Building Efficiency in Manufacturing with Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud
The manufacturing industry has long been a cornerstone of global economic development, driving innovation, creating jobs, and fostering prosperity in countless communities worldwide. Over the years, advancements in technology, globalization, and shifting consumer preferences have contributed to the evolution of the manufacturing sector, fueling its growth and adaptation to changing market dynamics. Today, manufacturing encompasses a diverse array of sectors, from automotive and aerospace to electronics and pharmaceuticals, each playing a crucial role in supplying goods essential to modern life.
This growth is backed by impressive statistics — According to the World Bank, the manufacturing industry continues to be a significant contributor to the global economy, accounting for approximately 16% of the world’s GDP in 2020. The Fourth Industrial Revolution has ushered in a new era of manufacturing characterized by automation, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. According to Deloitte, 85% of manufacturing executives believe that adoption of advanced technologies will be critical for their company’s competitiveness. IndustryARC estimates that global manufacturing output will reach a staggering $14.5T by 2025.
The Need for CX in Manufacturing
The manufacturing industry is undergoing a seismic shift. Gone are the days when manufacturers could solely focus on production and product features. Now, customers expect a seamless and personalized experience throughout their journey, from inquiry to post-purchase support. CX isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a game-changer for manufacturers. By prioritizing CX, manufacturers can forge stronger relationships with customers, leading to increased loyalty and repeat business.
A positive CX can differentiate a brand in a crowded market, helping to attract new customers and retain existing ones. Studies reveal that 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience, while 73% of customers point to CX as a key factor in purchasing decisions. These numbers underscore the critical importance of prioritizing customer experience (CX) in manufacturing.
Manufacturers leveraging CX initiatives benefit from improved operational efficiency and reduced costs. By understanding customer needs and preferences, companies can streamline production processes, minimize waste, and optimize inventory management. Additionally, proactive customer service and personalized interactions lead to faster issue resolution and increased customer satisfaction.
To achieve success in CX, manufacturers need a robust platform that can centralize customer data, facilitate collaboration across departments, and provide actionable insights. Introducing Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud — a comprehensive solution designed to empower manufacturers to deliver exceptional customer experiences. With features tailored to the unique needs of the manufacturing industry, Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud enables companies to effectively manage relationships, drive innovation, and stay ahead of the competition in today’s customer-centric market.
“Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud is designed to break down silos and minimize complexity in operations, upstream and downstream channels, products and assets, servitization, data harmonization and actionability . It provides the tools manufacturers need to create not only a responsive manufacturing environment but also a proactive experience driving ecosystem growth, stability and building long-term loyalty.”
AUGUST KRYS
DIRECTOR, SALESFORCE, INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT AUTOMOTIVE & MANUFACTURING CLOUD
Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud — What is it?
Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud is a specialized industry solution designed specifically for the manufacturing industry, helping manufacturers optimize their operations and enhance customer relationships. It offers tools and features to streamline production, improve collaboration across teams, and provide real-time insights for smarter decision-making. By integrating with existing systems and applications, Manufacturing Cloud enables manufacturers to manage end-to-end processes and deliver exceptional products and services.
Manufacturing Cloud is a combination of Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud, CPQ Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Experience Cloud, Field Service Cloud and Service Cloud. Here is an overview of Manufacturing Cloud.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a powerful platform that enables businesses to create personalized and data-driven marketing campaigns. It provides tools for email marketing, social media management, mobile messaging, and advertising, helping organizations engage customers across multiple channels. The platform’s advanced analytics and AI-powered features allow marketers to track campaign performance and optimize strategies for better results. Marketing Cloud’s journey builder empowers businesses to design seamless, customized customer journeys, ensuring a consistent experience from initial engagement to purchase and beyond.
In addition, Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers features like customer segmentation and audience management, allowing businesses to target the right customers with relevant content. It also integrates with other Salesforce products, such as Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, to provide a holistic view of customer interactions and support a cohesive marketing strategy.
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a leading CRM platform that helps sales teams manage customer relationships and streamline sales processes. It provides tools for lead and opportunity management, forecasting, and pipeline tracking, allowing sales representatives to stay organized and efficient. With Sales Cloud, teams can access real-time data and insights to make informed decisions and prioritize their efforts.
Sales Cloud also offers features such as sales automation and collaboration tools that enable teams to work together seamlessly. Integration with other Salesforce products enhances sales productivity by providing a unified view of customer data across the organization. With customizable reports and dashboards, sales teams can monitor performance and identify areas for improvement.
Salesforce CPQ Cloud
Salesforce CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) Cloud streamlines the process of creating quotes and proposals for sales teams. The platform automates the configuration and pricing of products and services, ensuring accurate and efficient quoting. With CPQ Cloud, sales representatives can create complex quotes quickly, improving turnaround times and enhancing customer satisfaction.
CPQ Cloud integrates with Sales Cloud, allowing sales teams to access customer and opportunity data directly within the quoting process. This integration provides a seamless experience for both sales representatives and customers, ensuring consistent and accurate pricing across all sales channels.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a comprehensive e-commerce platform designed to help businesses deliver personalized and engaging shopping experiences across digital channels. It offers tools for managing online stores, inventory, and order fulfillment, ensuring smooth and efficient operations. Commerce Cloud’s AI-powered features provide personalized product recommendations and targeted promotions, enhancing customer engagement and driving sales.
Commerce Cloud integrates with other Salesforce products, such as Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud, to provide a unified view of customer data and support a seamless shopping experience. Businesses can leverage Commerce Cloud’s robust analytics and reporting tools to gain insights into customer behavior and optimize their e-commerce strategies.
Salesforce Experience Cloud
Salesforce Experience Cloud, previously known as Community Cloud, empowers businesses to create and manage branded online communities and portals for customers, partners, and employees. It offers tools for building engaging, customized experiences that enhance collaboration and foster stronger relationships. Experience Cloud enables businesses to share knowledge, answer questions, and gather feedback from their community members.
Experience Cloud integrates with other Salesforce products, providing a unified view of customer interactions and data. Businesses can leverage this platform to create self-service portals, support forums, and partner portals, streamlining communication and improving efficiency across the organization.
Salesforce Field Service Cloud
Salesforce Field Service Cloud helps businesses manage and optimize their field service operations. The platform offers tools for scheduling and dispatching, inventory management, and mobile access for field technicians. With Field Service Cloud, businesses can improve response times and increase first-time fix rates, enhancing customer satisfaction.
Field Service Cloud integrates with other Salesforce products, providing a unified view of customer data and enabling seamless communication between field technicians and other teams. The platform’s analytics and reporting tools allow businesses to monitor field service performance and identify areas for improvement.
Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud is a comprehensive customer service platform that helps businesses deliver exceptional support experiences. It provides tools for managing cases, knowledge bases, and omnichannel support, enabling service teams to resolve customer issues quickly and efficiently. Service Cloud’s AI-powered features, such as chatbots and automated workflows, streamline support processes and enhance customer satisfaction.
Service Cloud integrates with other Salesforce products, providing a unified view of customer interactions and data. Businesses can leverage this platform to deliver personalized and consistent support across all channels, from phone and email to social media and live chat.
Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud — Advantages
The Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud offers a comprehensive solution for manufacturers looking to optimize their operations, improve collaboration, and drive growth in today’s competitive marketplace. By providing end-to-end visibility, predictive analytics, and seamless integration with other Salesforce products, Manufacturing Cloud empowers manufacturers to stay ahead of the curve and deliver exceptional products and services to their customers. Here are some of the key advantages of using the Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud:
- End-to-End Visibility:Manufacturing Cloud provides manufacturers with real-time visibility into their entire operations, from the shop floor to the sales pipeline. This enables better decision-making by allowing manufacturers to track orders, monitor inventory levels, and identify production bottlenecks.
- Collaborative Planning: Manufacturers can collaborate more effectively with their partners, suppliers, and distributors. The platform facilitates seamless communication and data sharing across the entire supply chain, enabling better demand forecasting, production planning, and inventory management.
- Predictive Analytics: By leveraging advanced analytics and AI capabilities, Manufacturing Cloud helps manufacturers predict future demand, identify market trends, and optimize production schedules. This allows manufacturers to proactively adjust their operations to meet changing customer needs and market conditions.
- Quality Management: The solution includes built-in tools for quality management, allowing manufacturers to track and analyze product quality throughout the production process. This helps identify and address quality issues early, reducing the risk of defects and ensuring customer satisfaction.
- Sales and Service Integration:It seamlessly integrates with Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, enabling manufacturers to streamline their sales and service processes. This integration provides a 360-degree view of each customer, allowing manufacturers to deliver personalized service and support throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
- Compliance and Regulatory Support:Manufacturing Cloud helps manufacturers ensure compliance with industry regulations and standards, such as ISO, FDA, and GDPR. The platform includes built-in features for tracking regulatory requirements, managing audits, and maintaining documentation, helping manufacturers avoid costly penalties and fines.
- Scalability and Flexibility: It is highly scalable and flexible, making it suitable for manufacturers of all sizes and industries. Whether you’re a small startup or a multinational corporation, you can customize the platform to meet your specific needs and scale your operations as your business grows.
- Mobile Accessibility: The solution is accessible via mobile devices, allowing manufacturers to access critical information and collaborate with team members from anywhere, at any time. This enables greater flexibility and productivity, especially for employees who work remotely or in the field.
A Real-Life Implementation — SoftClouds & SFDC Manufacturing Cloud
Our client is a global leader in compact construction equipment, portable power, attachments, & utility equipment. Dominating the “Compact Equipment” market, our client prioritizes competitiveness in product and boasts a robust sales network across EMEA, NA, and Asia-Pacific. Amidst a rapidly changing construction equipment industry, the focus on work efficiency, productivity, and safety drives the shift towards smart construction machines through digitalization and connectivity.
To streamline operations, enhance customer experience, and unlock new data insights, the customer needed a comprehensive digital transformation plan targeting technical debt, modernization, migration to lightning, territory management and strategic integration. Following these goals, they envision a streamlined, innovative, and interconnected digital landscape.
SoftClouds elevated their marketing strategy, enhanced deliverables, and drove impactful results using Marketing Cloud. To revolutionize customer sales operations, we streamlined billing and revenue recognition using next-generation technology with Sales Cloud. The sales process of the customer was designed for optimization and accelerated deal closures with the integration of Salesforce CPQ. Implementing a meticulous, strategic approach, our architects enhanced operational efficiency within customer operations by leveraging the capabilities of Commerce Cloud. Leveraging the dynamic capabilities of the Salesforce Experience Cloud, we implemented transformative measures to reshape the business paradigm. There are many more implementations done that enhanced performance and modernization of the processes.
Following the successful implementation of the Salesforce manufacturing cloud platform, the customer aimed for a future marked by increased efficiency, productivity, and safety within the compact construction equipment industry. This forward-thinking approach placed the customer at the forefront of technological advancements, securing their position as a leader and innovator in the dynamic world of compact construction equipment.
The adoption of this platform resulted in accelerated lead conversion, enhanced customer satisfaction, and accurate forecasting. Additionally, it provided 360-degree visibility on inventory management and improved close rates by tracking leads. The platform facilitated production forecasting and unified order management, streamlining operations from start to finish. These improvements contribute to a future-proof growth trajectory, increasing the customer’s agility and resilience.
SoftCloud’s adept architects meticulously crafted a tailored end-to-end strategic implementation of the Manufacturing Cloud, aligning seamlessly with predefined goals. This robust architecture ensures optimal performance, meeting unique manufacturing operation requirements effectively. Here is an overview:
The Future of Manufacturing & CX with Platforms
The future of manufacturing intertwines with customer experience (CX) through platforms facilitating seamless interactions. These platforms integrate data analytics, IoT, and AI to optimize production processes and enhance CX. Real-time insights enable predictive maintenance, reducing downtime and ensuring product quality.
Personalization becomes paramount, with platforms tailoring products to individual preferences. Virtual reality aids in immersive product experiences, allowing customers to visualize customizations before purchase. Augmented reality enhances training and troubleshooting for workers, improving efficiency, and reducing errors. Ultimately, these platforms revolutionize manufacturing, fostering agile, customer-centric practices that drive innovation and competitive advantage in an increasingly dynamic market landscape.
Join us at SoftClouds as we unpack the complexities, opportunities, and obstacles that lie ahead, illuminating the path forward for the CX in the automotive industry in the years to come. Write to info-at-softclouds-dot-com to initiate the conversation.
This post was written by Sundar Viswanathan , Senior CRM Application Lead and CRM Practice Director at SoftClouds has 20+ years of experience with technical solution design and end to end implementations. Sundar is also certified on Oracle CX Applications and Siebel. He specializes in developing CX processes, including Marketing automation, salesforce automation and partner management and loyalty management modules.
SoftClouds is a CRM, CX, and IT solutions provider based in San Diego, California. As technology trends are proliferating, organizations need to re-focus and align with the new waves to keep pace with the changing trends and technology. The professionals at SoftClouds are here to help you capture these changes through innovation and reach new heights. Reach us at info-at-softclouds-dot-com.
