The power of AI, ethics and people will deliver responsible AI outcomes

Data communication is a language as important as the written word. It has its own grammar and can be used to convey opinions and arguments just as powerfully as prose.

In the digital age, data serves as the cornerstone of successful businesses, enabling businesses to gain valuable insights, enhance customer experiences, and drive innovation.

As per a recent report by Salesforce, about 8 in 10 (or 80%) business leaders in India believe that data plays a critical role in decision-making at their organisation and about 78% of Indian business leaders agree that data helps reduce uncertainty and make more accurate decisions in business conversations.

Today, businesses leveraging data strategically can achieve unprecedented success by understanding customer behaviour, predicting trends, and making informed decisions. So, having a complete view of an organisation and its customers is essential to embedding resilience into businesses, helping create new revenue streams, and ultimately maintaining relevance in the new economy.

Real-time data integration and analysis have become pivotal, allowing companies to respond swiftly to market changes and customer demands, thereby ensuring sustained growth and competitiveness.

Business challenges dealing with fragmented data

As companies digitally transform and become more data driven, they need more people across the organisation to understand and interpret shared data . In this all-digital world, milliseconds matter more, especially with the petabytes of data generated from our always-on smartphones, connected cars, home security systems, and many other devices.

As customer expectations rise, connecting and extracting value from data in real-time will become a key pillar of businesses’ growth strategies. By breaking down data silos and using real-time customer insights, companies can power their sales, marketing, and commerce interactions, and deliver relevant and tailored experiences, while saving time and money. Disjointed experiences waste the customer’s time, increase support costs, and don’t elicit customer loyalty.

Salesforce addresses these issues by providing a unified platform where businesses can harmonise data from various sources. Salesforce’s comprehensive CRM solutions enable companies to break down data silos, fostering a cohesive view of customer interactions. By centralising customer data, Salesforce enhances data accuracy, facilitates seamless communication, and empowers businesses to deliver personalised and timely experiences, ultimately improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Be a data-driven company and build a data culture

Being a data-driven company offers multifaceted benefits, including informed decision-making, enhanced operational efficiency, and a deeper understanding of customer needs. Data-driven companies invest in data skills, commit to data-informed decision-making, and are more optimistic about the future of their business – even during unpredictable times.

A strong data culture equips everyone in an organisation with the insights they need to be truly data-driven, tackling the most complex business challenges. The first step organisations can take to building a data culture is expanding access to their data, making it available and open to most employees, not just the IT or analyst teams.

It is important to invest in tools that allow them to use this data in a way that doesn’t disrupt their flow of work. This means, no more jumping applications, moving tabs, or switching programs. Seamless and easy access will help empower employees to make better decisions at every level of their organisation.

The pivotal role of CRM, data, and AI in helping businesses eliminate cost and complexity

With the power of CRM, data and AI, companies can now create seamless, connected, and hyper-personalised customer experiences that weren’t possible before. Having a golden record that captures everything about a customer in real time across every interaction eliminates the cost and complexity of building a single view of the customer, making it easy for companies to act on their data to deliver the value that customers need. At Salesforce, we are helping companies act on insights with AI, unify customer data, and automate in real-time. MuleSoft, a Salesforce company which champions API-led connectivity, is integrating AI into its platforms. This integration enables users to save time, increase customer satisfaction, improve sales, and boost productivity by allowing seamless integration, swift modifications, and updates to existing integrations of new technologies and services.

This combination of Data + AI + CRM means that an organisation’s data works smarter. And it all adds up to what we call customer magic, as customers are at the heart of everything we do.

Democratise data to empower organisational agility.

In our age of digital transformation, we are witnessing the transformational power of data to inform business decisions and drive change in real time. Tapping into organisational data can help teams shape connected customer experiences, surface system constraints and improve operations, and align business leadership on shared metrics.

At Salesforce, we believe that democratising data and embracing advancements in AI analytics can help everyone in an organisation make better business decisions and in turn empower organisational agility. Salesforce’s Tableau app helps businesses accelerate data analysis with shareable, actionable insights, as well as enable real-time, data-driven decisions that accelerate intelligence, drive growth, and build a truly data-driven organisation.

At Salesforce, we are focused on getting more people to use data in their daily business workflows, regardless of their role and data skills. We emphasise on democratising data by making it accessible and understandable to employees at all levels. This approach ensures that data-driven decision-making is not confined to technical experts but permeates throughout the organisation. By providing intuitive tools and fostering a data-inclusive culture, we enable employees to harness data for actionable insights, promoting agility and innovation.

What does a future where data plays a pivotal role look like?

In a country like India, data-driven advancements not only have the potential to revolutionise various sectors, but also accelerate diversity efforts, making it a driving force of advancements in the country as businesses are the greatest platform for change.

We, at Salesforce, recognize that diversity not only makes for better companies, but unlocks the potential of individuals and the wider community. We also acknowledge the challenges in understanding diversity data, and data is a powerful tool to reveal insights, ignite conversations, drive change, and help bring accountability to diversity efforts. The first step in developing an effective diversity, equity and inclusion strategy is to investigate your representation data – and make it transparent across your organisation. Data visualisation tools help you quickly detect gaps, understand the different stages of the talent life cycle, and clearly identify trends.

Moreover, as data-informed decision-making uses facts, metrics, and data to guide strategic business decisions that align with your goals, objectives, and initiatives, it also helps reduce bias in decision-making. While data does not eliminate bias, it provides a framework to shift away from personal assumptions and explore diverse perspectives in understanding and addressing specific situations.

When individuals from varied backgrounds explore data, teams can analyse data from different vantage points, uncover new information, and challenge their preconceived notions, fostering an environment conducive to innovation.