Latest news with #customercentricity
Khaleej Times
13-06-2025
- Business
- Khaleej Times
Leading the Charge in AI-Powered CRM: How Salesforce Is Shaping the Digital Future of the Middle East
Mohammed Alkhotani shares how innovation and a people-first approach are transforming businesses across the region It's not often that you meet a business leader who speaks about digital transformation with the ease of someone recalling a personal journey. For Mohammed Alkhotani, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Middle East at Salesforce, that journey is very much a present-day reality - one defined by innovation, bold regional expansion, and a deep commitment to customer-centricity. Over the past two decades, Salesforce has evolved from a cloud pioneer into a global CRM powerhouse. But Alkhotani believes the company's long-term success rests on two enduring principles: innovation and quality. "Salesforce essentially pioneered the Software as a Service (SaaS) model," he says. "Back in the mid-2000s, we were among the very first to deliver a complete, end-to-end SaaS system and that foundational innovation gave us a significant early advantage." From that launchpad, Salesforce built a platform designed for rapid deployment, seamless customisation, and faster time-to-value. The SaaS model allowed businesses to scale quickly and flexibly - something that's now a critical requirement in today's fast-moving digital economy. Staying Ahead with AI-Powered Innovation What sets Salesforce apart today is its unwavering commitment to staying ahead of the curve. 'Innovation has always been at the heart of everything we do,' Alkhotani explains. "We lead the market in introducing new features and adapting to evolving business needs, both globally and locally." A standout example is ' Agentforce', which he describes as "the first AI-powered digital labour solution in the SaaS world." Deployed across sectors - from call centres to online service assistants, Agentforce is helping businesses reduce reliance on human intervention for repetitive tasks while boosting overall productivity. Aligning with a Digital-First Global Vision Salesforce's long-term strategy aligns seamlessly with the world's shift to a digital-first workforce, particularly in high-expectation regions like the GCC. "Customers today expect services to be delivered in minutes, not days," Alkhotani notes. "If governments can process applications almost instantly, the private sector is under pressure to keep up." But while expectations soar, human capacity remains stretched. Studies show nearly 41% of daily tasksare low-value - things like answering phones or handling simple lead generation. "These are the tasks digital agents can manage effectively," he says. "Our job is to help organizations offload repetitive work to AI, so their people can focus on more strategic, impactful roles. It's about making work more meaningful and more efficient." Putting Customer Success First For Salesforce, product development is driven not by guesswork, but by real-world feedback. "Everything starts with listening," Alkhotani shares. "Our user groups and customer communities are essential. Their insights go directly into our product roadmaps." This approach has paid off. The company consistently ranks high in customer satisfaction across markets. "Here in the UAE, customers are even willing to pay more up to 75–80% for a better experience," he adds. "And we're committed to delivering on that promise." A Business Platform for Change Beyond product innovation, Salesforce takes its role as a responsible corporate citizen seriously with sustainability and social impact embedded in its DNA. "They're not just values - they're core to who we are," says Alkhotani. "Even our canteen suppliers must meet strict sustainability standards." Since joining four months ago, Alkhotani has led multiple community initiatives. During Ramadan, the Salesforce UAE team organised a charity Iftar, providing over 5,200 meals to workers. The next day, they visited a school for children with special needs, engaging with students through art and creative activities. "CSR isn't an annual checkbox," he says. "It's a monthly commitment. It keeps us grounded and connected. Rethinking AI While AI adoption is accelerating in the region, Alkhotani urges companies to rethink their approach. "I see a lot of bottom-up strategies where businesses start by investing in models or infrastructure, but don't define their use cases," he explains. "That's backwards." Instead, Salesforce recommends a top-down, purpose-driven AI strategy: begin with the business need, identify pain points, and only then build the tech to support the solution. "Before spending on AI, ask yourself why," Alkhotani advises. "Start with the outcome. That's how you unlock real value." Salesforce's Agentforce, an autonomous AI application that provides specialised, always-on support to employees or customers, is at the centre of its AI strategy and Alkhotani is clearly excited about its impact. "We're not just pushing data or technology. We explore specific, high-impact use cases with our clients," he says. From predicting customer drop-off in real-time to identifying cross-sell opportunities in complex conglomerates, Agentforce uses existing customer data to recommend the next best action, making engagement smarter and more effective. "It helps employees become more knowledgeable and proactive," he says. "It sits on top of your systems as a digital agent, service rep, or business development tool - all in one." And it's fully compatible with any existing AI investments or large language models businesses might already have. Deepening Regional Roots Salesforce's commitment to the Middle East goes far beyond product deployment. "We recently opened our regional headquarters in Riyadh and launched new data centres in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia," Alkhotani shares. The company is also nurturing local talent through partnerships with educational institutions, including Princess Nourah University in Saudi Arabia, to develop digital skills aligned with market needs. Salesforce has also launched a Middle East Innovation Center with IBM, reinforcing its goal of building a self-sustaining regional ecosystem of tech innovation. "We're not here to make promises, we're here to deliver," Alkhotani says with conviction. "Every quarter, we're seeing real results. And we're just getting started."
Finextra
22-05-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Temenos Community Forum welcomes an era of innovation, customer centricity and agentic tools
Temenos CEO Jean-Pierre Brulard opened this year's Temenos Community Forum (TCF), in Madrid, Spain, with an impassioned speech focused on customer and partner gratitude. 0 This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. Contextualising the scope of the payments landscape and its desire to innovate, Brulard explained that the plenary hall contained 1000 people from 90 countries. Against the backdrop of 347 go-live projects, he went on to list some of the key points of celebration across different continents - mostly the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Importantly, whilst assisted and enabled by Temenos, Brulard made sure to congratulate the customer implementation. Backing up their increased focus on customer centricity, Brulard described his 45,000 miles of travel on what he termed as his 'Listening & Learning Tour' where he directly gathered feedback from existing customers and partners. This feedback, he explained, was broken down into four key challenges: Growth via differentiation and technology; Improvement of customer centricity across multi-channel methodologies; Operational efficiencies; and Risk and compliance. In response, Brulard said: "These challenges were existing already last year. They are not new. This year, you are facing a new one: macroeconomic uncertainty. In times of uncertainty, you have two options: one is to wait and see and to postpone your investment, and the second one is really to focus your investment on what really matters, which is technology. As we have seen in the past, during different times of crisis and uncertainty, the banks that have invested in technology not only perform better, but widen the gap with the others." Following this and reiterating Temenos solutions being co-designed by the customer through implemented feedback, Brulard unveiled the provider's mission statement, tagline and an accompanying video. The tagline summarises all of these elements neatly: Leading Banking Forward. Concluding his session, Brulard said: "It is not only our journey, it is our collective purpose as a community to lead banking forward. You are not in this room by coincidence, you are here because you have shown leadership." Leveraging AI: building less, building better Barb Morgan, chief product and technology officer, unveiled several generative AI and agentic AI developments. Morgan started, in some sense, where Brulard finished: re-establishing the importance of banking on society and with the contributions of customers: "We didn't create this mission in a boardroom: we shaped it with you, with our customers, our partners, and our people. It's grounded in the fact that banking isn't standing still and neither are we. To me, leading banking forward is more than a mission, it's a commitment, it's a call to action because what we do has foundational impacts on economies, on businesses and on peoples' lives. [...] Now my job is to make it real." Morgan later described a story of a mother whose house had been lost during a tornado in the US and had been helped by a local banker. While it was an emotive story, it also emphasised the impact banks have. Before unveiling Temenos' GenAI Copilot tool, a full customer rollout of an internally developed tool, Morgan explained that the intention is to build less but build better, reiterating the motto of "listening to lead." This was later demonstrated by a theatrical performance of a typical use case. A fictional customer spoke to the audience through the copilot tool, which was embedded into Microsoft Teams and assisted them with applying overdraft limits and interest rates on an account. Morgan also announced two other developments: the Temenos AI Studio and FCM AI Agent. Discussing their AI Studio, she said: "In the past, we would have conversations with our customers and they'd tell us what they need us to build and we'd say okay. Now we're going to have those conversations, we're gonna bring our expertise and impact, but if you need anything specific to you, we're also going to provide our AI Studio so that you have the ability to develop, customise, deploy and monitor your own models. We'll preload it with banking modules that you can start from, we'll provide training and support that then allow you to build those for yourselves.' Lastly, when announcing the FCM AI Agent, she described it as a training solution that focuses on compliance, risk, and financial crime. This agent, Morgan explained, is not just an AI solution that provides clarity, intelligence and security insight but that it is also "the first solution of its kind to receive regulatory acceptance for explainable reason and sanctioned screening." Increasing innovation and systemising service During an announcement-packed first day of the conference, there was also a discussion from Temenos CRO, Will Moroney, who explained how their service delivery is systemised and collaborated on in such a manner that their team is not just the 750 colleagues, but also the 8000 people within their partnerships. This message was backed up by a belief that if, when visiting product management offices, Moroney could not "determine who the Temenos person is, that is the definition of success." During the rest of the day, there were more discussions around innovation and the purposeful usage of generative AI and agentic AI. These took the form of a case study conversation with Paul Weiss, CTO, Regions Bank; Marnix Tummers, IT director, wealth management, ABN AMRO; and a keynote from Christian Saredis, chief executive, EMEA Financial Services, Microsoft. The first day of TCF can be summarised in tone, quite succinctly, by an Oren Harari quote referenced by Saredis: "The electric light didn't come from the continuous improvement of the candle."
