How Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud Is Changing The Landscape For Manufacturers
By: Isaura Martinez
Tags: Apps, Manufacturing, SaaS, Technology, Salesforce

With every new year, manufacturing companies continue to advance and evolve their strategies to reach goals. The investment in technology has been increasing in the last decade, especially with the rise of Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things and, of course, cloud technology. More and more businesses have taken the leap into moving their key data to the cloud for easier access, and the manufacturing industry is no exception. Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud can help manufacturers to leverage cloud technology to grow their businesses.

Consider the place of the manufacturing industry in the U.S. economy. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, manufacturers contributed $2.37 trillion to the U.S. economy in the second quarter of 2019, not far from the all-time high recorded in the fourth quarter of 2018, which was $2.365 trillion. It is also important to consider that, with these numbers, manufacturing accounted for 11.1% of GDP in the economy.

This means the National Association of Manufacturers calculates that “for every $1.00 spent in manufacturing, another $1.82 is added to the economy. In addition, for every one worker in manufacturing, there are another four employees hired elsewhere.” Sectors such as retail, transportation, and business services benefit from this.

However, for decades manufacturing companies had to operate with technology that required higher investments for acquisition and maintenance. Data was siloed, which made it more difficult to increase productivity, efficiency, and profits. The 2010s brought the Fourth Industrial Revolution in full force, motivating these companies to innovate and incorporate technologies such as AI and cloud computing.

SaaS has helped bring productivity to new levels, allowing businesses to integrate systems and get the most out of information available, and making it accessible to their teams regardless of when and where they’re located. Salesforce has brought leads and customer data to the cloud, and with data integration technology such as Commercient SYNC, employees have access to this data whether they’re in Salesforce or in the ERP. Without needing to be in front of their desktop computers, or having to call the person with access to the system. A 360° view of sales and customers instantly, even from a mobile device.

This is one of the benefits Commercient’s customer Gecko Alliance sees by using Salesforce and connecting it with their ERP, Infor Visual, through SYNC. Gecko Alliance provides manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and technicians customized and complete solutions for spas and hot tubs, and they have been working with Commercient since 2017. Recently, they switched to Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud, and the results seen are amazing.

Commercient interviewed Elodie Martinez, Salesforce Administrator at Gecko Alliance, during Dreamforce 2019. When asked about the Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud, she said: “It covers a gap. I have not seen any app that is built the way that Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud is built.”

Where have they seen more benefits? Below are three key areas Gecko Alliance has seen significant improvement through the Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud, and manufacturers can leverage as well:

1. Product Forecasting

One of the strengths mentioned by Elodie Martinez about Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud is how strong it is on the forecasting side. Before, they were doing forecasting in the ERP, “and then we heard about Manufacturing Cloud so we have been running on pilot since Q3. Within a few months, you will see a lot more people using it,” said Martinez.

Forecasting in Infor Visual provided valuable data, but the main issue was that manufacturers don’t only forecast revenue, but also products and quantities. The possibility to track inventories, orders, and to be able to financially plan for either more or less product quantities accurately contributes to mitigating long-term risks. This is how software such as Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud and integrations like Commercient SYNC help manufacturing companies for better forecasting.

“What it does for us is currently we had multiple people entering the same data into different databases, so you had errors, wrong data, investing time in something less valuable, added task such as taking a number from an Opportunity and putting it into another system; you are not doing anything that is valuable for a company,” she explained.

Managing everything from separate apps, not even synced to Salesforce, used to bring these and other issues. Now things have changed, and their goal is to eventually feed that forecast into the ERP system, as forward orders, future orders and other data.

2. Customer Analysis

In addition to forecasting, Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud has helped Gecko Alliance with customer analysis. If they take actual quantities of the orders and feed that back into the Manufacturing Cloud then they have their forecast versus actual. Then they have real, live data SYNCing from Infor Visual to the Salesforce Cloud.

“It also allows us to see if I signed a contract with that many quantities, I have opportunities with that many quantities,” Martinez said. She also explained that this detailed analysis helps Gecko Alliance to detect any gaps between current orders and former orders, so they can forecast more accurately. They can even contact the customer and ask about the changes in the orders, which helps them to analyse better the customer’s behavior and see if there are ways to resolve any issues.

“With Einstein and analytics you can study your customer a lot more,” Martinez said. Teaching some people about what it is to do an analysis on a customer can be tricky, but with Manufacturing Cloud and Einstein Gecko Alliance expect to provide a more intuitive, user-friendly reporting experience, in order to reduce the learning curve as much as possible. This will provide them the necessary insights to make decisions based on accurate, up-to-date information.

Another benefit mentioned with Einstein is seasonality. “Depending on where you are in the world, China and Australia don’t have the same seasons we have here in North America,” Martinez mentioned when she explained why the orders may vary according to the current season where the customer is located.

Being able to understand these cycles helps Gecko Alliance and manufacturing companies to understand their customers better, which paves the way to a more transparent communication. This improves processes, workflows and, especially, customer experience.

3. Optimize Sales Processes With an Integration

Organizational changes can take some time, but once the users adopt the technology and embrace the new process, workflows improve and more gets done, faster. The Gecko Alliance Sales team started using Salesforce as “something they needed to do”. They started to use it, got to know the software and all the powerful features Salesforce offered for them when managing leads and customers’ information.

When they connected the ERP Infor Visual with Salesforce through Commercient SYNC, they reached a new level. Bringing customer information from the ERP to Salesforce gave them easier access to information such as orders and invoicing.

“In the last sales meeting, they all came back and said ‘we can’t live without it anymore. This is our true source of data, this is where everything we do is happening.’ It pushed Salesforce into the front end for them. They know that without SYNC they couldn’t be doing what they’re doing right now,” said Martinez.

For decades, manufacturers have relied on ETL or legacy systems to store key data, but these are not user-friendly, requiring a bigger investment and complex maintenance.

That’s changing. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, “manufacturers in the United States perform 63% of all private-sector Research & Development (R&D) in the nation, driving more innovation than any other sector.”

From advanced robotics in R&D labs to computer vision in warehouses and other devices, technology is making an impact on every step of the manufacturing process. Innovation used to focus on production or distribution, but now, thanks to technology such as Salesforce and SYNC, these changes are rapidly coming to other areas such as Sales, Accountings, Customer Service, Human Resources, and more.

Now, technology is here to help manufacturing companies to focus on implementing roadmaps that bring not only more business and profits but also opens the way towards a companywide digital transformation.

Check out Commercient on AppExchange today.