How to Accurately Forecast Sales

Salesforce is now the 7th most in-demand software skill. With almost every industry using the platform, it is exciting to look at previous trends to help us to predict the future. So what does 2018 hold for Salesforce’s customers and SFDC professionals in the market?

Here are the top 6 Salesforce predictions for 2018:

1. Demand will increase

Salesforce has gone from strength to strength since being founded. With new products being introduced and advancements in the platform, this will no doubt continue into 2018.

As always the demand from the market is really high for: Developers who can build on and around existing Salesforce platforms, Salesforce Administrators, Project Managers with Salesforce experience and Architects.

There is also likely to be a peak in demand for architects and solutions designers that specialise in customizing and enhancing the platform to specific need.

2. Marketing Cloud will become even bigger

The rise of the Marketing Cloud and Salesforce pushing this hard, is seeing increased adoption across the Salesforce ecosystem, particularly in the UK who are some way behind the US. This will now lead to an increased demand for skills and expertise within this niche. The early winners here are the independent and SME Marketing Automation Consultancies, who are capitalizing on a lack of resource.

3. Lightning Experience will be adopted more widely

Salesforce’s new desktop app, Lightning Experience, is currently growing in popularity amongst new customers. There are many positive reasons why this app is great to use, not to mention aggressively competitive pricing, therefore this makes it more likely that existing customers will choose to make the switch too, rather than it just being rolled out as new customers subscribe. This is an exciting prediction for the developers of the software, and is certain to bring with it a demand for further development.

The early adopters of Lightning are now beginning to realise some benefits.  It is probably fair to say that it has been slow to get off the ground, but now that Salesforce themselves are pushing it hard, it is only likely to gather pace. In fact there has been a 80% increase in the number of roles requiring Lightening experience this year, and this growth is likely to continue.

4. Code changes ensure internal need

The original Salesforce/Force.com platform required the utilisation of Apex and Visualforce. Instead the current off the shelf product requires more advanced declarative tools. This inevitably leads to great opportunities for contractors in the short term. However, companies are now recognizing that they need the coding expertise more permanently in-house. It is also becoming commonplace for companies to assist employees with the Certification costs in order for them to retain these skills in-house.

5. Big Data and IoT are now firm considerations.

The demands for integration of Salesforce to general data science and big data abilities is high. This is especially the case where the integration leads to greater automation. For example, in terms of Service Cloud for customer service tasks and Marketing Cloud for predictive and targeted marketing.

Big Data is now the fastest growing investment by firms globally.  So the demand for Salesforce developers who can provide customized CRM tools to specific categories of businesses is high.
At DreamForce, Salesforce announced that they would be getting into the healthcare industry, utilizing IoT, outlining its Health Cloud. It is likely that this will spread to other industries too as IoT is a hot topic in itself.  Making 2018 a year where IoT and Salesforce are important.  Developers who can understand this will be ahead of the game.

6. Mobile is still important

Salesforce was one of the first CRM providers to put their product onto a mobile platform. The numerous apps that are in the suite are relatively well-established in larger organisations, but it is likely that they will be heavily marketed to the SME market. This affords developers greater opportunities and necessitates the need for business to look at sustainable growth.

As The Salesforce Gold Partner in Luxembourg and with the changes and challenges expected to go into 2018, UpCRM is well placed to support organizations looking to implement Salesforce solutions with the very best developers.

Top 6 Predictions >