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Manufacturing Summit Key Takeaways

CloudShift and Salesforce Manufacturing Summit - Key takeaways

Key Takeaways from our CloudShift and Salesforce Manufacturing Summit

We were delighted to host our brand new Summit with our friends at Salesforce, this time around focusing on the Manufacturing industry. It was a fantastic afternoon full of great industry insights, fireside chats, solution demos, secrets to implementation success, and even our Customer Forterra joined to share their experience. Here are some of our key takeaways we wanted to share with you;

Industry Insights, Challenges & Opportunities

Kicking off the afternoon our own David Kurtanjek was joined by Robert Heys and Daniel Hayward from Salesforce to discuss some of the significant changes to the Manufacturing Industry that customers are facing and what impact that could have on them in the future.
A common thread throughout the session is that the industry is seeing an opportunity to engage with customers via digital channels like never before.

Daniel Hayward SVP at Salesforce highlighted 3 key areas that Salesforce are helping Customers;
‘“Firstly, the manufacturing industry has the opportunity to engage with customers like never before and create a high-value customer experience. Secondly, there is a greater urgency to help employees engage with the organisations they’re working for and give them the right information at the right time to make informed data-driven decisions. Thirdly, there is a great focus on opportunities to connect the front office and back-end to create operational excellence which supports supply chain and sustainability”.

Daniel highlighted that differentiation through customer service is now a key factor for success and driving customer satisfaction and loyalty. There is increased focus now on “giving a richer, more personalised experience to create longer-term relationships and partnerships through omnichannel experiences and enabling customers engage and transact digitally”. There is also a real acceleration throughout marketing channels; providing focused customer-centric information around new product development, new initiatives or marketing activities that customers are looking to engage with provides a vast opportunity for businesses to capitalise on.

With COP26 on the horizon, sustainability was also a key focus of the conversation; Robert explained “we are witnessing customers accelerate their transparency across the supply chain and providing visibility of their carbon footprint. It’s clear that business can no longer offset their carbon emissions by pushing them down the supply chain but instead face them head-on”.

Customer Story: Foundations for Success

Next up, David spoke to John Wyldbore, Head of IT Demand & Innovation at Forterra to discuss their implementation of Salesforce as part of their digital transformation, with CloudShift as their implementation partner. John explained “Procuring a new system usually requires you to jump through hoops, but most staff were on board and could see a long-term future of the application and benefit of using Salesforce.”

John expressed that Salesforce is going to be the underlying technology to enable future projects. “The seamless data link between applications means that information is available at the touch of a button first-hand without having to go through multiple people”. John explained that Forterra has multiple regional sales managers across their business and the Salesforce Customer 360 will allow people to go in and understand what conversations are being had with customers which in turn will help them cross-sell, and link up marketing and sales to capitalise on leads.

John went on to explain how getting set up with a partner was key, “Salesforce fits in with how we work as a business. We don’t have the specialised skills in-house to implement these changes, but CloudShift helped us put our ideas into reality. It’s always good to have a good partner who can help you on your journey and understand what you’re talking about. It was never about just implementing Salesforce, it was about the digital transformation of our customer and employee journey”.

John finished on what is on the horizon for Forterra, mentioning Pardot, Customer Portals and Call Centre enhancements to enable them to build on creating an excellent customer experience. It’s clear that their digital transformation journey has begun, and here at CloudShift we’re really excited to see the full impact Salesforce can have on their business and stakeholders.

Driving Change with Salesforce

Guiding us through a brand new Salesforce demo tailored to the manufacturing sector, Salesforce solution experts Stephen Baines and Nicola Iversen talked us through a typical user journey from different stakeholder perspectives. Showcasing the latest innovations and solutions driving change and transformation within the manufacturing industry, Nicola demonstrated how marketing automation can be used to nurture leads before they’re passed to sales. Meanwhile, Stephen gave us an overview of Manufacturing Cloud, showing us how you can access the relevant data and insights within the Customer 360.

Manufacturing Summit - Solution Demo

Implementation Success with CloudShift

Our own Abi Chan then talked about the process of implementing Salesforce and the digital transformation journey. Noting that for some, step one can feel the hardest, “but with CloudShift as a consulting partner, we can support you in tailoring an approach based on all things unique to your business whether that be your people, culture, processes and of course your existing technology”, guiding you through with our road mapping and process blueprinting. Putting the users at the heart of the transformation ensures the solution tackles the day-to-day pain points that should be a priority. This early engagement, along with user onboarding, goes a long way in ensuring a successful adoption. In addition, picking a partner that not only provides a technical understanding of your requirements but challenges you on your strategy and processes can have a significant influence on the success of the implementation and the benefits you stand to gain from the digital transformation. Abi reiterates “communication is key, both internally and externally”. It’s of utmost importance that everyone knows what is happening and why, and what they are responsible for in order to reach the common goal of implementation success and creating a foundation for future growth.

Manufacturing Summit - Implementation Success

Thank you to everyone who joined our event. We look forward to helping you on your digital transformation journey with Salesforce.

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We are now the Globant Salesforce Studio

We are delighted to announce that CloudShift has become the Globant UK Salesforce Studio.
Following our acquisition by Globant over 18 months ago, CloudShift is now part of the Globant Salesforce Studio which is a 2,000 strong global Salesforce practice.

Read more about our transition here.