Shahid Nizami

I’m here today attending #SalesforceTourEssentials Singapore, at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, where everyone is asking us how they bring AI to the Enterprise. In this next wave of the AI revolution, the pace of change has never been faster, and it’s not going to slow down. Businesses want to know how to: * Trust * Manage * Understand * and securely Connect their data...to connect with their customers in a whole new way There is a clear distinction between Consumer AI, and Business AI, mainly the need for trusted data about your customers. Ultimately, CRM will become even more critical than ever—it is our customers’ trusted platform built for the AI Enterprise. I’m soaking a lot of learnings in from our ASEAN customers today and how they are using AI to grow their organisations. As I go on the road with our team for World Tour Essentials across APAC, I really want to know where you all are in your AI journey? What are your biggest concerns and challenges right now?

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Are you ready to unlock your AI potential and stay ahead in the digital revolution? Join us at World Tour Essentials Singapore on 8 May 2024 at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre. Discover how Salesforce is revolutionising CRM by integrating it with trusted AI, data, and trust. Gain insights into the latest AI innovations and see how they empower businesses to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from customer Trailblazers, visionary AI experts, and thought leaders. Register now and immerse yourself in AI innovation!

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Salesforce Sales Cloud just released its 6th State of Sales report last week aggregating insights from 5500 sales professionals across 27 countries 🌎 Sales growth is back where 79% of sales leaders say revenue has increased over the last year 📈 Sikkkk! But the "how" looks different this time around... For example: Partner selling is contributing to growth in meaningful ways. Enablement is rightfully emerging as a top growth lever 🔑 Another surprising stat: 83% of teams that adopted AI saw an increase in revenue over the past year vs 66% of teams without AI. Causation or Correlation? 🤷‍♀️ Yet another stark reality is that 70% of a sellers time is spent on non selling tasks. 😫 Everything from researching accounts to manually entering things into the CRM to sitting in hours n hours of internal meetings... I dream of a world in the future where AI can help us with rethinking : 1️⃣ Smart list building 2️⃣ Automated pipeline management and 3️⃣ Real time enablement in the future!! Just imagine a world where you don't need to trainings or the same forecast call every week!! 🔥 Check out the report in the first comment for more sales insights!! #stateofsalesreport #salesforce #genai #salesorgs

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At Lenovo, our vision of "AI for All" means bringing AI to every individual, household, and industry. Lenovo PCCW Solutions' or, LPS for short, latest strategic acquisitions of Explora and Eleven Digital are pivotal steps in this journey, as we make cutting-edge innovation more accessible. 🚀 Lenovo’s Global CIO Report 2024 identifies 'poor data quality' among the top barriers to AI adoption. With Explora’s expertise in multi-cloud data and AI solutions, and Eleven Digital’s prowess in marketing cloud technology and CRM, we’re ready to tackle these challenges. By integrating these strengths into our full-stack AI strategy, we’re ensuring the data integrity that will enhance AI deployment, and accelerate the AI journey for businesses. I’m looking forward to seeing these capabilities in action! You can read more in the comments 👇 #AI #DigitalTransformation #DataIntegrity #WeAreLenovo #AIForAll

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While I initially thought my Singapore based SaaS product would seamlessly fit into the US Markets I quickly realized the nuances and complexities of the American market were quite different from Singapore Here are some of my learning’s * The size of the SMBs in the US is much larger than Singapore (ICP is different) * Cold calling doesn’t work best in New York (The GTM strategy had to be redefined) * The Digital Marketing Costs are much higher (COA and other Unit economies had to be relearnt) * The product had to be reworked to suite a different size and kind of user Anyone out there who has overcome these challenges and expanded to the US Markets from Singapore? #SaaS #USMarket #BusinessLessons #goingglobal #expansion #singaporetoUSA

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𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀! 𝗔𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝗔𝗜-𝗘𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆!    Imagine AI working in the background to surface critical account insights for your sellers, giving them the edge to win new business and grow key accounts!    𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗜𝘁 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗽𝘀:    • AI handles the heavy lifting, so sellers can focus on selling  • AI identifies key account goals, initiatives, and growth opportunities  • AI auto-populates account data while sellers validate and sharpen insights    𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗼 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼!    #SalesAI #Salesforce #Agentforce #AccountPlanning #Altify

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Research from IDC highlights how AI-powered low-code development accelerates application creation in APAC. Considering 60% of apps in our region are legacy with costly maintenance needs; modernisation is a key focus for enterprises facing skill shortages. The study also noted that 68% of APAC enterprises are adopting low code, IDEs, and DevOps tools to address digital transformation demands and streamline development. Furthermore, around 25% of APAC enterprises, especially in Australia, India, Japan, and Southeast Asia, are embedding gen AI into dev tools. GenAI's integration with low code helps APAC organisations accelerate legacy modernisation and shorten development cycles without compromising performance. And with 60% of global businesses projected to adopt low code by 2025, our region is leading the way to addressing developer scarcity and building resilience through low-code development. #GenAI #lowcode #APAC

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#NRFAPAC is a wrap. This was my first experience of NRF and it was an educational and an overwhelming experience for me. Here is what I learnt (based on what I saw on the show floor and my conversations with Retailers and Partners): 1.    The sheer number of technology providers for the retailers are growing at an enormous pace. Their business also seems to be growing means that  Retailers are adopting technology at an ever-increasing pace.  2.    I saw a lot of interesting innovations targeted for in-store efficiency and improving customer experience.  3.    Adoption of AR / VR tech seems to be still in the early phase but seems to have found some footing among high end, high ticket value retail.  4.    The number of vendors providing solutions for self-checkout indicates to me that deployment of this tech is growing fast. 5.    AI use cases that I saw were all revolving around writing product descriptions (and thereafter creating social media content), customer service or digital shopping assistants and employee engagement (knowledge dissemination).  6.    Interestingly, I did not see any interesting use of AI / ML on the supply chain, operations, procurement or finance functions.  7.    The presence of e-commerce platforms was still front and center indicating to me that this is still a priority area for many retailers.  8.    Promotions management still seems to be an area of focus, as is loyalty management. I am surprised that not many Retailers have cracked a good loyalty program 9.    Almost all my conversations with Retailers indicated that most of them are seeing a downturn in their business in the past 3-6 months. All of them were still struggling with having a good data governance model that could put them in a position to leverage the advancements in ML and AI.  10.  Performance marketing is still front and center and we are starting to see some good success stories emerging. This is still not as common as I thought it would be in organisations. SAP Amazon Web Services (AWS) Achim Schneider Bharani Krishnan Joerg Koesters Deepak Krishna Patsy Wong Klaus Boeckle Mukesh Kumar H. Hakaru Morikawa Erica Low Sophia Pereira Silvana Tagand Will Wilson Katy Doran Peter Bray Grace Yio Steve Nijjar Whye Loong Wong Kaylie Wong Clinton Mottram Neetha John Peter Moore Sotis Dramalis Jaehyeon Bae Rahul Padgaonkar Yasmin Awad Mandavi Singh Ranjan Sharma Karthik Kuppusamy Madhav Nishtala Shobhana Lele Binod Negi Tanuj Vijay Rajiv Ranjan Singh Vineeta Bathija Anil Dogra Ben Nottle Eileen Chua Sebastian Chia

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FieldAssist recently hosted a webinar on "CPG RTM Transformation in Southeast Asia," where experts dived into the evolving landscape of the FMCG sector. The session was packed with insights on how different Southeast Asian markets present unique opportunities, the growing complexity of distributor networks, and the pivotal role technology plays in enhancing sales execution and data control. 1. 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲-𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐎𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬: - Traditional trade in Indonesia. - Growing convenience stores in the Philippines. - Leveraging tourism in Thailand for FMCG sales. 2. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐬: Modern retailers are offering discounts, disrupting traditional distributor networks and cutting margins. 3. 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 & 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: Stricter data control has led to a heavier reliance on promotions, impacting distributor management and efficiency. 4. 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐬: Mini markets are on the rise, while hypermarkets decline, driving changes in FMCG stocking and promotion strategies. 5. 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐝: Overburdened sales teams are now sharing responsibilities with other functions to focus more on core sales activities. 6. 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐄𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐫: Technology should support business strategies, automating data collection so sales teams can focus on customer engagement. Catch the full conversation here: https://lnkd.in/gyMYyJMf 🎥 #CPG #RTMTransformation #SoutheastAsia #FMCG #FieldAssist #Tech #BusinessTransformation Neeraj Bhargava Shivika Mansata Ser Patrick De Dios Nikhil Aggarwal Chitransh Jain Divir Tiwari Shivangi Gohri Shresth Nehra

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More Rigor for Sales Teams per Amit Bendov and Marc Benioff   How do Gong and Salesforce respond to the “headwinds” and “budget scrutiny” mentioned in many B2B SaaS earnings calls earlier this month? More rigor, more discipline, focused enablement, and a refined GTM strategy are a major part of their approach. Gong’s CEO, Amit Bendov, last week on the SaaStr podcast episode 741, and Salesforce’s CEO, Marc Benioff, on the May 29, earnings call, stated similar approaches for how they plan to navigate current “headwinds” and “budget scrutiny” expressed by many B2B SaaS companies recently. Here are the approaches that Gong has put in place:  - Weekly KPIs, weekly results, and monitoring key activities   - Tracking every deal with MEDDIC  - Greater accountability for the sales team and sales management Amit also shared that at first some of his sales teams “didn’t love it” but now that they are hitting their numbers and seeing the results, they are warming to the additional structure and discipline. Salesforce’s CEO, Marc Benioff, interrupted his COO on the earnings call to reinforce the current narrative inside Salesforce to deliver “strong financial metrics” and a “high level of customer success” organized around the following three guiding principles: 1) Start every quarter with much higher pipelines, 3x vs 2x coverage (deeper inspection) 2) Need a much higher level of enablement (for gen AI models, data frameworks, etc.) 3) Level of stability (versus disruption of shifting strategy to meet fiscal demands) Marc sums up the Salesforce approach with this quote, “So, there is a level of balance that has to be achieved in regards to stability and disruption. And those three attributes, having 3x pipelines, having much higher levels of enablement, and having much higher levels of stability, that is the key to managing in this (more challenging) environment and this part of the (B2B SaaS) industry right now. Both CEOs talk about enhanced rigor, discipline, and a more structured approach to the sales process being a more effective path to navigate this current environment. From my perspective, this is a good example of two highly successful companies continuing to examine their internal GTM processes and experiment with adjusted approaches to achieve success. To what degree have you documented and effectively enabled your sales process for this more challenging environment? Will enhanced rigor, discipline, and a more structured sales approach help your sales reps ramp faster and/or close more deals? What are your thoughts?

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If someone gave you an extra 14 hours every week - what would you do with it? This is the promise of GenAI for Singaporean workers according to our latest ServiceNow research: up to 14 hours saved per week between now and 2028, simply by putting AI to work. Add other emerging technologies like automation and robotics, and the time gains grow even larger. We can reinvest at least some of this time into building new skills portfolios that improve our national competitive advantage and individual careers. But we should not overlook the opportunities this presents to help Singaporeans take back control of their workloads and reclaim their wellbeing. More in my blog on the topic, including what I would use my 5 hours for: http://spr.ly/6042o8Ak4 #FutureofWork #PutAItoWorkforPeople

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Are you ready to unlock your AI potential and stay ahead in the digital revolution? Join us at World Tour Essentials Singapore on 8 May 2024 at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre. Discover how Salesforce is revolutionising CRM by integrating it with trusted AI, data, and trust. Gain insights into the latest AI innovations and see how they empower businesses to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from customer Trailblazers, visionary AI experts, and thought leaders. Register now and immerse yourself in AI innovation!

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When new leaders join your company, they bring more than experience—they bring connections 🤝. These connections can open doors to warm introductions, helping you close bigger deals faster. But here’s the real question: How can you quickly connect with these leaders and leverage their network for referrals? 🤔 Morgan J Ingram’s 90-second Sales Navigator guide shows you exactly how to do this in just minutes—so you can skip the guesswork and get straight to the right conversations that can propel your deals forward. https://lnkd.in/ek9EVJ7j How have you used new leaders to generate referrals? Share your tips in the comments! #salesnavigator #b2bsales

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Thank you, Brian Fernandez of Biztech Asia for the great conversation we had on how IT Distribution has evolved and continues to evolve. The impact on the partner ecosystem from vendors to the channel is massive and opportunities abound. Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) #ITDistribution #partnerecosystem #channel #tech

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Big thanks to Jen. Yong ✔️ and SYNDES Technologies for being such a valuable partner! 🌟 See how they transformed operations with Hexnode in this success story. 🚀 #PartnerSuccess #hexnode

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Singapore is no stranger to exceptional governance. For decades, the Lee family has been synonymous with principled leadership in this nation. But now, the leadership has been passed to Prime Minister Lawrence Wong—a momentous shift, yet deeply rooted in a tradition of unwavering and unchanging values. Why does this specific leadership change stand out to me? It's the values. One of the best things about Singapore is the absolutely immaculate governance. And the country possesses values on how to govern and, whether right or wrong, is consistent with its values. I think one of the things that is a hallmark of this transfer of values, the consistency with which this baton has been passed. Here are six key principles that remain our guiding stars: 1.⁠ ⁠Meritocracy: In Singapore, all children have the right to a formal education. Every Singaporean now has the opportunity to climb the social ladder, where their abilities—rather than their religion, race or origin—are what determine their success. 2.⁠ ⁠Racial and religious harmony: In Singapore, the freedom of speech and the press are seen as secondary to racial and religious peace. Any kind of discrimination against any religion is forbidden by the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act. Building a multiethnic community like Singapore, where different religions are practiced, depends on this. 3.⁠ ⁠A clean government: Singapore has implemented a zero-tolerance policy aimed at eradicating corruption from its civil service and government. 4.⁠ ⁠Rule of law: A World Bank analysis indicates that the most important element affecting a nation's development is its legal system. Because Singapore has a strong legal system built on solid governance, everyone is treated equally and fairly there. Businesspeople and investors can feel more confident knowing that their money is in a secure environment thanks to this. 5.⁠ ⁠Inclusiveness: Social justice is important to Singapore's growth plan. All of its people receive government subsidies for public transportation, housing, healthcare, and education, even though it does not want to be known as a welfare state. Singapore's social-economic structure is based on a special fusion of socialist and capitalist principles. 6.⁠ ⁠Care for the environment: Singapore’s commitment to protecting the environment remains vigilant and strong as ever as showcased within their policies. The beauty of this leadership transition lies not just in the change but in the consistency of these values. It's not just about a new face; it’s about the same unwavering ethos that ensures Singapore remains a beacon of governance. What can we learn? True leadership is not about an individual; it's about enduring values. It's about building on a legacy while paving the way for future generations. Lawrence Wong’s ascent is a powerful reminder that while faces may change, the integrity of principles must remain steadfast. What do you think? #Leadership #Governance #Singapore #Values

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