Salesforce’s Bret Taylor on the Future of Health and the Intersection of Technology

At Collision Conference, Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor joined Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan in a fireside chat moderated by Insider’s Alyson Shontell. The discussion focused on how the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation in healthcare, how tech has played a critical role in vaccine distribution and managing the pandemic, and the future of telemedicine.

Why it matters

Technology has an enormous opportunity to advance medicine, the patient experience and speed of treatments in the all-digital world. Companies of all sizes need to be agile and operate with speed, and the healthcare industry is no exception. Novartis, a Salesforce customer, is leading the way with advanced technologies like AI, data science and innovative ways of reaching customers around the world.

What they’re saying

• “How do we structurally set ourselves up to be more agile in the face of a dramatic unforeseen event? Technology plays a really big part of it. It’s less about thinking of technology as a project that you deploy and it’s done, but thinking about technology as platforms you set up to make your company more resilient.” – Bret Taylor, President and COO, Salesforce
• “We work with Salesforce on our operations to seamlessly reach our customers, even through virtual means. There’s a maturation happening [with technology] and I would expect to see more of that, the collision between tech and healthcare in the years to come.” – Vas Narasimhan, CEO, Novartis

What else is happening?

Also at Collision this week, Salesforce Ventures Managing Partner Matt Garratt joined a roundtable on how digital transformation is critical to success, and what VCs are seeing in the market. And, Claudine Emmett, Senior Director, Impact Fund, will host an investor roundtable to discuss the future of Impact Investing.