Salesforce's Zero Copy Partner Network: Empowering Companies to Harness the Full Potential of Their Data

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Salesforce's Zero Copy Partner Network: Empowering Companies to Harness the Full Potential of Their Data

Salesforce recently announced the launch of its Zero Copy Partner Network, a global ecosystem of technology and solution providers building secure, bidirectional zero copy integrations with Salesforce Data Cloud. This network empowers companies to connect and take action on all their data across the Salesforce platform, creating a foundation for AI-powered customer experiences. As a Salesforce implementation partner focused on the financial services industry, Vantage Point believes this is a pivotal moment for our clients looking to maximize the value of their data.

What is the Zero Copy Partner Network?

The Zero Copy Partner Network includes initial partners Amazon Web Services (AWS), Databricks, Google Cloud, Snowflake, and Microsoft. All are committed to enabling zero copy integrations with Salesforce Data Cloud, giving customers a secure and cost-effective way to connect and act on their data.

Traditional methods of integrating data from external systems into Salesforce, such as reverse ETL pipelines, are costly and brittle. Companies have to build and maintain the connections and then reconcile data changes over time. Zero copy integration eliminates this, allowing teams to access live data from where it resides, either through queries or by virtually accessing files. When source data changes, it's immediately updated everywhere.

The network also introduces new zero copy support for data warehouses and lakehouses built on open table formats like Apache Iceberg. This removes the need to copy or move data, enabling customers to harness their data and power Customer 360 experiences with AI, automation, and analytics.

Additionally, Salesforce ISV partners are building new Zero Copy Data Kits to bring valuable datasets into Data Cloud. The expansive partner ecosystem makes it easy for companies to maximize the potential of their data with Salesforce.

Why Zero Copy Integration Matters

Today, 80% of business leaders struggle with data silos and fragmentation. Only 28% of applications are connected. This makes it extremely difficult to understand the complete customer journey and deliver personalized experiences.

Zero copy integration changes the game by allowing businesses to:

  1. Access live external data without copying or reverse ETL
  2. Act on data from anywhere in the flow of work
  3. Share Customer 360 insights back to source systems with no additional copies
  4. Maintain data governance and security since data stays in its original location
  5. Ground generative AI with unified business data connected through the Einstein Trust Layer

For financial services firms, this is especially impactful. Banks, Insurers, REITS, and Wealth and Asset Management firms have vast amounts of sensitive customer data spread across siloed systems. Trying to bring that data together to power omni-channel experiences and AI use cases has traditionally required complex data pipelines and raised security and compliance concerns.

With zero copy, financial institutions can leave data in source systems and avoid creating redundant copies. Data lineage is preserved, and access can be centrally controlled. Sensitive PII can be virtually integrated to power use cases without physically moving. Customer 360 insights can be shared back to data warehouses and lakes to enrich other applications. The Einstein Trust Layer makes it easy to connect both structured and unstructured data to ground generative AI without tuning foundation models.

This enables exciting use cases like:

  • Predicting customer churn risk by virtually integrating behavioral data from a Redshift data warehouse with CRM data
  • Powering next-best-action recommendations in online banking by connecting real-time clickstream data from Snowflake
  • Generating hyper-personalized offers and content by integrating product usage data from a Databricks lakehouse
  • Automating wealth management insights by connecting decades of investment data from an Iceberg-based data lake

The possibilities are endless. By making it radically simpler to connect data and preserve its integrity, zero copy integration helps financial services firms accelerate time-to-value for AI/analytics initiatives while ensuring security and compliance.

Our Perspective

As a Salesforce implementation partner specializing in financial services, we see the Zero Copy Partner Network as a major step forward for our clients. Data integration is consistently one of the top challenges our clients face when trying to implement Customer 360 initiatives and AI use cases.

Physically moving and replicating data introduces complexity, cost, security risks, and data drift. Clients struggle to get a unified view of customers and often can't fully leverage AI due to disconnected data silos. We've seen Customer 360 projects delayed by months or years because of data challenges.

Zero copy integration helps solve this by making secure data virtualization the new standard. Financial institutions can integrate data 5-10x faster without having to physically move it. Customer 360 use cases that were previously impractical due to security concerns, like integrating sensitive PII, are now achievable. Generative AI becomes much more accessible by enabling companies to easily ground foundation models with their own data through the Einstein Trust Layer.

We are already seeing examples of clients looking to take advantage of zero copy integration. One insurer is in the early stages of integrating decades of claims data from an Amazon S3 data lake to enable AI-driven fraud detection. We expect to see a wave of innovation as more financial services firms embrace this new paradigm.

What it Means for Salesforce Customers

For Salesforce customers, the Zero Copy Partner Network represents an exciting opportunity to maximize the value of your data and accelerate your time-to-value with AI and analytics. Some of the key benefits:

  1. Eliminate data silos by securely integrating data from anywhere
  2. Preserve data integrity and lineage with no physical replication
  3. Simplify governance and security with centralized access controls
  4. Enrich Customer 360 with 3rd party data via Zero Copy Data Kits
  5. Accelerate time-to-value for AI/analytics by 5-10x
  6. Reduce integration costs by 2-5x
  7. Automate intelligent real-time workflows
  8. Ground generative AI with your own trusted data

Whether you're a financial services firm looking to personalize customer experiences or a manufacturer aiming to optimize your supply chain with AI, zero copy integration can help you achieve your goals faster and more securely by harnessing the full potential of your data.

To learn more about how zero copy integration can benefit your business, reach out to Vantage Point. As a certified Salesforce partner, we can help you develop a data strategy and roadmap to maximize value from the Zero Copy Partner Network. Our expertise in financial services and deep knowledge of Salesforce data solutions will guide you on the path to success.

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