New industry product provides a unified view of rapidly changing customer demand across the entire value chain
Salesforce has announced Manufacturing Cloud, a new industry-specific product for manufacturers.
Manufacturing Cloud brings sales and operations teams together around a unified view of market and customer demands to more accurately forecast, plan and drive predictable business performance.
With Manufacturing Cloud, companies can now better meet commitments and run a more streamlined business while improving customer satisfaction.
The manufacturing industry depends on predictability, as its capital-intensive businesses often have complex physical operations that cannot be quickly or inexpensively modified to meet changing customer demands.
Unfortunately, operations teams aren’t always aligned with sales reps to ensure they have a single, real-time view of all aspects of their customer relationships.
Critical customer insights are siloed across spreadsheets and multiple ERP systems, which can negatively affect service level agreements, account performance and ultimately the ability to accurately predict demand.
The resulting inventory stockouts, buildups and warehousing costs reduce operating margins and negatively impact revenue. In order for manufacturers to provide a seamless customer experience, they need a solution that helps them better understand customer needs while improving visibility across the entire value chain.
“In the manufacturing industry, changing customer and market demands can have a devastating effect on the bottom line, so being able to understand what is happening on the ground is imperative for success,” said Cindy Bolt, SVP and GM, Salesforce Manufacturing. “Manufacturing Cloud bridges the gap between sales and operations teams while ensuring more predictive and transparent business, so they can build deeper and more trusted relationships with their customers.”
Manufacturing Cloud delivers a new level of business visibility and collaboration between the sales and operations organizations of a manufacturing company.
This allows them to have a better view of their customers through powerful new sales agreements and account-based forecasting solutions, providing visibility into their customer interactions while enabling them to generate more robust sales forecasts.
Salesforce has collaborated with major manufacturing and sales companies through the product pilot program.
In addition to Manufacturing Cloud, Salesforce has also released new manufacturing-specific innovation across the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform to help manufacturers deliver greater transparency, streamline collaboration and grow their businesses.
Salesforce has a comprehensive ecosystem of partners that will extend the power of Manufacturing Cloud. Key partners were instrumental in the development of Manufacturing Cloud, and will power digital transformation for customers in the manufacturing industry.