Salesforce is a fast-moving company. Since the company’s inception in 2001, it has broadened its offering to businesses, first by offering its Sales Cloud (its CRM offering), then adding the Service Cloud (call center), Marketing Cloud (digital marketing), and the Commerce Cloud (the result of its acquisition of eCommerce solution Demandware in 2016). The Demandware acquisition put Salesforce into the middle of “customer-centric ” retailing. After all, Salesforce’s DNA is all about the customer success (or if you prefer, improved sales productivity).

There is a lot of functionality laced throughout Salesforce’s various Clouds that retailers should be interested in. And now that the San Francisco company has interleaved its Einstein AI capabilities into the platform, retailers have a lot to think about. But as it is with virtually every “growth by M&A ” story, many are asking, “How does X fit into the rest of the portfolio? ” We ask the same thing. And it’s a big part of why we attend as many user groups as possible, to help answer those exact questions for ourselves AND for our readers.

When it comes to Salesforce, it’s worth knowing that the answer is becoming ever more clear with each event the company hosts. Last fall, partner Brian Kilcourse and I attended the annual Dreamforce event, upon which Brian’s wrapup piece (titled “Salesforce And Sand Francisco Celebrate Each Other “) summarized the company’s message: ‘Trust us! We’re nice people!’

And earlier this spring, I attended their World Tour event in Boston. At that event, there was a lot of talk about AI and the role it would play in assisting current retail applications – without replacing people – but still not quite enough clarity into the way of how all of the company’s individual clouds would interact.

The recent Connections event, held in Chicago in June, sought to change all that.

Most Demandware customers want to know where Salesforce is taking them. And Salesforce has an answer to that: from the opening meeting it was clear that Salesforce’s recent acquisition of MuleSoft (for $6.5B in late March) is intended to answer customers’ concerns about integration, and connect all the dots. The “Integration Cloud, ” made possible by the technology comprising the MuleSoft solution, is the layer where Salesforce can now not only tie all its own cloud solutions together, but also help integrate with new cloud-based solutions (whether homegrown or acquired) in the future.

This is important for a number of reasons. One: it helps solidify Salesforce’s place in the industry as a true alternative to other enterprise solutions. “We’re not going to go into POS, ” one executive told us candidly. “Our clients are just too diverse around the globe – plus it’s a very fragmented business. ” But that doesn’t mean the SF-based giant isn’t eyeing clients the same way a more traditional ERP provider would. The company is using a solution called Session M to get customer information out of old POS systems to help ease the integration of legacy store systems into today’s digital world.

The other thing that the Integration Cloud does is dispel any knocks on the company as being a pastiche of unconnected technologies under the umbrella of “clouds “. Brian who told us that despite only being with the vendor for a few years, the company is relying heavily on the digitization Salesforce is leveraging from their stores. Despite having very old POS systems in the 10 stores that they operate, Stonewall has been able to learn a great deal not only about customer preferences, but also about merchandising wins and mistakes. The results of this data play a big role in the actions it is now taking online – where the majority of the company’s sales take place.

All in all, I’m glad we went. Despite all the potential distraction from the cartoon characters and woodland animals that make up a Salesforce event these days, the company’s tech story really is becoming quite strong.