Since arriving on the scene, many of our clients have asked “Why Manufacturing Cloud?” For new Salesforce Manufacturing customers, the answer is easy … “Why Not?”. The tool is robust, gives a lot of great features out of the box and is a great well-rounded tool to impact many areas of manufacturing. For existing clients, who have been on Salesforce for years, the question becomes “What additional benefits can Manufacturing cloud provide?”. Let’s dig in!
Sales Agreements
Whether you have a long-term or short-term agreement with your customers, visibility into Sales Agreements and Contracts are key to ensuring the agreement is beneficial on both sides of the aisle. Through Manufacturing Cloud, you are able to drive transparency for your Sales Teams with a consolidated view of every agreement. This leads to greater collaboration and relationship management with a single source of truth. Combine this with the ability to surface data housed in your ERP system, and you can now have planned vs actual data at your fingertips.
Account-based Forecasting
Run-rate vs. new business is always an interesting measurement challenge for Manufacturing companies. The super cool thing about Manufacturing Cloud is account-based forecasting is built-in. Imagine being able to collaborate with sales, finance, procurement and operations to get more accurate forecasts, in real time! Add in those Sales agreements for run-rate business alongside new opportunities and you’re moving down the path of better experiences across your organization. Top all of that off with some Bridgenext (formerly Wave6) secret sauce using your leading market indicators, and you’ve just blown past the competition for on-time delivery to your customers.
Extend your current Sales & Service Clouds
If you merge the CRM data from Sales & Service Clouds, you now have a unified view of all customer activity. For current Salesforce users, this is where the rubber hits the road. Your organization has the power of real-time visibility into your sales process, key account activity, partner relationships and service issues on the same platform. Ever-changing customer dynamics are visible to your teams creating a proactive environment for them to stay ahead of the change. Toss in some Community cloud for your Channel partners, and you speed up the planning process with greater accuracy in forecasts.
Einstein Analytics for Manufacturing
Two words: Game Changer! Having worked in manufacturing for over 20-years, I can tell you from personal experience, you will wonder how you lived without it. No more spreadsheets, databases, merging of multiple data sources and a little voodoo magic to know where things stand. Analytics extend the power of Manufacturing Cloud by infusing insights, predications and recommendations into daily operations. Are you bringing in the business your sales team said they would? Are individual customers buying at the level to meeting their pricing discounts? Is run-rate and opportunity data telling the whole story? Do your business units and product managers understand the whole story? Are your new products performing according to the business plan? With a fully customizable platform, your organization can discover insights into realized revenue, account health, pricing promotions and product performance. Who doesn’t want that??
Why add Manufacturing Cloud?
The answer comes down to solving problems that have long plagued manufacturers. Visibility for sales and supply chain to collaborate for the best overall experience for all parties is a huge win. Add-in the ability to Sales and Finance talk about actuals and pipeline with certainty allows for solid, profitable growth. Creating a place where Sales can collaborate with partners on forecasts while using market leading indicators for more accurate predictions, provide a solid base for expansion.
Want to Learn more?
The Bridgenext team is here to answer your question. Let’s connect to learn more how Manufacturing Cloud, or other Salesforce products, can help you achieve success.
