It has also been the first time that the venerable Brent Leary chaired it, stepping into the big footprint that Paul Greenberg has left. Unsurprisingly, Brent did very well.
Of direction, Paul, being Paul, became although there as a speaker with an interesting presentation, specializing in what he calls the commonwealth of self-hobby, on the way to be pretty a fulfillment because of using an outdoor-in view.
CRM evolution is part of a collection event of associated conferences that each one occur on the equal time. This 12 months, similarly to Smart Customer Service and Speechtek, there was a devoted occasion specializing in DigitalExperience. This acknowledges how critical this problem matter, that in fact touches all the specific topics, has come to be inside the beyond years.
It additionally raises the query over again why those 4 sports are marketed as one-of-a-kind activities. With the viable exception of Speechtek all topics are associated enough to be warranted as sides of the identical.
And they are, in my eyes.
I do not know, how the chairs do it, but they continue to attract a number of high caliber speakers, starting off with Jarno Duursma as the main keynoter of day one, followed by a very knowledgeable Barton Goldenberg on day two. While Jarno focused on AI, which is arguably the most exciting topic these days, Barton showcased how to actually get CX profitably done using a community scenario. This breadth explains a good part of the value CRM Evolution and the sister conferences bring. There are just too many experienced practitioners and thought leaders to ignore this conference. This does not only show during the presentations but also events like the ‘breakfast with influencers’ that traditionally happens on day two, the various panels, and the interesting new format of a closing town hall meeting, where every attendee participated as an equal. This is truly a good idea.
From a numbers point of view, hoping that I get them from organizer Bob Fernekees, my impression is that the numbers have been up from last year, especially on the Customer Service and Speechtek side of the house.
On the other hand, the sizeable change in sponsorship that turned into already visible final 365 days continued. Of the big brand call best SAP is left. OK, well, Google Cloud being a Diamond Sponsor of the overall event isn't precisely an unknown both, which moreover indicates the growing importance of AI in the patron-going thru international.
Zoho stepped up as a Diamond Sponsor, too, showing the interests of this interesting agency that has set out hard the massive 4. From then on we see Freshworks, Zendesk and Twilio as sponsors with a brand this is more broadly stated. All the opposite ones, exciting as they may be (or can be), are more or much less location of hobby players ? Sorry, if I now stepped on a person?S foot.
This is also pondered inside the exhibition corridor. Although it have become vivid at instances, vendors I talked with did not see plenty buying hobby and a few even doubted whether or not or not the presence have become properly well worth the expense.
My interpretation is that this is because this conference is more of a networking and brand-constructing occasion than a lead technology event. There may additionally additionally were a few leads, but I do think that human beings are there for reading, no longer for purchasing.
Having said this, I assume that SAP left out an possibility to create more percentage of thoughts, some issue that SAP desires in comparison to especially Salesforce and Microsoft. How can or now not it's that a panel approximately AI in client going thru packages consists of Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce handiest? I do apprehend for a reality that SAP has lots of appropriate subjects to contribute right here. And they want to do that extra. Especially Salesforce and Microsoft can come up with the money for being much less present, due to the fact they have already got the mindshare and, frankly, a few audio gadget virtually have their historic beyond right here.
So, what were my three highlights of this twelve months?S CRM evolution?
· Different presentations and panels show that (Conversational) AI and machine learning are of high interest, not as technologies but embedded into business applications. This shows that the vendors are going the right way
· The intersection of marketing and sales is a topic for businesses. There is a good interest amongst the attendees and speakers delivered different and good perspectives on this field of tension
· Organizations seem to struggle with the same issues they had ten years ago. Data silos, organizational silos, inertia. This means that they are still a ways from implementing truly helpful solutions, because they do not have a strategy, not even talking about a plan. What is also lacking is the ability to acknowledge culture as an important driver to achieve this necessary change. This became abundantly clear when the extremely knowledgeable and persuasive Silvana Buljan had an audience of just six people for her highly interesting talk about how to use a cultural transformation program to increase employee satisfaction and then sales.
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