Is Anyone Else Feeling Headless? (An Open Letter To Salesforce)
I promise this is not another opinion piece about Headless 360 (no scope).
Mainly because I genuinely do not know what to think, or what it even is trying to be, since it was released like a minute ago.
In general, despite 12+ years of being involved in this ecosystem, I have never felt less clear about the direction (heading?) of this ecosystem.
- Not because I am not confident in my Salesforce skills.
- Not because I am not confident about the value of the Salesforce platform for my clients.
- Not because I am not aware that AI in general is bringing a lot of improvement to business technology and is worth investing in.
But because I have never been less confident in the leadership of Salesforce!
It feels like the company has gone Headless...
Why do I feel that way?
Without even going back to the well of Benioff's political switch up and public gaffes, I genuinely do not believe he is leading from the front.
He seems to be in his own bubble and appears to be managing the business like an amateur puppeteer with too much money and no passion for client success.
Every wannabe entrepreneur starts thinking of cool features and amazing products before even considering if anyone actually wants the crap he is building.
You can go to r/entrepreneur and daily find people with this same mindset.
There was a time where Salesforce leadership was tuned into their userbase, listened to its partners and trailblazers, and did its best to co-build the product for them.
Today?
It feels like they are throwing billions at 3rd parties for acquisitions and focusing on rebranding the rebrand of a rebrand only to end up 360 degrees where they started.
Wasting millions on developing Agentforce 3.0 before anyone in the real world even had a chance to say if 1.0 brought any business value.
Why does this suck for all of us?
From the real world experience I am seeing with my clients, this rapid hay-in-front-the-horse approach of development has created real confusion and frustration among customers.
As an example:
- A year ago, one of my clients upgraded to Einstein 1. A few months after that, Salesforce released Agentforce 1, and eliminated Einstein 1.
- My client has faced numerous license allocation issues because even the Salesforce team is not 100% clear on what feature comes with which edition.
- Functionality that used to work with Einstein 1 no longer works and is hidden behind Agentforce 1 at a further price increase (eg. the internal agent no longer can query knowledge articles without flex credits which Einstein 1 does not have)
This type of symptom is not a problem of technology. This is not a gap in capability. This is a no-f###s-given reality of building faster than you can deploy.
Tripping over your own untied shoelace.
A symptom of distracted and unfocused leadership.
And it is exactly these types of choices that will further isolate clients who grow tired of the zero-sum game, push those of us who give guidance to clients about their investment in technology to suggest alternatives, and eventually eliminate Salesforce's market leadership position in the world of CRM.
If the last 2 years showed that Salesforce as a corporation (NYSE:CRM) was in a strong position, I would accept all of this as "they clearly know something I don't" but even that is clearly not the case.
So what can we do?
If you are a client of Salesforce, you can speak with your wallet like many companies I know are doing. Look for where the real value is for your business.
If you are a consultant, become more platform agnostic. This is what I am striving to do more of. Look for where the real value is for your clients.
If you are a trailblazer, expand your horizons and broaden what you learn. Look for where the real value is for your career.
What have I missed? What is your opinion? What more can we do to see a return to clear market leadership for Salesforce?