SAN FRANCISCO—September 16, 2019—Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), a CRM software developer, 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, according to Salesforce.
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 the sales reps to ensure they have a single, real-time view of all aspects of their customer relationships. Critical customer insights can be siloed across spreadsheets and multiple ERP systems, which can negatively affect service level agreements, account performance and ultimately the ability to accurately predict demand, according to Salesforce. 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, the company added.
“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, the newest industry-specific product from Salesforce, delivers a new level of business visibility and collaboration between the sales and operations organizations of a manufacturing company, according to Salesforce. This allows them to have a better view of their customers through 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 manufacturing and sales companies through the product pilot program, including Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. – Engines Division, Hitachi Chemical, CF Industries, Mipox, GELITA and others. Features include:
In addition to Manufacturing Cloud, Salesforce says it is also releasing new manufacturing-specific innovation across the Salesforce Customer 360 Platform to help manufacturers deliver greater transparency, streamline collaboration and grow their businesses. Developments include:
Salesforce says it has an ecosystem of partners that will extend the capabilities of Manufacturing Cloud, including:
“At its core, the problem sales and operations planning had tried to solve and continues to try to solve is a lack of coordination between business functions. Manufacturers tend to operate in silos, resulting in less-than-optimal achievement of KPIs and stresses the business’ ability to achieve its revenue and profit target,” said Reid Paquin, Research Director for IDC Manufacturing Insights. “Digital transformation dictates that planning decisions be made with a 360-view using near-real-time information on demand and consumption”
“Our customers have a clear desire to align sales forecasts with their core sales and operations planning demand and production planning functions. We can’t wait to see Manufacturing Cloud give manufacturers a huge boost in tackling these challenges,” said Andy Schoka, Managing Director of Manufacturing at Acumen Solutions.
For more information on Salesforce Manufacturing, visit: https://www.salesforce.com/solutions/industries/manufacturing/overview/. For more information on Salesforce Einstein Analytics, visit: https://www.salesforce.com/products/einstein-analytics/overview/
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