World Tour Sydney 2023: A Celebration of Customer Companies
The Australian leg of World Tour was held at Sydney’s Darling Harbour on 1 March, 2023. Weren’t able to join? Not to worry — you can relive the day with this rundown of the event’s highlights.
Salesforce Staff
A keynote focused on celebrating our community and customers
World Tour Sydney was back in a big way in 2023.
“This is a special World Tour for me. After everything we have been through over the past couple of years, it’s great to see us all come together as a symbol of partnership and human connection,” said Pip Marlow, CEO & EVP, ANZ/ASEAN at Salesforce.
The event brought together thousands of Trailblazer attendees from Australia, New Zealand and Asia Pacific.
This year’s World Tour theme zeroed in on what it means to be a customer company in 2023, paired with a playbook on how to achieve it.
The keynote began with a warm welcome to country with Gadigal Elder Uncle Allen Madden.
Uncle Allen Madden was followed by Gamilaraay man Mitch Tambo who performed his song Heal. He was later joined on stage by Reigan Derry, where they performed an incredible reinterpretation of Great Southern Land.
Catch up on World Tour Sydney on Salesforce+
Walking the walk: Salesforce values in action
In the last year, we formalised sustainability as one of our values, alongside trust, customer success, innovation and equality.
But what good are values if you can’t back them up? Pip explained that the most important thing for her is seeing those values in action.
She talked through some of the amazing successes Salesforce has seen in Asia Pacific in the last year, including $6.6 million in-region giving, 483,000 in-region volunteer hours and 44 million trees planted.
Another example was World Tour itself. We’ve invested in making all our events more sustainable, and all our events follow a global Event Sustainability Best Practice Guide. In action, this means recycling and reusing our structures which we label “Shiny, Not New” — some items are celebrating their 6th and 7th birthdays this year! The same goes for signage — we’ve used fabric and cardboard signs that have been recycled and our printers are solar-powered and use water-based ink.
But that’s just one value we’re living in our work. During the keynote, Pip also shared an exciting announcement.
“It’s not every day you get to donate 1.4 million dollars,” she said.
The grants will help close the education gap and create career pathways for disadvantaged students and Indigenous Australians, with the funding going to Schools Plus and CareerTrackers. Through our Catalyst Fund, we’ll also be supporting Redfern Youth Connect, Deadly Connections, and Plate it Forward.
Your playbook for becoming a customer company
One thing businesses can be sure of is that their customer expectations are the lowest they’re ever going to be. They’re only going in one direction — upwards, putting pressure on businesses to meet expectations while navigating macroeconomic challenges like climate change, inflation and the rate of technology transformation.
The World Tour Sydney keynote reiterated that the key to thriving is becoming a customer company — putting the customer at the centre of everything you do.
Pip was joined by Rowena Westphalen, SVP Solutions ANZ & ASEAN, Leandro Perez, VP & CMO Asia Pacific, and Taksina Eammano, EVP & GM Field Service to discuss how Trailblazers can become customer companies. Together, they covered the Customer Company Playbook and charted how companies can:
- Create a Customer 360
- Build apps and automate now
- See and understand your customers
- Get fast time to value
- Succeed now
To put this playbook in context, Leandro and Taksina walked us through how R.M.Williams and Formula 1 have created truly tailored and delightful customer experiences using Salesforce.
“Every organisation in the room — you’re why we create a playbook like this. So you can do a great job for your customers,” said Pip.
A celebration of Trailblazers
We also heard from Anne Fitisemanu, CEO of TupaToa who was announced as this year’s golden hoodie recipient.
TupaToa is a not-for-profit that works to increase Māori and Pacific representation in leadership. In New Zealand, these groups make up a combined 25% of the population.
“The opportunity in the digital economy for Māori and Pacific communities is huge. If you can take someone from a factory floor into a job in the Salesforce ecosystem over a period of twelve weeks — it’s unbelievable.”
Anne shared a Māori proverb that translated to: “Success doesn’t come from one, it comes from many.”
“Whether you’re an executive or are early in your career; you’re all leaders. It’s up to you to choose wherever you are. Be brave, be bold,” said Anne.
“If you’re struggling or if you’re scared — find somebody that does know how to help and partner with them.”
Collaboration and connection at our campground
After the keynote presentation, we were able to see some of our Trailblazer community’s achievements in action.
Take R.M.Williams, who have placed their customers at the core of everything they do. The company delivers value to its customers at every stage of their purchasing journey; for example with tailored notifications about the leather that’s being used to make their boots and useful information on how to care for their purchases.
By taking this customer-first approach, they’ve seen amazing rewards, including a 42% reduction in phone calls and +176% increase in order value from email campaigns.
Those wanting to learn more about R.M.Williams’ work (a.k.a everyone) could meet some farmers (whip and all) at the Salesforce Campground. And that was just one exciting activity you could find at World Tour. Formula 1 really fuelled the excitement with an F1 simulator and its Race Around World Tour, which saw participants visit four pitstops for their chance to win Formula 1 tickets.
And after our community learned about Australia’s most fashionable boots and tried their hands at professional race car driving, they could visit the Good360 zone to pack bags of toiletries and household goods to be later distributed to people in need.
In our minds, all companies need to be customer companies — especially in periods of instability. Or, put another way:
“Ships were not built to stay in the harbour. Ships were made for the voyage. Staying in the harbour is safe, but that’s not what we’re made for,” said Pip.
“Challenges are out there, and customer expectations are rising. But that’s why we’re all here. World Tour is about being on the voyage, and we’re letting you know that we’re here to go on that voyage with you.”
Couldn’t join World Tour Sydney 2023 or want to watch the sessions again?
Head over to Salesforce+.
