Tag: Manufacturing

Frustrated With Your Manufacturing Sampling Program?

Is your company struggling to find the benefits of a good manufacturing sampling or seeding program? Sampling programs allow your company to catch any discrepancies or feedback before your production is in full swing. Without a closed-loop strategy, your company might not be seeing the results you want or expected. Our sampling program helped Kensington™, a leader of desktop and mobile accessories, see a 7,000% increase in ROI.

Program Pain Points

Sampling programs can make or break your product’s success. Companies tend to write off sampling programs without realizing the benefits a good program can bring in terms of end-user sales and customer feedback. Here are some pain points Corrao Group has found for manufacturing companies managing their sampling programs:

    • Trouble communicating the value of the samples
    • Missed feedback opportunities from potential customers about your product
    • No ability to track distributed samples
    • Samples are not personalized to the end-user
    • Difficulty collecting customer feedback during their unboxing to usage phases
    • Lack of auto-escalation to resolution as issues arise

Corrao Group’s Solution

Kensington™ partnered with the Corrao Group to develop an automated way of managing sample units. After optimizing their Salesforce instance, Corrao Group helped develop and implement a closed-loop strategy that involved sampling out new products to new or existing customers. The sampling program would require a streamlined distribution strategy, tracking capabilities, hands-off reporting, and clear ROI. The white-glove experience would become known as “ProConcierge” and would involve Corrao Group creating and assisting in:

    • Creating buyer personas to identify and prioritize qualified candidates
    • Building a content map for supporting marketing collateral
    • Creating weekly survey emails for the sampling program
    • Packages carrying docking stations were tracked through Salesforce, and Pardot was connected to ensure that the appropriate feedback requests were automatically delivered weekly
    • Customizing Salesforce reports to provide visibility into the leads generated weekly
    • Standardizing Kensington™’s Salesforce process and implementing data requirements throughout their sales process

Salesforce Products Used

    • Sales Cloud
    • Pardot
    • Einstein Analytics

Other Products Used

    • Form Assembly

The hand-off process included the creation of step-by-step demonstration videos by the team at Corrao Group to assist with training as new users joined the ProConceirge team at Kensington™. In total, Kensington™ saw a 7,000% increase in ROI, $3M in influenced sales, and over 1,000 units shipped. To learn more about our assistance in ProConceirge, download our white paper.

Salesforce’s Manufacturing Cloud

Our Sampling/Seeding program is exclusively built, configured, and optimized for Salesforce’s Manufacturing Cloud Platform. Manufacturing Cloud extends benefits to all your partners to collaborate across the same forecast order and demand data in one single source of truth. A new era is emerging for manufacturing, and it allows manufacturers to have complete control over the ability to operate their business in a much more profitable point of view.

Salesforce’s new Manufacturing Cloud will allow customers and their partners to have company-wide visibility into all their business processes. We understand that optimizing your Salesforce starts with optimizing your business processes. We’ve worked with nearly 1,000 customers; implementing, customizing, and optimizing Salesforce and have been everyday power users ourselves since 2008. Corrao Group can help you maximize your investments in Salesforce and Manufacturing Cloud. For more information, please visit our Salesforce page.

Manufacturing Cloud: No Longer Negotiating Blind

Salesforce’s announcement of Manufacturing Cloud has given manufacturers the tools needed to take control of their business. Before the release, it was difficult for manufacturers to have full visibility into sales agreements. Negotiating blind occurs for companies when their sales team doesn’t have what it needs to plan, sell, or close the right deal. As a result, negotiating blind was the first significant pain point that Salesforce solved for the manufacturing industry.

Outdated ERPs and Forecasts

Ongoing changes to sales orders that are not communicated back to the original sales agreement are a major challenge for manufacturers today. The changes to sales orders are not fully visible to manufacturers because the sales agreements are managed outside of the ERP, or the deals are across multiple ERPs. In addition, inaccurate forecasting becomes an issue when updated sales orders are not synced directly to the sales agreement. Without accurate data in real-time, manufacturers tend to create forecasts based on their own best interests rather than relying on accurate data from past or present performances.

Salesforce’s Solution: Manufacturing Cloud

Manufacturing Cloud provides a central location to surface orders from multiple systems. All your employees and partners have real-time visibility into planned orders that can be compared to actual orders. All of your important data housed under one single source of truth will help Manufacturers improve their forecasting as employees cans see changes made to sale orders in real-time. With the help of Salesforce Einstein, forecasted data on the agreement can outline the internal assumptions that went into the contract so that you never forget crucial insights from your previous deals. In addition, Einstein can generate insights automatically to help you plan, sell, or close a deal when you store all your customer data into Salesforce. Manufacturers should no longer have to negotiate blind with the ability to have one single source of truth.

How Forecasts Help You

Let’s say you’re the Managing Partner of a manufacturing company that makes reading glasses. In order to make the glasses, you need to engage with a metal company for the frames and a plastic company for the lens.

After reviewing your forecasts without using the insights from Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud, you estimate you will require 10,000 eyeglass units. With the ability to forecast accurately in real-time with Manufacturing Cloud, you’re alerted you have the potential to make more than 12,000 and save in costs. Manufacturing Cloud gives manufacturers better confidence in their actual production units because of the ability to have accurate forecasting that can be broken down per month.

Now, you’re able to circle back to your vendors and negotiate a better price for your company based on the volume of material that’s coming in. Manufacturing Cloud takes the guesswork out of forecasting.

Corrao Group Can Help You

Solving the first pain point of the current Manufacturing industry is a significant accomplishment for Salesforce. With the recent release of Customer 360 Truth, Salesforce is giving its customers a single source of truth that houses all your customer’s data. Much like Customer 360 Truth, Manufacturing Cloud gives Manufacturers a more precise picture of their entire business with additional features that will help improve their company. If you would like to learn more about Manufacturing Cloud’s capabilities or features, please reach out to the Corrao Group team. The Corrao Group team is here to help you integrate and advise you on the best practices involving Manufacturing Cloud.

The Importance of Manufacturing Cloud

The release of Manufacturing Cloud is a fantastic accomplishment for Salesforce. Manufacturing Cloud takes the current pain points of the industry and turns them into an experience that is flexible in reacting to the customer’s ever-changing demands. In this blog, we are going to share with you the importance of Salesforce’s latest release.

Forecasting

Salesforce knows that the manufacturing industry contains more than just customers. Suppliers, contractors, dealers, service technicians, distributors, and internal warehouse and factory all play a crucial role in the development of your product and the experiences of your customers. Manufacturing Cloud helps users collaborate in real-time across the ecosystem to ensure your forecasts are accurate and updates to your schedules are automatically communicated to warehouse and purchasing departments.

According to Salesforce, “Manufacturers need a clear understanding of all past shipments, current production plans, and future production forecasts.” Forecasting in Manufacturing Cloud is all about taking control and allowing flexible releases to your customers’ needs. Manufacturers often have very different sales and forecasting processes that your supply and chain teams must know when to deliver new items. Manufacturing Cloud gives users the upfront awareness of what you think you’re going to sell, and when you are going to sell it. Having critical insights into the timing of selling your product will make every part of your business sufficient.

Forecasting in Salesforce isn’t just about how you’re going to sell your product on your unique timeline. It’s about knowing how you need to staff your factory: Do I need a second shift, or can I get by with the first shift? Manufacturers always have absurd spikes where their employees are forced to work long hours to get their product out. Forecasting in Manufacturing Cloud gives manufacturers an overview of all their businesses, allowing them to take control and make smarter decisions.

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Partner Collaboration

Manufacturing Cloud extends benefits to all your partners to collaborate across the same forecast order and demand data in one single source of truth. For example, the Partner Community allows your vendors and partners to see and engage in real-time updates to your sales forecasts. Additionally, analytics will be tied directly to order data with additional information into the territory, customer, agreement, product line, or product performance. Improving inventory management allows manufacturers the chance to analyze their customer data, and gain insights into every product and territory performance.

A New Era

Manufacturers for far too long have used old proprietary systems that have never been scaled. In addition, these systems are not cloud friendly. Salesforce being able to tie manufacturing into the leader of the cloud is a big deal. The era of using and exporting spreadsheets or pivot tables is over. A new era is emerging for manufacturing, and it allows manufacturers to have complete control over the ability to operate their business in a much more profitable point of view.

Our experience with manufacturing dates back to our Managing Partner, Jack Corrao. Jack has developed numerous operational infrastructures to support hardware and software companies to deliver the best in breed solutions. As our #1 vertical, we are here to help you integrate and train you on best practices involving Manufacturing Cloud.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be releasing a new blog related to Salesforce’s new Cloud. We’ll cover manufacturing pain points Salesforce solved, our favorite features, and how to integrate Manufacturing Cloud. If you would like to learn more, please contact us.

Sources

https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2019/09/introducing-manufacturing-cloud.html

All Photos can be found here: https://www.salesforce.com/products/manufacturing-cloud/overview/

Salesforce Releases Manufacturing Cloud

Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, recently announced a specialized solution for the manufacturing industry: Manufacturing Cloud. Manufacturers will now have the ability to streamline their entire business in one single platform.

Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, recently announced a specialized solution for the manufacturing industry: Manufacturing Cloud. Manufacturers will now have the ability to streamline their entire business in one single platform.

As a long-time manufacturing-focused partner, Corrao Group attended a Salesforce partner webinar: Manufacturing Cloud: Business / Go-to-Market on October 18th. We were blown away by the presentation and believe it will provide extreme value for our customers.

Manufacturers often have complex physical processes that are hard to modify quickly and efficiently to meet the customers changing demands. In order to know the customer’s feedback in real-time, your operation teams have to be aligned with Sales representatives to have one single source of truth. Manufacturing Cloud will, “Deliver a new level of business visibility and collaboration between the sales and operations organizations of a manufacturing company to give a more predictive and transparent business” (Salesforce).

New manufacturing specific tools and enhancements released by Salesforce includes:

  • Einstein Analytics for Manufacturing
  • Sales Agreements
  • Account-Based Forecasting
  • Mulesoft Anypoint Platform
  • Connected Sales and Distributions
  • Intelligent Service and Field Service
  • Personalized B2B and B2C Marketing
  • Real-time Business Insights
  • Channel Partner Management
  • Real-time Collaboration

Corrao Group’s experience and discipline with manufacturing dates back to 1982 with our Managing Partner. Jack Corrao has developed numerous operational infrastructures to support hardware and software companies to deliver the best in breed solutions. Since 2008, Corrao Group has been helping manufacturers utilize Salesforce to create an automated closed-loop system for channel-centric manufacturing.

As Dreamforce 2019 approaches, Corrao Group is excited to learn even more about the capabilities of Salesforce’s Manufacturing Cloud. We will be in attendance to meet with our customers and prospects in regards to the new releases.

To learn more information about Dreamforce 2019, please visit https://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/.

Exciting times are coming for the Manufacturing industry!

References

https://www.salesforce.com/company/news-press/press-releases/2019/09/191609-vr/

https://www.salesforce.com/products/manufacturing-cloud/overview/