Another Amazing Dreamforce
Dreamforce is always a big deal that seems to get bigger every year. More than 171,000 people attended this year’s event, including 8 Grammy winners and even a former president!
But the focus of Dreamforce is to learn, grow, and network. We did all three, and more! Our breakout and theater sessions were packed with excited and energetic ERP fans, and our related roundtables and get-togethers sparked many thought-provoking conversations. Here’s a quick recap.
Packed Sessions
Rootstock ran three sessions at this year’s Dreamforce. Our breakout session explaining how to “Improve Sales & Operations Planning with Rootstock Cloud ERP + Manufacturing Cloud” was led by our own Chief Revenue Officer, David Stephans. He helped practitioners understand how to create more precise and dependable production, procurement, and distribution plans by combining Rootstock Cloud ERP and Manufacturing Cloud. The session was one of the most popular of the week, with a standing room only crowd of over 60 people packing the venue. You can watch a recording of the session.
Our first theater session, “Manufacturers and Distributors: Where’s the Value in a 360-Degree Customer View?”, was helmed by Stuart Kiely, Vice President of Digital Strategy at Matouk and a Rootstock customer. Stuart explained how more accurate customer insights helps them build more accurate forecasts and production plans. It also helps them provide better customer service, which, in turn, increases sales. The key for manufacturers and distributors, Stuart explained, is to integrate ERP and CRM for that true 360-degree view of customer activities.
Our final theater session, “Optimize Profit Margins (and Administrative Efficiency) of Your Field Service Organization”, was offered by Tom Brennan, our own Chief Marketing Officer. Tom helped attendees understand how they could improve profitability and the financial management of field service teams with Rootstock’s Field Service Lightning Connector. By connecting Salesforce and Rootstock, Tom explained, companies can easily create invoices from work orders in a single click, accurately track part costs, see gross profit by invoice or customer, add more flexible service pricing options, and more.
Sharing Best Practices
It’s hard not to have good conversations when there are 171,000 other people walking around. What makes those conversations great is when they’re focused, open, and allow the exchange of experienced advice. We did our best this year to create networking events dedicated to manufacturing and operations, and based on the feedback we received, attendees loved them!
We participated in two Circles of Success events for manufacturing at Dreamforce 2019. These are small group roundtables focused on industry trends and best practices with interactive discussions between Rootstock customers. The smaller size makes for some fantastic exchanges and meaningful conversations. It’s a nice change of pace from the larger, presentation-style sessions.
We also held our “Unwind” manufacturing networking event at a restaurant near Dreamforce. We had just under 200 people attend, everyone from customers and prospects to Salesforce representatives and Rootstock executives. It was less structured than the Dreamforce sessions, to be sure, but that allowed for some great one-on-one conversations between attendees. Given the smiles we saw and laughter we heard, we’re confident it was enjoyed by one and all!
Our team also participated in the “Finance Demo Jam”. It’s a game show-style event where Salesforce AppExchange partners demonstrate their technology in three minutes in front of a live audience. Although we didn’t win, we did get a lot of great compliments and give our team an A for effort.
More Than Just Work
Dreamforce is always a whirlwind of presentations, events, and humanity. Having that many people in that proximity for an entire week is both stressful and empowering. So many people are doing so many great things in this world, and everyone at Rootstock is excited to be helping streamline, optimize, and accelerate the operations behind many of those efforts.
We’re also proud to take part in an event that has consistently increased its sustainability efforts over the years. In fact, this year Dreamforce saved 9 million gallons of water, offset carbon emissions, and committed to planting 5,000 trees. That’s in addition to the 400 local youth who were hosted at the event and the 50 veterans they sponsored.
Now that it’s all over, we’d love to thank all the customers, partners, and everyone who stopped by our booth or sessions, attended our events, or just offered a smile as we (literally) bumped into you over the course of Dreamforce. We hope to continue the conversations we sparked and trust you were able to gain some value from our sessions and presentations.
Now, have you had a chance to register for Dreamforce 2020 yet? ?
