Infosys' expertise connecting integrated marketing solutions to maximize revenue through personalization, innovation will continue to remain at the forefront for our customers.”

SAP Emarsys is an omnichannel customer engagement solution that is part of the SAP Customer Experience portfolio. It's designed to empower marketers to deliver personalized, real-time engagements at scale, which can significantly increase customer lifetime value (CLTV) and loyalty. SAP has acquired Emarsys in October 2020.

Salesforce Launches New Solution that Uses 3rd-Party Data to Power Generative AI and Self-Service Experiences

Salesforce has recently announced the launch of Unified Knowledge, a new solution designed to integrate organizational knowledge resources from various third-party systems into Salesforce. This integration aims to enhance the efficiency of service agents and accelerate the resolution of customer cases.

Coupled with customer data in Salesforce Data Cloud, this aggregated knowledge helps produce accurate, relevant generative AI content for service agents to deliver faster, more personalized customer experiences.

Key features of Unified Knowledge include:

Aggregation of knowledge: It combines Salesforce knowledge articles and resources from third-party sources like SharePoint, Confluence, and Google Drive.

Generative AI content: Coupled with customer data in Salesforce Data Cloud, it helps produce accurate, relevant generative AI content for service agents.

Einstein for Service: Built on the Einstein Trust Layer, it uses AI to improve service team productivity and customer experience.

Knowledge Answers in Bots: It can automatically generate answers to customer inquiries within a bot, based on a company’s complete internal and external knowledge base.

Einstein Copilot for Mobile Workers: This feature allows mobile workers to ask questions and receive instant responses, sourced from the full slate of a company’s organizational knowledge.

Search Answers: It generates answers to both agent and customer questions grounded in a company’s trusted knowledge base and surfaced directly within a customer portal or agent console.

The introduction of Unified Knowledge is significant as it promises to provide the right answers at the right time to agents and AI assistants, thereby delivering faster, more personalized customer experiences¹. It's also available in open beta for Salesforce customers with Service Cloud Unlimited Edition, Einstein 1 Service Edition, or the Knowledge Add-On. The full capabilities of Unified Knowledge, including Knowledge Answers in Bots, will be generally available in June 2024.

LTIMindtree and Aforza Setup Virtual Training Academy

LTIMindtree's partnership with Aforza goes beyond just offering Aforza's solutions. To ensure successful implementation and maximize client benefit, LTIMindtree has established a dedicated Aforza Training Academy. This virtual academy, led by Aforza's Customer Success Enablement team, focuses on training and certifying a team of LTIMindtree consultants into Aforza experts. 

This academy is a strategic investment for both companies. LTIMindtree gains a team with deep understanding of Aforza's CRM and TPM solutions, specifically designed for the Consumer Products industry. This will allow LTIMindtree to deliver superior service and drive digital transformation for their clients in this sector [3]. Aforza, on the other hand, benefits from a wider reach through LTIMindtree's established network and expertise in digital transformation.

Overall, this partnership with the Aforza Training Academy at its core is a win-win for both companies, enabling them to empower Consumer Product businesses with cutting-edge solutions and industry-specific knowledge.

This collaboration aims to empower businesses to grow profitably and safeguard margins through comprehensive omnichannel pricing control. It will enable access to real-time data insights, enhancing planning and decision-making capabilities. Additionally, the partnership promises to boost field productivity throughout the value chain by delivering a world-class user experience. With industry-specific offline mobile apps, professionals can work from anywhere, ensuring flexibility and efficiency. 

The initiative will also focus on increasing distribution, availability, stock accuracy, and fulfilment rates. Furthermore, it will provide robust measures to manage compliance issues effectively and prevent fraud, ensuring a secure and compliant operational environment.

Overall, this partnership with the Aforza Training Academy at its core is a win-win for both companies, enabling them to empower Consumer Product businesses with cutting-edge solutions and industry-specific knowledge.

Aforza is a software company founded in 2019 that offers a cloud-based solution called the Consumer Goods Industry Cloud. This platform is designed specifically to address the needs of businesses in the Consumer Goods industry. It goes beyond a simple CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, also encompassing Trade Promotion Management (TPM) functionalities.

Aforza is built on the Salesforce and Google Cloud Platforms which means they can scale fast and deliver continuous innovation with 3 releases a year. It offers a suite of tools that tackle various aspects of sales and planning for Consumer Goods companies.  

Salesforce Unveils Einstein Copilot, A Conversational and Gen AI Assistant for CRM

• Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot: The Conversational AI Assistant for CRM that Delivers Trusted AI Responses Grounded with Your Company Data
• Einstein Copilot delivers trusted responses because it’s grounded in your company’s unique data and metadata, enabling it to deeply understand your business and customer relationships
• Einstein Copilot is natively embedded across Salesforce applications to deliver a consistent user experience that can answer questions, generate content, and dynamically automate any action to deliver better productivity, deeper customer relationships, and higher margins
• Salesforce customers can access Einstein Copilot by upgrading to Einstein 1 Editions of Salesforce that include Data Cloud, AI, and CRM in a single offering

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the #1 AI CRM, has just announced the public beta availability of Einstein Copilot, a new customizable, conversational, and generative AI assistant for CRM.

Unlike other AI assistants or copilots that lack adequate company data to generate useful responses, Einstein Copilot enables Salesforce customers to generate responses using their own private and trusted data, while maintaining strict data governance and without requiring expensive AI model training. As a result, Einstein Copilot can answer questions, summarize content, create new content, interpret complex conversations, and dynamically automate tasks on behalf of a user, all from a single, consistent user experience embedded directly within Salesforce’s #1 AI CRM applications.

This is made possible by combining a conversational UI, a foundational large language model, and trusted company data that enables Salesforce users to tap into the power of generative AI and interact with their applications in entirely new ways.

“AI is the single most important moment in the history of our industry. It will deepen customer relationships, increase productivity and drive higher margins at every company,” said Marc Benioff, Chair & CEO, Salesforce. “Our new Einstein Copilot brings together an amazing intuitive interface for interacting with AI, world-class AI models and above all deep integration of the data and metadata needed to benefit from AI. Einstein Copilot is the only copilot with the ability to truly understand what is going on with your customer relationships.”

Einstein Copilot is the only copilot with the ability to truly understand what is going on with your customer relationships — MARC BENIOFF, CHAIR & CEO, SALESFORCE

86% of IT executives believe that generative AI will have a major impact on their companies, and according to new research from Slack, AI use in the workplace accelerated 24% in the past quarter alone. And, 80% of employees using AI say that it is already improving their productivity. This increased AI adoption indicates that AI is becoming a crucial tool for accomplishing practical business tasks throughout an organization.

How customers can purchase Einstein Copilot:

Customers can tap into the full power of Salesforce with Einstein 1 Editions, simplified technology packages for businesses looking to accelerate growth and speed productivity with the #1 AI CRM. Einstein 1 Editions provide organizations in every industry access to the best of Salesforce technology, including CRM, Einstein Copilot, Data Cloud, Slack, and Tableau in a single offering, helping them transform their business and deliver stronger customer experiences.

Einstein Copilot Capabilities

Grounding prompts in Data Cloud: Einstein Copilot grounds its responses with trusted business data from Data Cloud to provide the necessary context for the highest quality outputs. This allows Einstein Copilot to generate more precise and tailored responses based on trusted company data.

Out-of-the-box “actions”: Einstein Copilot comes with a library of out-of-the-box actions – pre-programmed capabilities, automated responses, or business tasks performed by Einstein Copilot – that the AI can perform for the user when prompted. Actions can be combined to execute dynamic multi-step plans. For example, a customer service agent can ask Einstein Copilot to close a case and open a sales opportunity or sell an add-on, and Einstein Copilot will understand the user’s intent and can execute the task — or tasks — in the flow of the service experience. With Einstein Copilot there are no silos between applications or data.

Customize Einstein Copilot for specific business needs: Einstein Copilot can be customized to accomplish specific sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT tasks, ensuring company and industry policies are applied. Copilot Builder can create custom actions for Einstein Copilot, Prompt Builder activates custom prompts in the flow of work, and Model Builder uses proprietary AI models to power custom Einstein Copilot functionality.

Reasoning engine to interpret intent and choose the best action: Einstein Copilot’s reasoning engine – the process that interprets and processes information to make informed decisions, solve problems, or generate insights – interacts with an LLM by analyzing the full context of the user’s prompt, determining the actions or series of actions to take, and generating the output. For example, if a sales rep asks Einstein Copilot, “Help me recommend a new product tier to my customer,” Einstein Copilot can determine which products the customer currently has, understand the upgrade options, and transition the customer into a new high-value marketing segment. Finally, Einstein Copilot can update the information across multiple systems with MuleSoft and Salesforce Flow.

Generating trusted responses and actions: Einstein Copilot serves up trusted AI interactions with privacy and security measures provided by the Einstein Trust Layer. The Einstein Trust Layer is part of the Einstein 1 Platform and performs functions like masking personally identifiable information (PII), scoring outputs for toxicity, and helping to protect information from unauthorized access and data breaches through zero-data retention from Salesforce’s LLM partners.

Pricing

Customers can access Einstein Copilot by purchasing Einstein 1 Editions or by adding it on to Enterprise or Unlimited Editions. Detailed pricing information is available here.

Global availability

• Einstein Copilot is available in beta globally for Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, with Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud available later in 2024.
• Einstein Copilot currently supports data residency in the United States and the English language.
• Einstein Copilot for Tableau will be launching later this year in H2. Currently Tableau supports generative AI capabilities with Tableau Pulse and Tableau Copilot (now in Beta).

Sample Use Cases

Einstein Copilot revolutionizes how teams and industries use AI to enhance productivity and personalization, conveniently within their flow of work. Using natural language prompts, salespeople can accelerate deal closures by summarizing records or generating customized communications to provide more personalized client engagement. Customer service and field service agents can streamline case resolution and boost customer satisfaction by surfacing relevant answers, offers, and data from disparate systems. Financial service companies can simplify client onboarding and craft personalized financial plans by automating data collection and analysis, enabling advisors to dedicate more time to client relationships and strategic advice.

Salesforce Rolls Out 'Slack AI', An Intuitive Generative AI Available Natively in Slack

AI-powered search, channel recaps, and thread summaries surface and prioritize what employees need to know so they can stay on top of their work day

Customers can save an average of 97 minutes per week using Slack AI features

Thousands of users from companies like SpotOn, Uber, and Anthropic participated in the Slack AI pilot

Partner ecosystem brings more AI-powered apps directly into Slack

Salesforce, on Wednesday, announced the rollout of Slack AI, a trusted and intuitive generative AI experience available natively in Slack, where work happens. Customers can easily tap into the collective knowledge shared in Slack through guided experiences for AI-powered search, channel recaps, thread summaries, and soon, a digests feature. These capabilities will enable customers to find answers, distill knowledge, and spark ideas faster.

Why it matters: Nearly half of digital workers struggle to find the information they need to efficiently do their jobs, according to Gartner. This, paired with an increasing number of tools and ways to exchange ideas, adds to workers’ cognitive load and makes it difficult to catch up quickly and feel on top of the work day. AI holds enormous potential to make internal knowledge more contextual, relevant, and easier to find and prioritize.

In the era of generative AI, Slack is the trusted, conversational platform that connects every part of a business to supercharge team productivity, Denise Dresser, CEO of Slack.

The Slack CEO perspective: “For the past decade, Slack has revolutionized the way we work, bringing people, apps, and systems together in one place,” said Denise Dresser, CEO of Slack. “With Slack AI, we’re excited to take this transformation to the next level. These new AI capabilities empower our customers to access the collective knowledge within Slack so they can work smarter, move faster, and spend their time on things that spark real innovation and growth. In the era of generative AI, Slack is the trusted, conversational platform that connects every part of a business to supercharge team productivity.”

Innovation in action: Starting today, Slack AI’s search and summarization capabilities can help customers easily find and consume large volumes of information quickly. These features are trustworthy, easy to use, and require no training. Users initiate them through guided, contextual interactions, ensuring they don’t have to learn brand new skills to enjoy the benefits. And each output is secure, cited, and personalized to the user. With Slack AI, customers can access:

AI-powered search that delivers personalized, intelligent responses to any question: Users can ask a question conversationally and get a concise answer based on relevant Slack messages. Users can find what they need faster, whether they want to learn about a new marketing campaign, get up to speed on company policies, glean insights about past decisions from historical context, or define unfamiliar acronyms.

Channel recaps that generate key highlights from accessible channels: Users can catch up on unread messages, summarize the last seven days, or set a custom date range to summarize. Users can quickly catch up after time away from work, get up to speed on a new project, or jump in quickly to help resolve time-sensitive issues.

Thread summaries that catch users up on long conversations: Users can get the gist of a long conversation in one click, and clear sources are included in each summary, allowing users to dive deeper into a highlight. Users can instantly summarize key decisions and next steps from a thread with a lot of back and forth, get up to speed on a customer support ticket, or catch up on a team stand-up to get a bird’s eye view of priorities.

Sales spotlight: Sales teams are under pressure to streamline their operations and maximize team effectiveness. With Slack AI, sales reps can:

• Easily identify and bring in the right subject matter expert when a customer has a specific question or concern during a deal cycle.
• Summarize an account channel and get the context they need to prepare for a customer meeting more effectively.
• Generate key takeaways from a long discussion about deal progress to help keep the team on track.

Engineering spotlight: The incident management process can be time-consuming and complex. With Slack AI, engineering teams can:

• Find answers in past incident channels to uncover potential solutions and apply learnings.
• Get the right information they need so they can quickly get situated and jump in to help find a resolution.
• Recap an incident channel and use it as a starting point to draft a root-cause analysis faster.

Slack’s trusted and secure AI experience: Trust is the number one value at Salesforce, and Slack is committed to building AI products safely, responsibly, and ethically.

• Slack AI runs on Slack’s infrastructure and upholds the same security practices and compliance standards that customers expect.
• Slack AI’s large language models (LLMs) are hosted directly within Slack, ensuring customer data remains in-house and exclusively for that organization’s use. Customer data remains siloed and will not be used to serve other clients, directly or indirectly.
• Slack AI does not use customer data for LLM training purposes.

The future of native generative AI in Slack: More features that help users summarize and prioritize information are on the horizon. Soon, Slack AI will create digests summarizing key highlights from channels that users want to stay informed on but may not require immediate attention, enabling them to stay up to speed on what they could otherwise miss while focusing on their top priorities. Additionally, Slack is building a native AI integration with Einstein Copilot, a new conversational AI assistant for Salesforce CRM, that will provide answers to questions directly in Slack that are grounded in trusted customer data.

These new search and summarization features are just the beginning of how Slack will enable people to work smarter and faster. In the future, Slack will be the command center for work and the conversational interface for generative AI.

Slack’s AI-ready platform: In addition to these native AI capabilities, partners are bringing additional AI functionality into their Slack apps. Available today, upgraded AI-powered apps from Slack’s partner ecosystem allow users to ask PagerDuty Copilot for help resolving incidents, automatically summarize Notion documents in link previews, and more. And coming soon, a brand new AI integration with Perplexity will allow users to subscribe to AI-powered insights and pipe them into Slack.

Pricing and availability:

• Slack AI is available now as a paid add-on for Slack Enterprise plans.
• Slack AI is available now in U.S. and UK English only.
• Additional Slack plans and language support are coming soon.
• AI-powered partner apps are available now in the Slack App Directory.

Learn more:

• Get access to Slack AILearn more about Slack AI
• Explore AI-powered partner apps in Slack

Salesforce To Acquire Spiff, An Automated Sales Commission Software

Salesforce, on Tuesday, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Spiff, a provider of a new class of incentive compensation management (ICM) software that combines an intuitive low-code UI, the familiarity of a spreadsheet, and a powerful processing engine to drive commissions automation at scale.

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal year 2025, subject to customary closing conditions.

After the acquisition closes, the Spiff organization will join Sales Cloud, working to enhance Salesforce’s Sales Performance Management solutions by providing customers with a trusted platform to increase visibility, supercharge selling & unlock growth.

“CROs and financial leaders know the importance of compensation in driving rep behavior. The challenge these leaders face is in how to align these compensation plans to desired outcomes – all while navigating data across siloed-point solutions,” says Ketan Karkhanis, EVP & GM, Sales Cloud. “Spiff connects what sellers want – transparent compensation – with what sales leaders want – compensation planning built into CRM that aligns behaviors to strategic outcomes.”

Spiff connects what sellers want – transparent compensation – with what sales leaders want – compensation planning built into CRM that aligns behaviors to strategic outcomes.”, said Ketan. 

The addition of Spiff to Salesforce will empower CROs to better align with financial and sales operations teams to easily self-manage complex incentive compensation plans and understand the factors propelling revenue performance to drive top-line growth.

“I’m excited about the future of Spiff and about what this means for the world of SPM and ICM in general,” says Jeron Paul, CEO of Spiff. “We have always taken pride in Spiff’s pace of innovation and I’m grateful for the opportunity to make an even deeper impact on the space as part of the Salesforce ecosystem.”

Spiff is available on the Salesforce AppExchange and has partnered with Salesforce for years. More than 70 percent of Spiff’s customers use Sales Cloud as their CRM. Spiff is also a Salesforce Ventures portfolio company.

Salesforce looks forward to welcoming the Spiff team to the Salesforce family once the acquisition closes, which is expected to occur in the first quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal year 2025, subject to customary closing conditions.

This transaction does not result in any change to Salesforce’s current financial guidance previously provided on November 29, 2023 and we will not be disclosing any further financial details.

ANAROCK Signs Up MP Housing Board For Its AI-powered CRM Suite

ANAROCK CRM now in use by over 150 developers with over 1500 projects

India's leading independent residential real estate services consultant ANAROCK Group has announced that it has signed up the Madhya Pradesh Housing Board (MPHB) for its proprietary AI-enabled customer relationship management services. The ANAROCK CRM (ACRM) suite results in a 10-fold increase in inventory sales within a couple of months of implementation.

Sadiq Din, Head - ANAROCK CRM (India & International), ANAROCK Group, says, "We are gratified to onboard our first government entity as a dedicated user of ACRM after meeting all compliances, checks and balances. ACRM currently caters to over 150 developers with over 1500 projects; in fact, we have signed up over 100 clients in the last three months alone."

"The ANAROCK CRM suite is a revolutionary innovation to ramp up housing sales in all Indian markets from tier 1 to tier 3 cities," adds Santhosh Kumar, Vice Chairman - ANAROCK Group. "From planning and execution to analysis and reporting, it allows residential sales teams to create and track campaigns, and to make informed decisions about their future marketing strategies. The data and information about customers and prospects is stored and automatically analysed to provide valuable insights that help identify trends and measure success rates."

ACRM has been designed to be the ultimate Proptech solution for real estate developers and channel partners including government agencies, who are looking for prop tech-driven tools to enhance overall sales and marketing efficiency. With specialized algorithms created specifically for the Indian real estate market environment, ACRM streamlines and automates many of the manual tasks involved in sales and marketing.

Despite its high-tech, AI-driven features, ACRM does not require its users to be technologically proficient and can be instantly and seamlessly adopted by existing sales and marketing teams. ANAROCK CRM provides hands-on training to sales and marketing teams to ensure smooth adoption and integration with existing sales campaigns.

ACRM currently manages five enquiries, 90 calls and 1.2 residential site visits every minute. A highly advanced SaaS (software as a service) system, ACRM has so far processed approximately 5 million leads, automatically managing the sales pipeline, allowing sales teams to prioritize their leads, target their marketing efforts more effectively, and track the results of their campaigns.

The automation includes lead management via follow-up emails and lead scoring, which reduces the risk of leads being lost or forgotten.

ACRM has been rolled out across the country and plans to open GCC market in next few months.

How CRM for VC Helps to Spot New Opportunities, Build Next-level Workflows, and Move Faster to Close Critical Deals

Customer Relationship Management software for Venture Capital firms provides the base on which the edifice of new investment opportunities and smarter workflows can be built leading to greater efficiencies. Venture Capital firms would find it prudent to integrate this software to see a visible improvement in their performance. VC CRM software is not just about storing relationship data; it is an integral part of investment decisions and execution. It would be prudent to discuss this interesting subject under a few broad heads for better understanding.

Ankur Agarwal

1. Centralizing data: With VC CRM software, data can be centralized into a single platform, making it easier to access, manage, and analyze. VC CRM software can collect data from multiple sources, including emails, social media, news feeds, and other communication channels, and store it in a central repository. This allows venture capital firms to have a more comprehensive view of their target companies and monitor their progress in real-time. VC CRM software can also help to automate data entry, eliminating the need for manual input and reducing the risk of errors and human bias. Additionally, VC CRM software can improve communication and collaboration within a firm, as it facilitates team members to access the same information and update it in real time.
2. Automated workflows: With VC CRM software, many of the workflows can be automated, reducing the time and effort needed to move deals forward. For example, one can set up automated follow-up emails to keep prospects engaged and send reminders to the deal team members when key tasks are due. One of the most significant benefits of using VC CRM software is that it can reduce the amount of manual data entry required, saving time, and minimizing the risk of errors. For example, VC CRM software can automatically capture data from emails, financial reports, and other sources, and input it directly into the system. This obliterates the need for manual data entry, which can be time-consuming and prone to errors. Another way VC CRM software can help create smarter workflows is by providing task automation features. This means that routine tasks, such as sending out notifications/updates on the completion of specific milestones and updating contact information, can be automated, freeing up valuable time for other high-value activities. VC CRM software can also offer workflow templates that can be customized to meet the specific needs of a venture capital firm.
3. Customizable pipeline views: Many VC CRM software allow users to personalize pipeline views to match their specific workflow. Pipeline views are essential for venture capital firms as they provide an overview of the deals that are in progress and help to track the progress of potential investments in different deal stages. It is imperative to quickly identify which deals are most crucial and move them through the pipeline more efficiently.
4. Meeting Management: VC CRM software helps investment managers focus on the most important meetings and make sure they are scheduled and managed effectively. The software allows users to schedule meetings with potential investors or target companies by offering built-in scheduling tools. Furthermore, this also allows users to capture meeting notes, automate follow-up emails or send reminders to attendees and ensure that follow-up actions are taken promptly.
5. Analytics and Reporting: VC CRM software can provide valuable insights and analytics to help investment managers make data-driven decisions and optimize their investment strategy.VC CRMs typically offer powerful analytics and reporting features, allowing users to analyze their pipeline, track deal progress, and identify areas for improvement. The analytics and reporting capabilities of VC CRM software can vary from solution to solution. However, some of the common analytics and reporting capabilities that one may find in VC CRM software are:
   • Deal flow tracking: Many VC CRM software solutions provide dashboards and reports that allow investment managers to track deal flow and analyze the performance of their investments. This can include information such as the number of deals in each stage of the investment process, the value of each deal, and the success rate of deals in each stage.
   • Fundraising: VC CRM software can help investment managers streamline fundraising by providing analytics on the investment preferences of potential investors. This can include information on how often they invest, the types of industries, and the geographies they prefer for investments.
   • Investor relationship management: VC CRM software can help investment managers effectively manage relationships with their investors by offering reporting capabilities. This can include reporting on Drawdown & Distribution, Capital Accounts, and Investment Performance.
   • Custom reporting: Some VC CRM software solutions allow investment managers to create custom reports and dashboards tailored to their specific needs. This can be helpful for analyzing specific areas of their business, such as fundraising or investor relations.

In conclusion, CRM software can be a powerful business partner for Venture Capital Funds as it can improve the overall smoothness of workflows and help investment managers focus on actual issues instead of firefighting the basics. The addition of this software can help venture capitalists negotiate their competitive business landscape better.

The VC CRM software brings the next level of comfort to investment managers as they can focus on handling the dynamic environment by staying informed and connected with their investors and identifying the most optimum deals that can deliver valuable outcomes.

(The author of the article is Ankur Agarwal, Co-Founder & CTO, PE Front Office)

Hitachi Terminal Solutions Inaugurates its Global CRM Manufacturing Facility in Bengaluru

The company plans to employ more than 400 people in the future.

Hitachi Terminal Solutions India, today announced that it is set to expand its manufacturing presence in India to complement the Government of India’s Make in India mission, through a first-of-its-kind Cash Recycling Machines (CRM) manufacturing facility in Bengaluru. 

In a Cash Recycling Machine, banknotes are inserted in the cash slot. These notes then pass through a bill validator to confirm the authenticity of the banknotes.

This CRM manufacturing facility will be one of the largest facilities for Hitachi worldwide and is another step towards an expansive vision to build and strengthen a full-fledged Hitachi Campus in India, helping India to become self-reliant, and making it the Global supply hub for the world.

Spread over 1,08,000 square feet, this state-of-the-art manufacturing facility will enable the company to triple its current production capacity of 1,000 CRMs per month. The company also plans to employ more than 400 people in the future. Hitachi’s facility is a testament to the central government’s vision of transforming India as a manufacturing hub for rest of the world. The core engine of the CRMs (Cash Modules) are localised and will now be completely assembled in India with high level of automation in this new facility, and also reaching a significant status of Make in India.

Hitachi is the global leader in cash recycling and automation technology and has been pioneering this technology in India.

Yoshihiro Nakatani, Managing Director, Hitachi Terminal Solutions India Private Limited said, “Our estimate indicates that more than 1.1 million cash recycling machines* have the capacity to be installed globally by 2024. Owning to this, we have built a state-of-the art facility, with an aim to offer highly secure, lowest carbon footprint and technologically advanced CRMs to our customers. Hitachi Terminal Solutions India has delivered high-end cash recycling machines that meet the needs of customers in a timely manner. Hitachi Terminal Solutions India will continue its efforts for expanding its business ecosystem and developing solutions in India, to further augment the export of our products from India and thus contribute to the development of the Indian economy.”

Bharat Kaushal, Managing Director, Hitachi India said, “India continues to remain the melting pot of innovation and growth in Asia. Our presence through around 28 group companies in India, have registered progressive growth in the past and continue to do so in a more robust manner. India has the capacity and capability to grow as the next manufacturing hub, as evident by the current Government’s efforts to build high-end infrastructure, even in the hinterlands of India. Hitachi through its varied business presence has multiple manufacturing facilities across the length and breadth of India covering Energy, Automotive, Urban Mobility including Railways, Industrial UPS etc.”

With seamless connectivity to major highways, airports and skilled talent pool, the factory has been strategically located in Bengaluru and is the perfect choice for this investment for the company. Hitachi Terminal Solutions India is bringing its global best practices and advanced manufacturing  technologies in this facility, thus enabling the company to augment the plant’s capacity to address potential changes in future demand.

* As per in-house research data

About Hitachi Terminal Solutions India

Hitachi Terminal Solutions India is a subsidiary of Hitachi Channel Solutions, Japan, a global leader in Cash Recycling Machines. Manufacturing in India started in 2016 and gradually the production increased to meet the growing domestic market requirements for both the public and private sectors as well as to limited international markets. The objective was to cater to requirements of the domestic sector specially while accelerating Make in India initiative. The policy of this facility is ‘By Indian people, with Indian material, for Indian market’ and also the adoption of the best Japanese practices and technologies.

Give Your Business a Transformation with the Help of Zoho Consulting Partners

Zoho consulting partners will boost customer satisfaction with the identification of the appropriate set of Zoho tools for addressing the different requirements of each business. They are qualified experts who will provide a terrific customer experience and also deliver excellent implementation, support services, and sales. As authorized Zoho consulting partners, they are the best development team and with experience in Zoho implementation, development, and integrations in various industrial sectors.

How will Zoho Consulting Partners Help Businesses?

• Zoho consulting partners will closely work with a variety of Zoho tools for providing the clients with an effective business management system.
• They are able to utilize all the tools and resources of the developer for getting the best solution for the business.
• They will customize Zoho solutions such as Zoho products or even other products for the management of finance, IT, human resources, marketing, sales, and business intelligence to match the processes of the business.
• Zoho solutions also provide mobile as well as web-based applications to give businesses access to crucial data.
• Zoho consulting partners have a good understanding of the business operations as well as customer requirements to make a plan for integrating Zoho's products.
• They offer implementation which will suit the business processes and customers' requirements and help in increasing the business productivity.
• Zoho consulting partners will also provide training for customers to get the most business value with Zoho solutions.

Services Provided by Zoho Consulting Partners

• Zoho Consulting - As certified Zoho consulting partners, they will provide the best solutions to take the business to the next level.
• Zoho Implementation - Experienced and certified Zoho partners will make sure the organization has an error-free solution with the help of quality checks as well as testing for effective implementation of the solution.
• Zoho Development - They develop customizations to suit the business workflow effectively for reducing the turnaround time and attaining profitable growth in the business.
• Zoho Training - Zoho Partners will provide the necessary training to the employees so that they are familiar with the solution.
• Zoho Integration – They will integrate third-party applications with smooth data migration from the existing applications to the new Zoho solutions very efficiently.
• Zoho Support and Maintenance – The Zoho consulting partners will make sure the delivery is error-free and ensures user satisfaction as they are well equipped for handling the Zoho customizations as well as integrations very efficiently.

Integration of Zoho WhatsApp

Through the Zoho and WhatsApp integration, organizations are able to directly send and receive a number of WhatsApp messages from the CRM tool. Also, the Zoho CRM tool will enable the business to manage all the WhatsApp messages even with no official WhatsApp number.

There is also the ‘WhatsApp History’ module in the Zoho CRM tool that will provide a complete history of all the incoming and outgoing messages that will be useful in the CRM report generation. For improvement in the interactions with the customers, a brand chatbot can also be created with the help of the Zoho WhatsApp chatbot function.

Users may use the Zoho-WhatsApp API for enabling the Zoho Whatsapp integration even without an active WhatsApp number. For the application of the WhatsApp Business API, the following details of the business will be required -

• Business manager ID verified on the Facebook account
• Business mobile number (with no WhatsApp app)
• Business Name that has to be displayed

Get a WhatsApp business account approved in two to five days.

 
Enabling the WhatsApp business account API with Zoho CRM

• Installing the WhatsApp Web tool as a Chrome extension is the first step.
• Launching the Zoho CRM tool on the computer and clicking on the WhatsApp Web menu option.
• Go to the Configure Settings tab and choose the Outgoing Messages tab for sending the WhatsApp messages from Zoho CRM.
• Go to the Leads option in Zoho CRM, and select the Send Bulk WhatsApp button for sending the bulk WhatsApp messages from any kind of CRM module.

Users can also use Create functionality for creating the display and action.

Takeaway

Zoho analytics is an excellent business intelligence tool that will enable the organization to prepare dashboards, and reports and transform its data for making strategic decisions. Zoho analytics will help to find valuable insights from the business data. It uses the AI and ML-based analytics to get effective and fast results from the large amounts of data.

Kapture CRM Unveils a New User Interface Designed to Create a Delightful Customer Experience

The new UI comes with a slew of additional features and functions

New Delhi, 6th October 2021: Kapture CRM, a homegrown CRM startup, competing against the biggest of CRM brands has unveiled a new user interface to deliver exceptional customer experience across businesses and industries. The UI offers a world of possibilities, and various enhancements have been made to the ticket interface, ticket inbox, agent dashboard and other areas, all of which contribute to a delightful user experience on both sides. This allows the agent to see a holistic overview of his tasks on the unified dashboard, thereby helping him provide the best customer service.

Further, the multilingual chat support helps to have real-time, personalised and engaging conversations with your customers which are assisting in reducing the turnaround time (TAT).

Speaking about the new development, Sheshgiri Kamath, CEO and Co-founder, Kapture CRM said, “We are ecstatic to introduce the new UI, which is expected to improve the user experience. The new elements in the UI are designed to encourage a healthy interaction between agents and customers while establishing and sustaining a genuine brand-customer relationship.

The overhauled UI comes with a vast array of innovative features that ensure a reduction in the ticket handling time, an increase in the First Call Resolution (FCR) rates and an overall improvement in the CSAT metrics.

Kapture CRM is a brainchild of three founders - Sheshgiri Kamath, Vikas Garg, and Pearl Tewari who first got together in 2011 and launched a platform for offline marketing automation. The CRM interface of the platform received positive attention and feedback. The trio, therefore, focused on developing it as a standalone product post which they launched Kapture CRM in 2014.

Kapture CRM was a part of the 3rd Google Launchpad Accelerator Program. Started as a bootstrap company 7 years ago, Kapture is currently deployed by 500+ enterprise customers worldwide across 12 countries. Its unified dashboard with 100+ ready-to-use APIs provides an omnichannel solution for service with a facility of 500+ reporting formats. More than 40% of its revenue comes from internet companies/e-commerce companies.

C3.ai, Microsoft, and Adobe Combine Forces to Re-invent CRM with AI

C3 AI CRM enables a new category of customer-focused industry AI use cases and a new ecosystem
C3.ai, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) today announced the launch of C3 AI® CRM powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365. The first enterprise-class, AI-first customer relationship management solution is purpose-built for industries, integrates with Adobe Experience Cloud, and drives customer-facing operations with predictive business insights.

• Integrate Microsoft Dynamics 365, Adobe Experience Cloud (including Adobe Experience Platform), and C3.ai’s industry-specific data models, connectors, and AI models, in a joint go-to-market offering designed to provide an integrated suite of industry-specific AI-enabled CRM solutions including marketing, sales, and customer service.
• Sell the industry-specific AI CRM offering through dedicated sales teams to target enterprise accounts across multiple industries globally, as well as through agents and industry partners.
• Target industry vertical markets initially including financial services, oil and gas, utilities, manufacturing, telecommunications, public sector, healthcare, defense, intelligence, automotive, and aerospace.
• Market the jointly branded offering globally, supported by the companies' commitment to customer success.

“Microsoft, Adobe, and C3.ai are reinventing a market that Siebel Systems invented more than 25 years ago,” said Thomas M. Siebel, CEO of C3.ai. “The dynamics of the market and the mandates of digital transformation have dramatically changed CRM market requirements. A general-purpose CRM system of record is no longer sufficient. Customers today demand industry-specific, fully AI-enabled solutions that provide AI-enabled revenue forecasting, product forecasting, customer churn, next-best product, next-best offer, and predisposition to buy.”

“This year has made clear that businesses fortified by digital technology are more resilient and more capable of transforming when faced with sweeping changes like those we are experiencing,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Together with C3.ai and Adobe, we are bringing to market a new class of industry-specific AI solutions, powered by Dynamics 365, to help organizations digitize their operations and unlock real-time insights across their business.”

“We’re proud to partner with C3.ai and Microsoft to advance the imperative for digital customer engagement,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe. “The unique combination of Adobe Experience Cloud, the industry-leading solution for customer experiences, together with the C3 AI Suite and Microsoft Dynamics 365, will enable brands to deliver rich experiences that drive business growth.”

“This is an exciting development in the advancement of Enterprise AI,” said Lorenzo Simonelli, chairman and CEO of Baker Hughes. “This partnership between C3.ai, Microsoft, and Adobe will bring a unique and powerful new CRM offering to the market. We are adopting AI in multiple applications internally and in new products and services for our customers through our C3.ai partnership. We look forward to offering C3 AI CRM to our customers and benefitting from the capabilities internally.”

Combining the market-leading Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM software with Adobe’s leading suite of customer experience management solutions alongside C3.ai’s enterprise AI capabilities, C3 AI CRM is the world’s first AI-driven, industry-specific CRM built with a modern AI-first architecture. C3 AI CRM integrates and unifies vast amounts of structured and unstructured data from enterprise and extraprise sources into a unified, federated image to drive real-time predictive insights across the entire revenue supply chain, from contact to cash. With embedded AI-driven, industry-specific workflows, C3 AI CRM helps teams: 

• Accurately forecast revenue
• Accurately predict product demand
• Identify and reduce customer churn
• Identify highly-qualified prospects
• Next-best offer, next-best product
• AI-driven segmentation, marketing, and targeting

C3 AI CRM enables brands to take advantage of their real-time customer profiles for cross-channel journey orchestration. The joint solution offers an integrated ecosystem that empowers customers to take advantage of leading CRM capabilities along with an integrated ecosystem with Azure, Microsoft 365, and the Microsoft Power Platform. C3 AI CRM is pre-built and configured for industries – financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, oil and gas, manufacturing, utilities, aerospace, automotive, public sector, defense, and intelligence – enabling customers to deploy and operate C3 AI CRM and its industry-specific machine learning models quickly. In addition, C3 AI CRM leverages the common data model of the Open Data Initiative (ODI), making it easier to bring together disparate customer data from across the enterprise.

C3 AI CRM is immediately available, with Adobe Experience Cloud sold separately. C3 AI CRM powered by Dynamics 365 will be available from C3.ai, Adobe, Microsoft and through the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketplace. Please contact sales@c3.ai to learn more.

About C3.ai

C3.ai is a leading enterprise AI software provider for accelerating digital transformation. C3.ai delivers the C3 AI Suite for developing, deploying, and operating large-scale AI, predictive analytics, and IoT applications in addition to an increasingly broad portfolio of turn-key AI applications. The core of the C3.ai offering is a revolutionary, model-driven AI architecture that dramatically enhances data science and application development.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

About Adobe

Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.