Flowers are blooming, the constant rain has retreated, it’s still light when you grab your first pint after work. You know what this means... it’s time for the Salesforce World Tour! This year’s tour promises to be especially interesting for Financial Services – here are the top things to check out if you are part of this industry:

1. Financial Services Cloud
   
   Since this is Salesforce’s latest cloud to be released, expect demonstrations of its functions either during the morning keynote or in one of the scheduled breakout sessions. In a recent blog post, I discussed why the Financial Services cloud is a major step forward for Wealth Management. This cloud comes with a host of new features built in that previously would have required quite a bit of customization.  If you are in Wealth Management, Asset Management, Retail Banking or Insurance Brokerage, learning about this addition to Salesforce is important as these new features are sure to make your job easier.  
2. Shared Contacts
   
   This is one of the biggest feature developments that was unveiled in Financial Services cloud. Historically Salesforce users have struggled with how to record contact information for people from different legal entities who you interact with in different contexts – do you create a duplicate record, add them as a contact role, or build a custom object? With Shared Contacts, there is now a native way to handle this scenario by associating the same contact to multiple accounts, and having them appear on each. This feature will likely be included in the Financial Services Cloud demo and it will be available to everyone in the upcoming Summer release.
3. Analytics Cloud
   
   This cloud was demoed in previous years, but it is finally ready for the EMEA market now that it supports multiple-currencies. My excitement from when Salesforce first acquired EdgeSpring is finally being realized now that they have worked out some of the kinks and priced the tool more competitively. Will this cloud replace your big in-house BI team and satisfy your data scientists – no. What it will do is make powerful, usable analytics accessible for execs and managers wherever they are without having to hassle the IT team.
4. The Exhibition Floor
   
   While it may seem obvious, the exhibition floor is my favorite part of the event because it offers an opportunity to get under the hood of products I’ve watched online demos for. This is where you can find all of the new products hitting the app exchange that are pushing the envelope in one place. While you are on the floor, stop by the Bluewolf booth to have a chat with me about what you are seeing. Enjoy the show!

For more information about how Financial Services teams are using Salesforce, read Jeff’s latest blog and download our special report, The State of Salesforce