Salesforce channel chief on AI enablement and the data strategy 'unlock' for partners

As the CRM vendor moves to align its data and AI strategy, its channel chief wants to ensure consistent service quality and communication across its vast partner network

At this week's Salesforce World Tour event in London, the vendor was keen to highlight its investment in native AI (naturally) but also its moves around Salesforce Data Cloud.

Attendees at the event heard about the CRM vendor's launch of a new AI centre, alongside further investments in its Data Cloud offering.

These moves are part of the company's ongoing $4bn investment in the UK, reflecting the rapidly growing AI market, which Salesforce expects to reach over $1tn by 2035.

The message for the channel focused on making full use of the vendor's self-service offerings and deepening relationships with ISVs, SIs and service providers.

Sitting down with Steve Cornfield, EVP & GM - global alliances, channels & emerging products, CRN found out what role the vendor expects partners to play in the rollout of its AI and data strategy.

Cornfield, who took up the global channel chief position in April 2023 from Tyler Prince, emphasised the critical role of data strategy in unlocking customer potential and driving business value.

Ensuring service quality across a sprawling partner network

Salesforce's partners, which include 12,000 consulting and ISV firms, are crucial in executing these strategies effectively.

"The big unlock for us is really around the data strategy piece, and how we get a piece right with our partners," Cornfield added.

When it comes to the partner experience, much of Cornfield's efforts have focused on creating a "frictionless" self-service environment for partners, focusing on onboarding, training, and providing access to demo environments.

This initiative aims to ensure partners can deliver high-quality service and keep pace with Salesforce's innovations.

"How do we create a completely frictionless environment? How do we give them access to our products? How can we train them at the same speed and velocity we train?" he explained.

Salesforce's vast partner network means the vendor has to find nimble and efficient ways to keep its partners in touch and skilled up on its solutions, particularly as it accelerates AI development.

"Whether it's 6,000, 10,000 or 20,000 partners as long as we can service them, there's certainly the marketplace for them. But what we want to make sure that we do is that anybody that is recruited and onboarded, has the requisite skills and capability to protect the lifetime value of the customer."

Cornfield also noted the growing importance of industry-specific expertise and the need for Salesforce to support all partners, regardless of size.

"We're seeing some fantastic growth in our regional SIs as well, if you look at how local markets are developing, those regional SIs really have flourishing businesses," he remarked.

To this end, the legacy vendor is revamping its training and certification programme, with further announcements to come later in the year, according to the channel chief.

AI and business value

Cornfield stressed the importance of validating AI use cases with partners to accelerate business value.

The focus is on creating tangible benefits that can be clearly demonstrated to customers, ensuring they see the ROI of AI investments.

"How do we validate these use cases with our partners and accelerate the business value? I think that's where everybody's seeing the big opportunity right now," Cornfield said.

Acknowledging the current economic challenges, Cornfield discussed the importance of substitutional spending and deriving business value from AI investments.

He highlighted Salesforce's commitment to helping customers save money and increase productivity through AI-driven solutions: "Every customer out there is trying to save money, be more productive. So how do we drive substitutional spend with customers to move them to more of these AI and data cloud capabilities?" he asked.