As a Salesforce partner, we get the pleasure to discuss this with our clients nearly every day. With the recent release of Manufacturing Cloud, let’s take a closer look at how Salesforce is aligning the platform to this vertical and how we are overlaying our expertise from years of delivering to the same vertical.
Serving both large and small manufacturing companies has been a core focus for us at Bridgenext (formerly Wave6). Located in the heart of the country, Bridgenext has always focused on manufacturing and the power of the Salesforce platform. Our capabilities can be categorized into 6 offering sets which include assets we have built for our customers along the way:
- Advanced Partner Relationship Management
- Advanced Analytics
- Parts and Service Automation
- Robotic Process Automation
- Value Assurance
In what will be a multi-episode blog, let’s start with Advanced Partner Relationship Management (PRM). Partner and customer communities have been a key part of the Salesforce platform for years. So, of course, PRM is a natural extension to manufacturers who depend on distribution channels to sell product. With the power of the platform, manufacturers can get a 360-degree view of their distribution network. Teams can collaborate on opportunities, winning business faster than the competition. Sharing leads in real-time earns loyalty points with the end-users and increases loyalty indices. Secure documentation can be consolidated into a single location which eliminates manual effort and resource dependencies. And this is just the beginning.
To ensure your market share is growing, data is king! Let’s look at more advanced use cases. Collaborate with the channel’s top management through Einstein Analytics-enabled reports and dashboards shared with distributors. Enable customers to collaborate with engineers, product managers and sales teams to launch the next big product. Capture information for the most accurate demand planning from distributors. Gamify the experience with the distributors’ sales team ensuring your company is top of mind. Combine a product configurator with sales opportunities to deliver digital assets and market data as it happens.
These are just some of the PRM use cases we have developed and solved for using Salesforce at our manufacturing clients. As a design partner for Manufacturing Cloud, Bridgenext understands the building blocks that SFDC is aligning to for manufacturing. Our experience and expertise allows us to not only understand the unique needs of manufacturing, but also increase speed-to-market and provide a faster return on investment for manufacturing customers who will use this new license type. Through our years of innovation, manufacturing customers are able to extend the value of a Partner Relationship Management system in a proven, systematic manner.
In our next update, we’ll take a deeper dive into Advanced Analytics and how it’s empowering our manufacturing clients, providing insights that were only estimates at best before now.
