Dreamforce, Salesforce’s biggest event of the year, took place last week and we attended to bring you the latest news for the Manufacturing industry. Read on for updates on how Salesforce is looking to improve their offerings for Manufacturers and where to find the most relevant sessions for you from the event.
Manufacturing During the Pandemic
Through this pandemic, manufacturers have adapted quickly and helped to make sure essential items were getting where they needed to be all over the world. Manufacturers like you made this happen because they had no choice. It wasn’t easy and we still don’t really know what we’re doing in this digital, work from anywhere, world. Salesforce took the time to talk to manufacturers through this past year and heard four main challenges for the space:
Supply Chain Disruptions Impacting Operations
Specifically, commercial operations were trying to get the data and information about product forecasts and demand to operations in order to meet the rising expectations of your customers.
Limited Partner Engagement
Channel partners are looking for easier and faster access to product, pricing and rebate information so they can respond faster to changing needs of your end customers.
Pivoting to Remote Service
You had to service your customers, their assets and their products in a whole new way. Things like remote monitoring, remote support, and ensuring that your technicians had the right skills and were following the right protocols to keep everyone safe.
Limited Data Access
The lack of access to data that is locked in your systems of record is impeding you move to digital.
The Future of Manufacturing Cloud
Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud was launched in late 2019 with the goal of giving manufacturers a single view into their entire book of business, business agility, and fast time to value. It’s a complete manufacturing CRM custom-built for manufacturers to deliver predictability and transparency to their business. Using Manufacturing Cloud gives you fast time to value and enables your entire manufacturing ecosystem with a purpose built CRM so they’re empowered and you can focus on your business outcomes.
At Dreamforce, Salesforce announced new innovations across three major areas for Manufacturing Cloud. Let’s take a look at what’s new for your business.
Global View of Your Business
As mentioned earlier, manufacturers need a single view into their global book of business across net new opportunities, run rate business and long term programs and projects. Salesforce is introducing Enterprise Account Forecasting which will bring next generation collaborative account forecasting to Salesforce so you have a true consensus forecast. It will provide the flexibility to add multiple metrics beyond revenue and quantity as well as more advanced capabilities like complex rollups and aggregates. Using Enterprise Series Forecasting gives you time series forecasting for improved baselines, personalized forecast views for each of your stakeholders and prebuilt AI models that you can modify to fit your needs.
Program-Based Business Support is designed for manufacturers who have project and program based business and need to improve the profitability of projects you’re bidding on based on forecasted volumes. Based on your forecasted volumes, you can now model and manage price-downs, give backs, pay to plays, and engineering change requests. Then, you can see how each of these changes would impact your projected revenue forecast.
Optimized dealer and distributor management
There’s also been an adjustment in how you are able to manage your channel partners and incentive programs more effectively in this hybrid environment. The new Rebate Management brings end to end incentive management and improved partner visibility to Salesforce. Now you can customize rebate tiers, thresholds, benefits, and pay out periods, automate accrual and payout calculations, share attainment visibility with your partners, manage specific types of rebates, and analyze all of this data and recommendations with what if analysis. This all allows you to get updated information on partner performance and drive more collaboration.
World-class service experiences
Service in manufacturing is more than just logging tickets. You need the ability to create differentiated service experiences. Service Capabilities for Manufacturing Cloud will provide end to end workflow orchestration to connect products, customers and service organizations to a consistent guided experience to provide the right information to the right person with the right list of actions they need to take all from Salesforce. With Service Capabilities you’ll be able to solve problems quickly, drive predictive maintenance with connected products and build new service based revenue streams so you can transform your service and parts forecasting into a revenue driver for your business.
These are the current innovations with Manufacturing Cloud but Salesforce will be bringing innovations to Manufacturing Cloud three times per year, so there’s more exciting things to come. A peek at the roadmap showed a focus for improvements to commercial operations, channel management, and service experiences on the horizon
The acceleration of digital transformation is happening now and not in the future. Salesforce has been hard at work adapting and building new products and solutions to help you respond faster to this changing world.
More Dreamforce Sessions and Salesforce+
All we shared above is just a fraction of the exciting news and inspiring stories told during Dreamforce 2021. Find our recommended sessions below and to see all of the Manufacturing sessions visit Salesforce+.
*In order to watch Dreamforce 2021 sessions you must sign up for a free Salesforce+ account.
Driving Success Across the Manufacturing Value Chain
Get on the fastest path to digital transformation. Join us to discover the latest trends in manufacturing and hear innovative success stories from your peers in the industry.
Introducing New Salesforce Innovations for Manufacturers
Discover the latest Salesforce innovations for manufacturers. Hear from product experts, see demos, and get a sneak peek into Salesforce’s product roadmap for manufacturing.
Manufacturing Cloud 101 with Tenneco
Hear Tenneco’s recommendations on buying vs. building, and the business impact of a manufacturing CRM. Learn how a Manufacturing Cloud customer manages its run-rate business in Salesforce.
Fanuc’s Guide to Manufacturing Cloud
Get a hands-on overview of Manufacturing Cloud from a customer. See Fanuc’s recommended approach to implementation, and hear its experience managing recurring business with Manufacturing Cloud.
