The rapid pace of digital transformation is fueling massive growth in cloud technologies. According to this year’s IDC Salesforce Economy Study, Salesforce and its global ecosystem of partners will create $1.6 trillion in new business revenues and add 9.3 million new jobs by 2026.
Of course, making the most of this significant opportunity requires equipping people with the skills they need to succeed in the future workforce.
Salesforce has made it its mission to not only create the jobs of tomorrow, but to empower people to thrive in a digital-first world. We sat down with Kris Lande, SVP of Salesforce’s Trailblazer Ecosystem, to find out how the company is providing people of all backgrounds with tools to innovate and unlock career opportunities.
Q. What’s driving the steep demand for Salesforce-skilled employees?
For the past year and a half, organizations have tried to figure out how to rapidly achieve digital transformation across sales, service, marketing, and other industries. As the economy and workforce continue to evolve, Salesforce’s products and technology are more relevant than ever in helping businesses grow and thrive in a digital-first world.
Companies now need people with the skills to digitize processes, deploy machine learning, build chatbots that provide efficient service, use technology to safely get workers back to the office, and more.
Q. How is Salesforce preparing people for the 9.3 million new jobs that will emerge by 2026?
For Salesforce, it’s not only about creating new technology and career opportunities; we have to pave pathways to these new jobs. We’ve made it our mission to empower people with the tools they need to build dynamic careers, companies, and communities with Salesforce, and thrive in a digital-first world.
We have four unique avenues for doing this. First is the Salesforce platform itself, which is incredibly approachable and easy to learn and use — no tech background needed.
“We’ve made it our mission to empower people with the tools they need to build dynamic careers, companies, and communities with Salesforce, and thrive in a digital-first world.”
Kris Lande, SVP Trailblazer Ecosystem, Salesforce
Second, our Trailblazer Community is an amazing network of millions of people who help each other along the journey of learning and succeeding with Salesforce. Incredibly supportive and free to join, the Trailblazer Community offers an online platform to connect from anywhere, as well as more than 1,300 active regional and interest-based groups around the world. Members share their knowledge, learn from experts and cheer each other on as they gain new skills and transform their careers and companies. As the Trailblazer Community continues to grow, it has become a vital tool for anyone looking to succeed in the Salesforce ecosystem. In fact, three in five Trailblazers credit their community participation with helping them get a new job or promotion.
Next is Trailhead, our free online learning platform that allows people to learn from anywhere and earn globally recognized credentials that help them excel in roles across the Salesforce ecosystem. To date, Trailhead has helped nearly 3.5 million people learn new skills for the future of work.
Finally, there is the Salesforce AppExchange. According to IDC, for every $1 Salesforce makes by 2026, its partner ecosystem will see $6.19 in gains. AppExchange is a marketplace of enterprise cloud tools that help people solve business challenges and extend their use of the platform. It helps anyone earn income and even build entire companies by sharing solutions that others find valuable.
Q. Salesforce is expanding career paths on Trailhead for roles in three new fields: Marketer, Sales, and Designer. Can you tell us a bit more about them?
There are many ways to succeed in the Salesforce ecosystem beyond technical roles —actually, non-technical roles are some of the fastest-growing fields today. With the new career paths, we’re providing guided entry points that help anyone to succeed in these careers.
The new Marketer Career Path includes lessons in demand generation, email marketing, marketing analytics, CMO leadership, and other essential skills to help marketers be drivers of a company’s digital transformation and long-term success.
“With the new career paths, we’re providing guided entry points that help anyone to succeed in these careers.”
Kris Lande, SVP Trailblazer Ecosystem, Salesforce
The Sales Career Path prepares people to be digital sales professionals, with lessons on soft skills and core sales tasks, including prospecting, pipeline management, making sales calls, closing deals, analyzing data, strategy creation, and team management.
The Designer Career Path helps Trailblazers in any role in the Salesforce ecosystem to add skills in user experience design to their portfolio.
These new career paths give people more opportunities to join the Salesforce ecosystem and take advantage of the 9.3 million jobs on the horizon.
Q. Can you share some examples of Trailblazer success?
Krystal Carter is a great example.
She started using Salesforce 16 years ago as a marketing administrator and project coordinator for a medical waste management company in Houston. She didn’t have a tech background when her boss asked her to learn the Salesforce platform, but Krystal jokes that, “it was love at first login.”
Krystal customized Salesforce to fit her company’s needs and created an in-house training program. She kept advancing her career until she became vice president at a multinational financial consulting firm. Now, she has founded her own 25-person consulting company specializing in Salesforce — and she’s mentoring students and other Black women building careers in tech.
Jesse Grothaus is another example of someone who was new to technology, excelled on the Salesforce platform, built a business based on it, and is now giving back. Jesse, who is a veteran, was recovering from a car accident and traumatic brain injury when his doctor advised him to learn new skills. He used Trailhead to learn to code and is now running a Salesforce consulting firm that employs other veterans, as well as donating his skills to a nonprofit.
Q. Looking ahead, what are you most excited about?
I’m excited by the fact that the Salesforce ecosystem is one our Trailblazers can grow with for life. We’ve seen people who have built careers based on Salesforce for the last 20 years, and they can continue doing so for the next 20 years.
“We’ve seen people who have built careers based on Salesforce for the last 20 years, and they can continue doing so for the next 20 years.”
Kris Lande, SVP Trailblazer Ecosystem, Salesforce
The technology is never going to be stagnant — just look at our recent acquisitions of Slack and Tableau — and there are always going to be new directions to explore. The innovation is endless, so the career possibilities and opportunities to build new businesses on the platform are endless too.
More information
- Tune into Dreamforce 2021 from September 21-23, 2021.
- Learn more about the Trailblazer Community here.
- Download a full copy of the IDC White Paper, “The Salesforce Economy in the Next Six Years” and see here for a deep dive of the findings from IDC’s White Paper with Tableau.
IDC White Paper, sponsored by Salesforce, “The Salesforce Economic Impact,” doc #US48214821, September 20, 2021.
