The Bengaluru Dreamin’ 2024 tech conference on June 8th and 9th served as a platform for industry experts, trailblazers, and enthusiasts to explore the latest developments in Salesforce offerings, industry trends, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into business solutions.
AI Will Power the Growth of Indian Enterprises
The excitement was palpable in the conference room filled with 2000+ participants on the first day of Bengaluru Dreamin’ and the event kicked off in style with the keynote address by Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairperson & CEO of Salesforce India.
She emphasized on the role of Bengaluru in the Indian IT growth story and the strengths of the Indian workforce with the ability to innovate and the agility to roll out complex services like UPI, COVID application within a short span.
The central theme focused on the everchanging role of AI and how AI will augment every enterprise – with the right inputs to deliver the right output. One pivotal aspect involved getting data ‘in order’ and how organizations in India would continue to focus on different ways to leverage the data of its 1.3 billion users. A classic example shared was the use case involving Air India customers and how the data coming from acquired Airlines could potentially be channeled to provide the customers with a consistent improved experience. (Ref: https://www.salesforce.com/customer-stories/air-india-delivers-world-class-service-data-ai/)
The session by Jigar Shah (Salesforce MVP and Dreamforce speaker) highlighted the mindset required to be a solution architect and focused on the pillars of solution architecture using the SOULCD framework described below:
- Systems – Integration touchpoints
- Objects – Entities and relationships
- Users – Internal and external users
- Licenses – Relevant products, features, SKUs
- Security – Access control / system security
- Compliance – Regulatory compliance (PII, HIPAA, GDPR)
- Data – Volume sizing and historical data
This was followed by a stimulating group activity where each of the teams were tasked to present the solution applying the principles of solution architecture.
On the left, you see Jigar Shah (MVP and Dreamforce speak) and Karthik Prasad (Infosys) after session on ‘Solution architect mindset’.
A Guide to Success in the Salesforce Ecosystem
The Career catalyst sessions provided insights to students and budding Salesforce professionals on topics like personal branding, career graph of Salesforce professionals and gave perspectives on how professionals could unlock their full potential to advance their careers in Salesforce. The D2C consulting mindset speaker session gave insights into some of the key traits for a successful consultant mindset – technical skills, business knowledge and communication and how these skills should be applied at both client facing and offshore roles for better collaboration and productivity. Throughout the day the attendees immersed themselves in hands-on workshops on prompt builder, copilot builder, ‘low code war’ and various other inspiring topics. There were also interactive panel discussions with customers and entrepreneurs on their customer success stories. One of the panel discussions stressed on how Gen AI is shaping the future of customer organizations. With the advent of Gen AI, recognizing vulnerabilities hardly takes 30 minutes and hence a ransomware attack that previously used to take 9 weeks could now happen in 1-2 days. Key takeaway was that AI is a double-edged sword and needs to be used with caution.
In addition to exploring the speaker sessions, Bengaluru Dreamin’ also served as a forum for networking and collaboration. Attendees had the opportunity to engage with industry peers, exchange ideas, and forge meaningful connections that transcend geographical boundaries.
Key Considerations for Solution Architects
The business case study involving a wealth management fictious firm ‘Success For Everyone’ hosted by MVP’s Kannan Narayanan and Rupesh Bhatia gave deep insights on the various design aspects to be considered by solution architects when solving a business problem.
Paul Kurian’s insightful session introduced Hyperforce, covering various aspects like – the pre-checks needed, the criteria to be satisfied to be eligible for Hyperforce migration, technical best practices to be followed, what to expect on the day of the migration and how to check if your org has migrated.
The session on ‘Design in Salesforce’ showcased how the Netflix design strategy helped it overcome competition with emphasis on the ‘design lead approach’ adopted. The key aspects that resonated with the audience in this example were:
- Simplified navigation
- Personalized content using sophisticated algorithms
- Enhanced UX with content preview
- Multi-device compatibility
- User feedback incorporation – skip intro and rating features
Conclusion
In retrospect, Bengaluru Dreamin’ 2024 stood as a testimony to the power of collaboration and innovation in the vibrant Salesforce trailblazer community and serves as testament to Bengaluru’s status as a hub of technological excellence and innovation.
