AiThority Interview with Taksina Eammano, SVP Product, Sales Cloud at Salesforce

Hi Taksina, please tell us about your journey in the technology space. What inspired you to start at Salesforce Sales Cloud?

When I was in 8th grade, my father refused to sign my elective choices unless I did Computing. So, I enrolled in that and geography. That was decades ago and here I am. Tech has really allowed me to foster my love of travel and exploring cultures globally. When the pandemic hit, I was working with our Service business and we were able to help organizations respond to their customers, setup contact tracing and get their employees back to work safely. I knew the next wave would be economic recovery which led me to join Sales Cloud and help organizations get back to growth.

Top Salesforce Blog:

Everything You Want to Know about Salesforce’s Dreamforce 2021

What is Sales Cloud and which group of users benefits the most from using the Sales Cloud?

Sales Cloud is a cloud-based solution designed to help your sales teams sell smarter and faster by centralizing customer information, collaborate to win deals and automate many of the tasks salespeople do every day. All sales reps now working from anywhere, need to be trusted. Sales Cloud lets reps (and their managers) drive productivity, get more leads, and forecast accurately.

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The standards of “Virtual selling” have evolved at a great pace during the pandemic months. Could you highlight the biggest trends associated with digital sales?

At Salesforce, we’re watching sales organizations transform as they move away from intuition selling to data-driven selling, to grow their revenues. To power data-driven selling, Salesforce Sales Cloud delivers integrated, unique analytics across the entire customer and revenue lifecycles.

In addition, various channels have emerged for sales teams to communicate with each other and their customers in today’s remote working environment. Sales Cloud offers multiple ways for reps to engage and collaborate with one another, ranging from voice and chat, to video and Slack, so that sales organizations can be where their customers need.

How does Sales Cloud help salespeople thrive in the new age of digital sales?

The current enablement market can seem disjointed at times given the way companies have adopted work-from-anywhere hybrid models. This fragmentation results in a lack of measurable impact from enablement efforts. Sales Cloud provides actionable insights through AI and automation so teams can adapt their sales processes in real-time from anywhere.

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Could you tell us some of the most exciting features of the new Salesforce Sales Cloud? How does it bring together the power of Einstein, Tableau and Slack?

We recently introduced three new Sales Cloud products: Revenue Intelligence, Sales Enablement and Subscription Management.

• Revenue Intelligence equips sales leaders with insights throughout the entire sales and revenue cycle, from closing deals and setting forecasts to building new pipelines. With the help of Einstein Deal Insights, reps can close deals with confidence, since they have the power of AI predictions across all customer interactions. Additionally, pre-built analytics powered by Tableau can help address gaps in actionable insight to better drive forecast accuracy.
• Sales Enablement provides smooth onboarding, training, and development experiences for sales reps to create engaged teams, retain strong talent and close deals. Einstein provides data-driven coaching to reps by quickly surfacing coachable moments related to pipeline and deal insights, leading them to ultimately close more deals.
• Subscription Management, companies can empower their customers to manage subscriptions from any self-service channel on their own — delivering a unified customer experience built on the Salesforce Customer 360 platform. Here, Einstein enables companies to prioritize collection efforts by predicting the risk of late or non-payments, and recommend the next best action to ensure consistent revenue streams.
• Slack-First Sales is a solution that brings together Sales Cloud and Slack, including Slack Connect. With Slack-First Sales, reps can sell faster, strengthen relationships, and come together as a team to win more deals. Slack becomes the layer of engagement where reps spend their time. — no need to switch systems. It’s possible for sales reps to unite their teams, workflows, and sales tools in a single place to effectively grow teams and revenue while staying organized.

Salesforce Service Cloud Gets New Advanced Embedded AI, RPA and Call Mining Features

Hear it from the pro: How is “Revenue Intelligence” dashboard different from your “Sales Forecasting” / Sales prediction dashboard? What makes Sales Cloud a must-have tool for any high-growth sales organization?

The dashboards under “Sales Forecasting” are really great when sales leaders want a focused look into their sales data. Although, for those who want more customization to align with their specific sales process and Customer 360, that’s where Revenue Intelligence shines. Revenue Intelligence offers embedded, integrated, customizable analytics and advanced insights across the revenue lifecycle and all customer interactions. By combining the power of Einstein and Tableau CRM customers can unlock a simplified and improved user experience, curated with purpose-built analytics and actionable insights in the user’s flow of work.

Expert tip on how to build an AI-focused Sales Technology platform:

Since Sales Cloud has purpose built AI embedded in the flow of work at every stage of the sale process, it can help customers accelerate the build of their AI-focused technology platform. Sales Cloud brings customers AI across 4 pillars:

• Deal Intelligence to quickly understand gaps in pipeline and focus on deals most likely to close
• Engagement Insights surface relevant context related to prospects, opportunities, or sales calls to optimize customer interactions
• Recommendations for sales leaders to efficiently take meaningful action for their business
• Automations to accelerate rep productivity by streamlining the sales processes and automating tasks

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Your plans for the Dreamforce 2021: What would be the biggest highlight for you this year at #DF21?

We say this every year, it’s going to be our best Dreamforce ever! and this year is no exception. We’re activating so many streams with Salesforce+, our new digital content platform for everyone. That means across the globe, truly anyone can tune in. Each year we get to unveil our latest product innovations and spend time with customers. This year we’re guiding customers with the New Playbook for Sales and I’m pumped to share the story of a top high-tech company and how they have activated all 20K+ sellers to work from anywhere. Come check it out at the Sales Cloud main show at Dreamforce, The New Sales Playbook to Accelerate Growth from Anywhere, on September 21 at 1:30pm PT/4:30pm ET.

There’s also so much news around our sustainability efforts. This broader mission for Salesforce around business being the greatest platform for change is one that fuels my heart. You can learn more during the Sustainability Priorities in the Race to Net Zero session at Dreamforce on September 23 at 9am PT/12pm ET.

Thank you, Taksina! That was fun and we hope to see you back on AiThority.com soon.