“Oh wow — so this actually does work.”
It’s a response Shreeya Rashinkar hears typically nowadays. As world head of presales at Tech Mahindra and a veteran Trailblazer, she’s been main digital transformation tasks for greater than 18 years, partnering with Salesforce clients to show legacy processes into new, smarter methods of working. At the moment, she leads the cost on all issues Agentforce, serving to world telcos launch manufacturing AI brokers that deal with every thing from billing and HR to customer support and gross sales.
We sat down with Shreeya to speak about her strategy to alter administration, the highest classes she’s realized from launching Agentforce tasks, and her ardour for empowering the subsequent era of Trailblazers.
What made you select the Salesforce ecosystem as a profession path?
I feel I used to be destined to do Salesforce. I began my profession with Siebel CRM after which transitioned into transformation packages. Whereas managing a undertaking that was Oracle-heavy with a Salesforce CRM on high, we took over from a system implementer. That complete undertaking got here beneath me, and I used to be thrown proper into the deep finish. At the moment, I didn’t learn about issues like Apex governor limits, however I needed to get my palms soiled to repair lots of points and get the undertaking to a profitable state. It was a superb expertise that taught me lots.
What does a typical day appear like for you as a worldwide head of presales at Tech Mahindra?
I head world presales and options for our telco clients at Tech Mahindra and I lead all our AI initiatives throughout varied verticals on Salesforce platforms. On a typical day, my job contains speaking to our telco clients and serving to them get essentially the most worth from their Salesforce investments. There’s at all times new options and upgrades and lots of customizations in these techniques and since I perceive learn how to get the perfect worth out of it, I act because the buyer’s ally and go-to individual for steerage and finest practices.
I additionally handle RFIs and RFPs for digital transformation, managed companies, and vendor consolidation tasks. To do this successfully, it’s essential for me to grasp all of the merchandise, from Advertising Cloud to Communications Cloud, and the way they will help our clients.
What are a number of the largest challenges your clients face that you just assist clear up with Salesforce?
I include virtually 18 years {of professional} expertise, beginning as a developer on Siebel CRM earlier than transferring to Salesforce. On the telco facet of the world, the merchandise themselves are actually complicated. We’re speaking about web connectivity, broadband companies, OTT companies, and cell companies. The problem is making certain that Salesforce can act as a strong orchestration engine to handle issues like order success, dynamic pricing, and contract rollouts.
The telecommunications trade is complicated due to the sheer quantity of orders now we have throughout B2B and B2C. It’s a really attention-grabbing space to be in due to the complexity of techniques and integrations on the BSS and OSS stacks.
How has the emergence of agentic AI modified the best way you strategy these challenges?
This can be a essential query. I just lately had the chance to showcase our Agentforce go-to-market answer, which we particularly designed for telcos, to our Tech Mahindra board. I used to be very excited to indicate them how AI might slot in and the way the story truly differs for every buyer.
It’s essential to carry clients alongside on this journey from predictive to generative AI, from chatbots to AI brokers. A chatbot is one thing with a predefined set of directions — you possibly can solely do as a lot as you’ve configured. Agentic AI, however, is designed to be obtainable 24/7. It doesn’t must be pre-configured for each nook situation — it could mechanically take actions and resolve what to do subsequent.
Throughout one in every of our discussions somebody threw out a hypothetical situation for our AI Agent: “I disconnected my cell companies like two months in the past, however why am I nonetheless getting billed for it?” The agentic AI understood that the shopper sentiment was adverse. It went forward and mechanically created a case within the system with the precise sort, subtype, and precedence. We even had a Slack agent that will create a particular channel, saying, “This is a vital buyer, they’re sad, handle it instantly.” This labored flawlessly and was very convincing.
How have clients been reacting to Agentforce?
Most clients are initially skeptical, so it takes lots of groundwork to persuade them to go to the subsequent degree. Throughout our preliminary demos, we’ve heard reactions like, “Oh wow, so this actually does work.” That was the start line the place we knew clients have been getting . A problem we’re seeing presently is that most of the giant telco enterprises have their very own LLMs, in order that’s actually the place it turns into much more essential to speak about all of the native capabilities inside Salesforce and the benefits of constructing with Information Cloud. We’re seeing lots of pleasure with Service brokers. In manufacturing, we’ve seen not less than 30 to 40% name deflection to date.
As a Salesforce veteran, how do you keep present and upskill your self with these new applied sciences?
I at all times attempt to take a hands-on strategy. With generative AI, for the final two years, I made positive I wasn’t simply studying about it, however I used to be truly doing it. That makes all of the distinction. As a result of I come from a presales and gross sales background, I’ve to persuade myself first earlier than I can persuade a buyer. That’s why I’m at all times upskilling myself, utilizing sources just like the companion pocket information and the Easy Demo Orgs (SDOs), the place you possibly can attempt no matter you need.
Initially, this was a private ambition, however then I spotted the ability of this expertise. I did lots of enablement classes internally inside Tech Mahindra, the place now we have greater than 2,500 associates devoted to Salesforce. I assumed it was essential to percolate this data to a wider viewers. We additionally held a “Precursor to AI Now” occasion throughout our Tech Mahindra campuses of Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bengaluru together with the native trailblazer communities and a particular “AI Now” tour occasion with Salesforce at our Hyderabad campus. These occasions are designed to construct extra consciousness and fluency round issues like Information Cloud, immediate engineering, and brokers. On account of these initiatives, now we have greater than 1,000 people who find themselves already AI Affiliate (1100+) and AI Specialist (400+) licensed.
What’s your largest piece of recommendation for somebody simply beginning out with Agentforce?
My recommendation is to at all times hold your viewers’s distinctive context in thoughts. If an individual is working as a developer, you must speak to them in regards to the instruments that talk to their degree of technical depth, like Movement. That’s the place they’ll see the worth of it. In the event you can cater to your audiences with the precise use circumstances, you will get them to be part of the entire AI ecosystem. Now that the Developer Editions can be found, there may be completely no motive why any individual shouldn’t be studying about Agentforce.
What has stunned you essentially the most about working with Agentforce?
I’m most stunned by how shortly the product is evolving. Once I’m utilizing the SDO orgs, I get to see the every day updates earlier than they’re publicly launched. For instance, I used to be in a position to check out the gross sales coach agent earlier than it formally got here out. The product groups have a tremendous imaginative and prescient and an in depth plan for what’s subsequent.
I’m wanting ahead to making an attempt new options just like the voice half, which I haven’t achieved but, and the multimodal performance, which now we have already put a use case round. I’m additionally excited to discover MCP and the way that may redefine the best way we will speak to exterior techniques like fee gateways.
How do you strategy change administration and persuade clients that AI gained’t change their workforce?
This can be a quite common concern. I used to be as soon as presenting to a B2C buyer who requested me, “We perceive the nice a part of AI, but when our groups grow to be extra environment friendly, how do I make the most of them now? I can’t allow them to go.”
My response was that AI doesn’t change folks — it empowers them. With the time they’ve gained again, they will deal with extra strategic work. They will sort out the huge technical debt from years of customizations, create new enterprise roadmaps, and proactively improve the system with new options from Salesforce’s releases. AI eases their workload, permitting them to do a greater job at making certain the system is extra scalable and secure. This strategy satisfied that buyer they usually’re now together with Agentforce of their new service rollout.
What do you get pleasure from doing in your free time?
I attempt to calm down. Due to all the continual conferences and issues occurring in our every day lives, we don’t at all times pause. So I attempt to calm down a bit, and I get pleasure from somewhat little bit of studying and meditation.
Shreeya’s high 3 Agentforce learnings
- Testing is paramount. Since agentic AI will not be predictable, you have to do lots of testing. We presently use spot checks and have a number of folks placing brokers by means of their paces to search out nook situations. This can be a key studying we’ve taken to verify the agent is powerful.
- Outline clear directions. We’ve seen that if there are a number of folks utilizing the agent in parallel, it typically doesn’t give the precise solutions or does issues it’s not purported to do. We’re nonetheless getting the cling of this by ensuring the subjects and directions we’re defining are very clear.
- Select the precise ROI-driven use circumstances. We now have to resolve whether or not a standard automation would work versus whether or not we actually want agentic AI to do a process. Since Agentforce comes with its personal price, now we have to verify the use circumstances we automate are really creating a big ROI for the shopper. Folks will query, “Why do we want one thing so expensive after we can do the identical job with some Python code?”
Need to meet extra Agentblazers like Shreeya?
Test again quickly for extra tales and be part of the group for the most recent Agentforce content material.
