The release of Salesforce’s new Manufacturing Cloud will help manufacturers gain access and visibility into their full business operations. Having one single source of truth is critical for collaboration on sale agreements, forecasting, and more. Salesforce solved major points for the manufacturing community by creating a new cloud for the next generation of manufacturers. Below is a list of our favorite Manufacturing Cloud features.
Sales Agreements
Manufacturers can unify their run-rate business with information housed on the Enterprise Resource Platform (ERP) and order management system. Both the account and operations teams will now have access to a single source of truth, continually updating in real-time as changes to the deals are made. Sales Agreements give users full visibility into committed and actual order volumes, the performance of the agreement against the forecast, and other time-phased metrics.
Account-Based Forecasting
Manufacturers can now gain insights into their current business as well as future opportunities. Leverage account-based forecasting to develop more accurate forecasts for your sales, finance, and operation teams. “Account teams can also add updates on changing customer needs or market demands, allowing the team to collaborate and adjust forecasts in real-time (Salesforce).”
Einstein Analytics
Automatically gain insight into your account health, demand insights, product penetration, and sales agreement process. According to Ashish Kofhani, the Senior Vice President of Products, Einstein Analytics is his favorite new feature. He says, “Of all the new features, my personal favorite is the Manufacturing Einstein Analytics Pack. Einstein analyzes all the data from net new business, run rate business, past orders, current orders, etc. and churns out insights and recommendations on which accounts to target, products to position, and prices to quote. It is AI in action.”
Community Cloud
Extend pre-built sales agreement templates to your channel partners to collaborate on deals, leads, and opportunities. Leverage Community Cloud for company-wide visibility into all business processes to ensure all your partners are on the same page. Through integrating the Community Cloud platform, you can extend real-time transparency and collaboration capabilities in Manufacturing Cloud to your clients and partners.
Mulesoft AnyPoint Platform
The Mulesoft Anypoint Platform’s ERP plugins and templates make it easy to collect order information from your ERP or order management systems. By unifying your back office with your front office, you can reduce the complexity of integration. Mulesoft’s platform helps manufacturers maintain a real-time, accurate view of their account activity.
Forecasting
Manufacturing Cloud allows users to take control of their forecasts to have a more accurate description of their entire business. We talked more about how forecasting will impact manufacturers in our last blog, which you can find here.
Decades of Manufacturing Experience
Working with Salesforce since 2008, we’ve have seen the invaluable benefits that a CRM can have for companies, especially those in the manufacturing industry. Salesforce’s new Manufacturing Cloud will allow customers and their partners to have company-wide visibility into all business processes. With tools such as sales agreements and forecasting, data can be analyzed effortlessly. Salesforce consulting services have been just as important to us as business process optimization, and we strive to help businesses maximize their investments into their CRM and Manufacturing Cloud.
Sources
https://www.salesforce.com/company/news-press/stories/2019/09/091619-kc/
https://www.salesforce.com/products/manufacturing-cloud/overview/
