Manufacturing Cloud
About Manufacturing Cloud
Since the CRM giant unveiled its new product, Manufacturing Cloud, this question has become the latest buzzword. Before delving into details, let’s first comprehend why manufacturers might require a product like MC. Manufacturers constantly encounter new challenges. A significant number of them still manage their customer data across various spreadsheets and a multitude of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions (okay, maybe not exactly 67, but you get the idea). Such a setup can impede service level agreements, account performance, and the capacity to forecast demand accurately.
Manufacturing Cloud SKU Comparison
Value-add innovations, purpose-built for manufacturing
| Feature | Manufacturing Cloud Sales | Manufacturing Cloud Service | Manufacturing Cloud Sales and Service |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales Cloud Functionality | YES | YES | |
| Enterprise Account Forecasting | YES | YES | |
| Sales Agreements | YES | YES | |
| Account Manager Targets | YES | YES | |
| Service Cloud Functionality | YES | YES | |
| Service Forecasting Framework | YES | YES | |
| Digital Process Automation | YES | YES | |
| Voice of the Customer | YES | YES | |
| Embedded Analytics | Available for purchase | Available for purchase | Available for purchase |
| Rebate Management | Available for purchase | Available for purchase | Available for purchase |
What is Manufacturing Cloud?
Manufacturing Cloud is an AI-powered, cloud-based manufacturing platform, built to meet the industry’s needs. Manufacturing Cloud delivers on this promise by providing:
One platform to manage customer-centric operations across the business.
Prebuilt objects, processes, and frameworks for manufactures.
Unparalleled innovation, including low-code tools and embedded AI
Manufacturing Cloud to the rescue
Salesforce MC is poised to enhance business visibility and foster collaboration between sales and operations teams by offering comprehensive insights through innovative sales agreements and account-based forecasting solutions. It empowers users with visibility into customer interactions and facilitates the creation of more resilient sales forecasts. Built on Salesforce’s widely adopted customer relationship management (CRM) software, MC also seamlessly integrates with ERP solutions and order management systems from various other vendors through their pre-configured APIs.
ENRICHED LIFECYCLE MARKETING EXPERIENCE
Modern B2B manufacturing buyers are redefining their expectations for personalized experiences. In the past, both B2B and B2C organizations aimed at broad customer demographics to convey personalized messages. The trend of delivering personalization into customer experiences began with online B2C organizations in the 2000s. With the increased availability of consumer data, B2B organizations now possess the capability to offer similar levels of personalization as their B2C counterparts. As buyers demand more personalized messages and engagement throughout the sales process, manufacturers are embracing the necessary concepts and techniques.
WHEN SHOULD A MANUFACTURER UTILIZE LEADS?
If your organization actively seeks leads through channels like trade shows, events, or purchasing mailing lists, Salesforce Leads is likely a suitable option. In manufacturing, buyers typically have easy access to product information online and are not receptive to being pitched or lectured about products. Traditional sales and marketing approaches are no longer as effective. A modern manufacturer must possess a thorough, 360-degree understanding of their customers, focusing on their pain points and needs to provide tailored solutions. With Leads, you can begin to construct a comprehensive profile of a buyer. Salesforce Leads enables you to qualify your leads, ensuring that your sales team focuses on the most promising opportunities. Additionally, you can analyze the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and refine your business acquisition processes.
Manufacturing Cloud Benefits
Improve Account Transparency with Sales Agreements
Bring your run-rate business into the CRM. Create a single source of truth for your run-rate business.
Drive Productivity with Account Manager Targets
Improve account team performance. Convert your organization’s growth plans into measurable targets for your customer-facing teams.
Capture Sales Input with Enterprise Account Forecasting
Create a unified and accurate demand forecast. Capture a single, accurate picture of customer demand.
Leverage a Complete Manufacturing Platform
One platform to manage your customer-centric operations. Bring the power of Salesforce to your organization with Service Cloud, included in Manufacturing Cloud.
Simplify Partner Engagement with Rebate Management
Provide always-on, self-service digital support for your dealers, distributors, reps and resellers across sales agreements, forecasts, and incentives.
Benefit From Continuous Industry Innovation
Receive new functionality 3 times per year. Use a manufacturing data model with out-of-the-box objects, processes & frameworks built for the manufacturing industry.
SALES AGREEMENTS
Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud’s Sales Agreements feature offers visibility into all negotiated terms with your customers, empowering you to plan your sales and operations more effectively while aligning the two seamlessly. Real-time updates within Sales Agreements eliminate the need for cumbersome spreadsheets and outdated data, providing flexibility in responding to forecast changes and managing market volatility or emergency orders.
Gain deeper insights into your business’s growth by tracking planned sales, current sales, discounts, and quantities. Customize key performance indicators within your Sales Agreements to align with your organization’s objectives.
With the ability to create custom mappings for formula, currency, or numerical fields for sales agreement products and schedules, Salesforce Sales Agreements facilitate revenue realization and ensure a higher level of order consistency. Operations also benefit from Sales Agreements by fostering trust and consistency between sales and operations teams through accurate and up-to-date agreements.
OPERATIONAL TRANSPARENCY
Success hinges on leaders comprehending both commercial drivers and supply chain limitations. When operations lack visibility into sales, it becomes challenging to enhance operating margins and minimize inventory levels. Bridging the divide between sales and operations and aligning them more closely yields significant benefits. Operations encompass various tasks, from processing forecasted orders and devising line plans to staffing, resource allocation, material distribution, packing, and shipping inventory. Market volatility poses significant challenges for manufacturers in terms of operation and planning. Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud enhances operational transparency, providing deeper insights into customer demand and retrospective planning.
ACCOUNT-BASED FORECASTING
In addition to its robust Sales Agreement functionality, Manufacturing Cloud empowers users to generate more precise and tailored forecasts by combining run-rate business (Sales Agreement) and pipeline (Opportunity) data.
Gone are the days of emailing forecast spreadsheets between sales, finance, and operations, where discrepancies left everyone puzzled. With Manufacturing Cloud, you’ll have a unified view of forecasts, providing a single source of truth for your teams to collaborate in real-time with enhanced flexibility, transparency, and historical tracking, ensuring accuracy.
Users with access to an account via the Account Team can update forecasts based on various factors, allowing for specific adjustments to accommodate changing customer needs or market demands. With Salesforce’s Spring 2020 release, adding additional products to forecasts is simplified, even if they are not linked to Sales Agreements, Orders, or Opportunities.
CASE/ISSUE MANAGEMENT
In the realm of Salesforce, Cases are employed to manage business processes spanning multiple individuals. Typically, they address customer service matters, but they can apply to any scenario necessitating interaction between your company and customers or internal teams (e.g., an internal IT service desk). Standard Cases facilitate tracking issue types, assigning them to individuals or queues (manually or automatically), and documenting completed work. This grants necessary stakeholders visibility into client issues and their resolutions.
The Cases object offers extensive additional functionality for more efficient customer interaction. For instance, the Web-to-Case feature enables customers to submit new issues directly from your company’s website into Salesforce, facilitating communication as you work towards resolution.
A common scenario in the manufacturing sector involves customers reporting product damage or defects, often initiated through a phone call. Details of the issue can be captured and associated with the customer record. Any related activities (tasks, phone conversations, etc.)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The analytics provided by Salesforce through Manufacturing Cloud are undeniably impressive, but they merely scratch the surface of our trajectory. Significant investments are being poured into Artificial Intelligence (AI), poised to revolutionize our perspectives on businesses and customers alike.
Salesforce has already made strides in this arena with features like Einstein Discovery and Einstein Next Best Action, which employ decision-guiding principles akin to analytics and can expand their capabilities further. Einstein Prediction Builder offers predictive insights into business outcomes such as customer churn or lifetime value. Einstein Language and Einstein Vision gauge sentiments towards your business or products based on social media interactions. Meanwhile, Einstein Bots and Einstein Voice (beta released Spring 2020) facilitate customer interactions, daily briefings, voice updates of data, and more.
With these advanced features capable of generating valuable insights for your business, the question arises: “Will we need to invest significant resources to harness these benefits?” The answer is a resounding NO! Salesforce’s AI features can be tailored to your specific requirements with clicks rather than code.