Navigating Manufacturing Challenges: Leveraging Salesforce for Competitive Edge
Today, manufacturers face a myriad of challenges, from navigating intricate global supply chains to meeting the new demand for personalized, eco-friendly products. Amidst these hurdles, the adoption of new digital technologies is becoming crucial to outpace competitors and meet customers’ evolving expectations.
The modern manufacturing landscape has adapted for these new challenges and a few centralized themes have emerged. To thrive, an effective and efficient manufacturing business must address these four critical pillars:
- Modernize commercial operations
- Transform the service experience
- Simplify partner engagement
- Harness data for actionable insights.
The Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud platform has emerged as a strategic solution for implementing innovative business models, offering a framework to tackle these obstacles head-on. In this post we’ll detail the essentials of each pillar and how Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud can help your business achieve success.
Modernize Commercial Operations
Many manufacturers recognize that investing in cutting-edge digital technologies can set them apart from others in the industry, and companies are leveraging advanced connectivity solutions to optimize and modernize their commercial operations. This enterprise-wide connectivity accelerates digital transformation efforts, leading to streamlined sales processes, improved forecasting precision, and ultimately, greater revenue.
Additionally, for companies to stay competitive, it is crucial to have more than just access to data. Organizations need up-to-date, integrated data that’s always accessible and AI-powered metrics forecasting that provides intelligent, actionable insights.
Salesforce streamlines the full sales cycle and creates visibility across the enterprise. From promoting services to generating price quotes to finalizing transactions, Salesforce supports achieving commercial excellence. The platform even enables further alignment between sales and operations through new tools such as Einstein Forecasting, an AI-driven tool designed to increase forecasting accuracy, predict outcomes, and monitor sales team performance.
Transform the Service Experience
Enabling a faster, digitally smart customer experience gives organizations a crucial competitive advantage. Consistent digital interactions across all touchpoints fosters loyalty, engagement, and repeat business. A unified customer experience also cuts costs by optimizing operations and removing redundancies. Through centralizing customer information, companies both save time and eliminate unnecessary expenses associated with customer service.
Generative AI and automation tools are paving another route for creating a seamless customer experience via personalized, proactive recommendations to customers. Companies are using Salesforce tools to shift from reactive service models to proactive and predictive ones. In short, users are able to anticipate customer needs and address customer complaints before they arise. Embracing these technologies ensures greater adaptability and agility in the face of evolving market dynamics and customer demands.
Salesforce also simplifies the process of effectively pricing your products and services based on their perceived value. With the power to smoothly move from a cost-plus pricing approach to a value-based (or outcome-based) pricing model, Salesforce helps align product pricing with customer expectations. This not only accurately conveys the true value of products to customers but also creates more lucrative outcomes for businesses while fostering brand loyalty.
Turn Data Into Actions & Insights
It’s no secret that many industries are embracing digitization by integrating automation and artificial intelligence tools to enhance operations. Across industries, this transition has led to cost reduction, quality improvement, and stronger customer relations. The manufacturing industry is no exception. The unified customer experience enabled by AI applications provides a new path for gaining detailed insights. With these new insights, users can identify performance gaps that were previously undetectable to the average user and feel more confident in their decisions.
By tracking customer interactions across various channels—like websites, social media, and customer service—Salesforce enables the identification of trends and patterns. This valuable data serves to enhance products and services, reflecting customer preferences and ultimately improving the overall customer experience.
Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud incorporates features like Account-Based Forecasting for precise forecasting and Rebate Management for streamlined sales and accounting operations; CRM software enables predictable performance, service fulfillment, and improved customer satisfaction. Additionally, Salesforce provides relevant data through services like Sales Cloud and Service Cloud.
Simplify Partner Engagement
The success of your manufacturing business often relies on your partner network, so you need to ensure you can communicate effectively and efficiently. The goal is to make it as simple as possible for your partners to access, understand, and distribute information relating to your product.
Salesforce simplifies partner engagement by streamlining interactions and collaborations with channel partners, including self-service options, making it easy for them to engage with the company’s products and services independently. Salesforce empowers partners to collaborate on sales and service contracts within its platform, and users enjoy seamless communication and alignment on deals and agreements. One of its more advanced features is the ability to customize incentives to meet the needs of partners. Partners can track their benefits as well as overall performance painlessly within the Salesforce ecosystem.
ERP + CRM for Manufacturing
Manufacturers use a variety of systems to run their business – from back-office support with a tool like Oracle ERP, to front-end, customer-facing tools like Salesforce. Throughout the sales cycle, there are various back-office integration points between the systems that let you unify your digital experiences, giving you a more accurate view of your supply chain and leading you to better decision-making.
Success in manufacturing during the ‘Industry 4.0’ era relies on seamlessly integrated technology and a focus on efficiency in the customer experience. Utilizing Salesforce’s Manufacturing Cloud empowers companies to boost efficiency, elevate customer satisfaction, and increase competitiveness, positioning themselves for success in today’s dynamic marketplace.
Apps Associates – a Comprehensive Technology Partner
Apps Associates is a trusted Salesforce partner offering strong architecture and technical expertise. At Apps, we are focused on enabling world-class prospect, customer, and employee experiences in complex environments where ERP integration matters. We’ve honed our Salesforce skills through more than 600 engagements, from large-scale, data-heavy implementations to ongoing maintenance and Managed Services.
Resources
Discover the benefits of using Salesforce CRM technology in manufacturing, explore how a technology device manufacturer integrated support and service processes between Salesforce and Oracle, or learn more about Apps Salesforce offerings here.