- Salesforce has unpacked some of its plans to help unlock an AI economy in South Africa and across the African continent.
- The CRM specialists detailed its plans during its latest World Tour Essentials event in Johannesburg this week.
- Citing an IDC InfoBrief report, the company says AI-powered cloud solutions can deliver 33 000 jobs locally by 2028.
Salesforce South Africa held its latest World Tour Essentials event in Johannesburg this week, where the CRM specialists not only unpacked its latest AI-powered tools for customers, but also its plans to accelerate growth in this region.
It specifically highlighted the AI economy, along with sharing an InfoBrief report from research firm IDC that estimates 33 000 jobs will be created between 2022 and 2028 locally as a result of Salesforce and its partner ecosystem.
Much has been made of the economic boost that AI promises, and same rings true for this region too, as AI- powered cloud solutions are expected to generate $5.8 billion in net new business within South Africa over the same period mentioned above.
While we are still in the early stages of that window, already skills development and getting employees better acquainted with Salesforce’s new solutions has proved critical for local partners.
To that end, the company highlighted during its World Tour Essentials Johannesburg keynote that the South African region has grown 34 percent year-on-year during the 2024 financial year.
The most significant improvement, however, is in the area of certifications, with an increase of 43 percent in total for SA. Here Salesforce points to how important its partners have been in helping organisations across all sectors to raise employee productivity and transform with real-time insights and new levels of customer experience.
“At Salesforce, we’re excited by the strides our customers and partners in South Africa are taking to succeed in the developing AI era. World Tour Essentials Johannesburg offers the perfect showcase of the region’s potential as a centre of innovation in Africa,” noted Zuko Mdwaba (pictured above), Area VP at Salesforce South Africa, during his keynote.
“Salesforce World Tour Essentials Johannesburg demonstrates how our customers can raise productivity, improve visibility, and transform their entire operations by deploying AI and digital tools in a smart way,” added Robin Fisher, senior area VP for Salesforce emerging markets.
Looking at new AI-powered tools that it believes will truly help customers moving forward, Linda Saunders, Salesforce director for Solutions Engineering Africa, highlighted Data Cloud and the Einstein 1 platform.
The former is a data platform that allows companies to unify disparate data points into a harmonised data model on the Einstein 1 Platform. As this data model lives on Einstein 1 Platform, it gives every team member the same 360-degree view of every customer. This allows employees to drive automation, analytics, and personalised engagements through the power of trusted AI, she explained during her keynote presentation.
“Conversational AI interactions are delivered through a single Einstein Copilot across all applications on the platform, with creation and tailoring capabilities supported within Einstein 1 Studio,” shared Saunders.
Here the director noted that Einstein 1 integrates a company’s suite of applications spanning sales, service, marketing, ecommerce, analytics, and industry solutions.
With the likes of Copilot in Slack also expected to rollout to customers in the coming weeks and months, there are a range of AI-powered solutions that Salesforce plans to make available locally.
This will be coupled with the efforts of partners in the region to ensure that Salesforce-related skills are more readily accessible, is what the CRM specialists are banking on to accelerate local growth and make the aforementioned $5.8 billion in new business a reality.
