The COVID-19 pandemic has inspired tremendous change in every industry. Business leaders faced with a changing workforce and world have had to pivot faster, decide faster, and deliver faster — and at the end of the day, they still have to delight their customers.
A key element to adjusting to this new business climate and becoming more agile is making sure your business has a clear data and integration strategy. Why? Data is gold when it comes to making strategic decisions about your business, from how to best connect with customers, to when and how to reopen offices. These are not decisions that can be made in a vacuum, and they certainly can’t be made looking at only one data set. Imagine having to decide what you want to order for lunch and the only data you have is the number of tables in the restaurant. To make any decision, large or small, you need the relevant data, integrated from across the business, in a digestible format.
Consider three key questions about data and API integration in your business:
- Is your data integrated across your wide range of systems and applications?
- Is your data integrated in a way that gives you visibility and governability, in a way that helps you go faster and be more efficient?
- And finally, are you using your data to create a true 360-degree view of your customers, and delivering the connected experiences that your customers are demanding?
PayPal is a pioneer in the financial services space, providing a faster, safer way for businesses and consumers to send money. A major driver of that success is their data and integration strategy, led by Dan Torunian, PayPal’s VP of Employee Technology & Experiences and Data Centers. PayPal makes insights-based decisions, with customers at the center of their business, to drive growth and, ultimately, success.
Last week, MuleSoft CMO, Lindsey Irvine shared the unique story of PayPal on an episode of Leading through Change, Salesforce’s weekly virtual event series focused on how we can learn from each other, lead through challenging times, and come out better for it. She spoke with Dan about how PayPal uses a data-first, customer-first approach to drive their success and how this focus on integration helps them better connect with customers.
A huge driver of PayPal’s success has been its partnership with Salesforce. Leveraging Salesforce’s Sales Cloud, PayPal enables reps to sell products from across their entire portfolio from one tool. This proved invaluable when COVID-19 hit, as 96% of the company’s workforce is now working from home. PayPal also deployed Service Cloud to help them engage with existing users and the huge swath of new users now coming onto their platform.
To meet the increasing demand for digital payments and to make it easier for third-parties and partners to use its products as PayPal scales its platform, PayPal significantly expanded the use of MuleSoft earlier this year. The ultimate goal is for PayPal to improve the partner experience and make it easier for third parties to consume and use PayPal products within their offerings. PayPal aspires to serve 1 billion people on the platform.
If you missed this episode of Leading through Change, you can tune into the replay here to learn more about how PayPal is partnering with Salesforce to create a data-first, customer-first company, and support a virtual workforce.
Be sure to watch through to the end to also hear from the Muscular Dystrophy Association CEO, Lynn O’Connor Vos, who is bringing back the famous MDA telethon on October 24th — totally reimagined for the digital age! Salesforce is partnering with MDA to Show Strength for MDA. If you’d like to join us and support this effort, you can join our movement and wellness campaign here.
