Advertisement
Australia markets closed
  • ALL ORDS

    8,153.70
    +80.10 (+0.99%)
     
  • AUD/USD

    0.6490
    -0.0046 (-0.70%)
     
  • ASX 200

    7,896.90
    +77.30 (+0.99%)
     
  • OIL

    81.83
    +0.48 (+0.59%)
     
  • GOLD

    2,214.30
    +1.60 (+0.07%)
     
  • Bitcoin AUD

    109,149.85
    +1,700.51 (+1.58%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     

Salesforce President on changes in the workforce from the 2021 Dreamforce conference

Bret Taylor, President and Chief Operating Officer at Salesforce, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss Dreamforce 2021 conference amid the pandemic, Salesforce’s initiatives to create new jobs, supporting businesses, and plans for return to the office.

Video transcript

- --but tell us how the conference is going and what changes you had to make because of COVID.

BRET TAYLOR: Well, we're here with 1,000 people in person instead of 200,000. But it does feel like a family reunion. It's so great that everyone is back here in person. But as you mentioned, we've had to do so many changes. We did 10,000 PCR tests to make sure that this is a safe environment for everyone in person. But because we only have a thousand people-- actually, most people experience Dreamforce online in our streaming service, Salesforce+. We have tens of millions of people who have already watched all the content from here in San Francisco.

ADVERTISEMENT

So despite the fact, as you mentioned, it's a little smaller than it is before, we're actually reaching an even wider audience online. And this is the new normal, right? We're in a hybrid [AUDIO OUT], an all digital [AUDIO OUT] from anywhere world, and Dreamforce is really representative of that.

- But I understand you've got some star power. The Foo Fighters are there. That's kind of exciting. And Will Smith, Jane Fonda. You were able to get those people to come out, huh?

BRET TAYLOR: It is. And, you know, I've talked to so many of our community. We call them trailblazers. And for many of them, this is the first time they've been together to reconnect in person after 18 months of being stuck in our home offices, stuck in our kitchen, wherever you're doing your work. And as you mentioned, we've gotten some great star power.

Dreamforce is about a few things. Number one is business is the greatest platform for change. And everyone here wants to take home some skills and technology to go have a positive impact on the world when they return. But it's also about connection. And seeing the Foo Fighters here on Howard Street last night was [AUDIO OUT] A small forum, and just a beautiful landscape as you can see behind me.

- Yeah, absolutely. That is awesome. You know, you spoke about workforce. And there is this report out from IDC that says Salesforce and its ecosystem partners will create something like 9.3 million new jobs by the year 2026. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? And also, what might those jobs look like now that we see the workplace changing? There's more and more remote work or hybrid work. How do you envision that looking in the coming years?

BRET TAYLOR: Well, as I mentioned, we're in an all-digital-work-anywhere world. And it's impacting every industry. Consumer goods companies are going direct to consumer. Supply chains are going digital. Every company is developing direct trusted digital relationship with their customers. And it's really creating this unparalleled demand for digital technologies. And that's where all these jobs are coming from.

You know, all of our jobs are transforming to become digital. If you're a marketer in 2021, you practically have to be a data scientist. And that's what everyone here is learning to do is embrace these new digital forms to their jobs to learn the skills that they need to learn to thrive in this new normal. And I think one thing that I've reflected on is, you know, we used to graduate from university and have a career that didn't change [AUDIO OUT].

That's not the way it works anymore. We need to constantly be reskilling and to learn about new technologies. And I think Dreamforce, I think, is an event about that, about learning, reskilling, and preparing yourself for these jobs of the future. And we are just so grateful to be having a positive impact on the global economy.

- You know, a couple of weeks ago, we had your CEO Marc Benioff on. And he said that the company is embracing what he called work anywhere, live anywhere environment, that is, indeed, all digital. We've seen a lot of companies pull back plans to bring people back into the office. Where do things stand right now with Salesforce and getting people back into the physical office?

BRET TAYLOR: Well, we've opened over half [AUDIO OUT] offices globally, but no one's showing up. And, you know, it's interesting, I've started two companies in my career. And I loved starting picking out my desks and my office space because that's why you-- that was the fun part of starting a company. If I were starting a company today, I wouldn't start with my physical headquarters. I would start with my digital HQ.

And I think what we're seeing in the future of work is that the digital infrastructure you provide your employees, your customers, and your partners are actually as or more [AUDIO OUT] than the physical headquarters you have. And Salesforce was included in that. I'm looking forward to people being back in Salesforce Tower, San Francisco, and Salesforce Tower, London, and Tokyo. But right now, our companies [AUDIO OUT].

And I think we're seeing this from across our [AUDIO OUT] base, as CEOs and boards are realizing that the flexibility that we've had this year is becoming a demand from employees. And if you open up the headline of any newspaper, you'll see the great relocation, the great resignation. These are all symptoms, I think, of really systemic changes in the workforce that I don't think we've fully internalized yet.

- I'm just curious if any of the labor shortages we're seeing hit a number of different industries is hitting Salesforce at all. Is it more challenging now than in recent memory to find and retain talent?

BRET TAYLOR: Well, I think we're seeing new [AUDIO OUT] to compete for talent. You have so many companies [AUDIO OUT] different philosophies around the future of their office space and flexibility. You're seeing a lot of people move locations. This great relocation is impacting [AUDIO OUT]. I think every company, including Salesforce, needs to reassess their workforce plan. We can recruit [AUDIO OUT] places.

I think it's an opportunity to have a more inclusive workforce, a more digitally-friendly workforce that actually onboards more people onto the economic opportunities of the technology industry and platforms like Salesforce. But it's a really deep introspection about what is the future of our office space? What is the future of our workforce? And, I think, particularly here at Dreamforce, are, what are the technologies and tools we need to thrive in that new normal? And I think every company in the world's going through this transformation at the same time, and it's pretty exciting.

- Now, I know you bought the corporate chat company, Slack, over the summer. How is that integration going with Salesforce?

BRET TAYLOR: Well, that's been the most fun part of Dreamforce for me, personally. I'm really close friends with Stewart Butterfield, the CEO of Slack. And we've introduced all the integrations with Slack with Salesforce's platform, which we call Customer 360. We're the number one customer relationship management platform for sales, customer service, [AUDIO OUT], e-commerce. We've integrated Slack into that entire platform.

So, you know, if you're a call center, you're not a building anymore. [AUDIO OUT] something that exists in the cloud. And we've integrated with Slack so you can run an all-digital contact center. And if you're a retailer now, you know, we don't talk about Black Friday and Cyber Monday anymore. It's just Cyber Week. And [AUDIO OUT] created a new digital command center for Cyber Week for all the retailers of the world, all built on Slack.

We really think that Slack can be every company's [AUDIO OUT] HQ. And we've tried to integrate a deep [AUDIO OUT] platform to help all of our customers accelerate. The number one thing on every CEO's agenda is growth, and we're really optimistic that Slack and our Customer 360 platform are the operating system for growth for every company in this new normal.

- All right. Bret Taylor, President and COO at Salesforce. Thanks for your time and enjoy the Dreamforce conference.