Delivery doesn’t usually make headlines — but it quietly makes everything else possible. It’s where strategy meets execution, and increasingly, where Artificial Intelligence (AI) meets impact. And that is exactly what Ashok Raghupathy does at Salesforce: turn bold ideas into working products.
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Driving AI-powered delivery at Salesforce: Inside Ashok’s world
When Ashok Raghupathy talks about his work, he doesn’t start with buzzwords or lofty visions. He starts with impact. “As a Delivery Director, my first job is to ensure that what we’re building is scalable, high-performing, and aligns with what the customer really needs,” he says. “The role is about translating business strategy into real-world delivery.”
Ashok leads a high-performing team within Salesforce’s Global Delivery Centers (GDCs), a key part of the Customer Success Group. But what sets his work apart is the scale — and the speed — at which innovation happens.
From roadmap to reality
Ashok’s role is complex. On the surface, it’s about managing teams and ensuring timely project delivery. But behind the scenes, it’s about understanding business goals, identifying delivery gaps, and constantly aligning solutions to customer expectations.
“We spend a lot of time working closely with our business stakeholders and other internal teams,” Ashok explains. “If you don’t understand what the business really wants to achieve, your delivery will be misaligned, no matter how well it’s executed.”
This close loop between business needs and execution is what makes the Director of Delivery role so critical at Salesforce — especially at a time when AI is revolutionizing every layer of work. With Salesforce investing heavily in agentic and generative AI, Ashok finds himself at the centre of a delivery transformation, one that’s redefining how professional services are imagined and executed.
Agentforce: The AI copilot for delivery
Ashok’s team was one of the early adopters of Agentforce, an AI-powered assistant that’s always on, trained with your business knowledge to help employees or customers get things done — faster and smarter. It’s already reshaping how delivery teams operate across the GDCs.
“Agentforce has helped us with things like test case generation and code generation. These are traditionally effort-heavy, but now we can move faster,” he says.
The platform also allows delivery leaders to identify risks early. Through historical data and patterns, Agentforce flags projects that may need course correction — before they go off-track. That means fewer surprises, better planning, and ultimately, more predictable delivery.
But Ashok is clear: AI is not here to replace people. It’s here to enhance their ability to do strategic work.
“We still need human judgment,” he says. “The architect has to look at the code, test it for scalability, security, and performance. Currently, I’m leading a team of over 100 architects who are extremely competent in Salesforce. On average, they have about 15 Salesforce certifications and come with 12 plus years of implementation experience.
With Agentforce helping us with the heavy lifting, we are able to use their expertise for what matters.”
Customer success: The north star for Salesforce delivery teams
Every decision in Ashok’s playbook ties back to one of Salesforce’s core values: customer success.
“When we deliver something, it should continue working for the customer—not just today, but over time,” he says. “Salesforce ships three major releases a year. That means anything built today must be future-proof, compatible with the next platform update, and resilient against change. We make sure our solutions are scalable, secure, and stable- that’s non-negotiable.”
Along similar lines of reasoning is the company’s push for reusability. “We’ve started rewarding our teams for building components that are reusable,” Ashok says. “Let’s say you create a workflow for a certain use case—why should we reinvent the wheel the next time?”
These assets go through a review process and are stored in a central repository (Services Central), where other teams can discover and reuse them. It’s a system that saves time, increases consistency, and boosts delivery quality at scale- making reusability is a force multiplier.
Why the Director of Delivery role matters
The Director of Delivery is not just a project owner — they are a strategic leader who connects the dots between product vision, customer needs, and execution. It’s a role for someone who can think deeply, lead decisively, and scale smartly.
It’s also a role at the frontier of AI-powered innovation. With platforms like Agentforce rapidly evolving, the opportunity to shape how Salesforce builds, delivers, and operates is only growing.
Ashok and his team are already experimenting with how AI can go beyond ideation—writing user stories, accelerating testing, even predicting delivery timelines.
“Learn how to work with AI, not around it,” he says. “That’s where the future is headed.”
The tools are changing. The expectations are shifting. But for those who can bring strategic thinking, delivery excellence, and a willingness to lead with technology—the possibilities are wide open.
Like Ashok, are you ready to build the future of technology? Join us as a technical architect and take your place at the cutting edge of innovation.
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