Market trends constantly evolve, and with that comes a shift in customer expectations. Customer relationship management (CRM) becomes a critical determinant in an organization’s success. As competition becomes stiffer across the manufacturing sector, heavy equipment manufacturers are looking beyond quality and efficiency for new ways to edge ahead of their rivals. One way manufacturers can set themselves apart is by optimizing their CRM. A well-implemented CRM strategy allows companies to differentiate themselves by providing exceptional service and personalized experiences, which can lead to a competitive advantage.
Let’s explore the common CRM challenges prevalent in heavy equipment production and how Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud can help manufacturers overcome them.
Six CRM Challenges in Heavy Equipment Manufacturing
- Synchronizing sales and operations: A lack of continuous coordination between production, inventory, and sales teams could lead to inefficient resource allocation, excess inventory production, and avoidable delays.
- Accurate demand forecasting: Traditional CRM software lacks the capability to forecast demand accurately.
- Optimizing inventory levels: Ensuring optimal inventory levels while avoiding any shortages or excess is a crucial challenge.
- Managing new product launches: Manufacturers face numerous challenges when launching a new product, such as determining the optimal pricing strategy, forecasting demand, and ensuring timely order fulfillment.
- Improving asset visibility: Tracking heavy equipment manufacturing assets throughout their lifecycle can be quite arduous.
- Enhancing after-sales service: Efficient case management and timely responses for heavy equipment consumers is a demanding task.
Is there a need for a manufacturing-focused CRM?
While traditional CRMs can handle most heavy equipment’s and laser machine manufacturers’ requirements, a CRM that is tailor-made to meet a manufacturer’s specific needs is far better. Manufacturing-focused CRMs that integrate all aspects of production, such as supply chain management, assembly, inventory management, sales, and aftersales, would help manufacturing companies overcome most of the aforementioned challenges and improve productivity, making them more competitive.
What is Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud?
Manufacturing Cloud is a specialized version of Salesforce’s renowned CRM software designed specifically for the manufacturing sector. Equipped with a comprehensive set of industry-specific capabilities, Manufacturing Cloud can help heavy equipment manufacturers streamline their operations, optimize their business processes, and enhance interdepartmental collaboration.
What makes Manufacturing Cloud unique?
What sets Manufacturing Cloud apart from traditional CRM software is its core set of features, which improve process transparency and enable manufacturers to predict demand accurately.
- Sales Agreements: Sales agreements in Manufacturing Cloud are a centralized repository of all sales contracts between a manufacturer and its clients. This feature provides timely visibility into committed and actual order volumes to ensure customer order compliance and avoid excess stockpiling in warehouses.
- Account Forecasts: This feature leverages AI and machine learning to analyze historical sales data and offers accurate sales forecasts for every active account, based on which manufacturers can optimize their production schedule and plan their inventory. Manufacturing cloud also offers the capability to create holistic forecasts across regions, products, product categories, or any other custom dimensions.
Benefits of Implementing Manufacturing Cloud in Heavy Equipment Production
- Manufacturing Cloud integrates sales data with operations data, providing a unified view of all opportunities, sales forecasts, and ongoing projects. With this integrated view, decision-makers can align production plans and inventory levels according to sales forecasts, ensuring an optimized production output.
- Manufacturing Cloud facilitates new product introductions by centralizing critical information such as product specifications, pricing, inventory levels, lead times, and production schedules. This ensures smoother product launches and efficient collaboration between sales and production teams.
- Accurate account-based demand forecasts within Manufacturing Cloud help manufacturers optimize inventory and improve supply chain efficiency.
- Manufacturing Cloud’s Service Console allows manufacturers to handle service requests, complaints, and product issues, which enhances overall customer satisfaction.
- The Asset Service Console provides insights into asset hierarchies, warranties, service timelines, and alerts. This visibility ensures better asset management and maintenance planning.
Final Thoughts
As the heavy equipment industry continues to evolve, manufacturers must proactively adopt digital strategies to thrive. Integrating Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud into your heavy equipment production process will elevate your CRM strategy to new heights. Manufacturing Cloud enhances production efficiency, agility, and competitiveness in a dynamic industry by addressing key challenges such as sales and operations alignment, demand forecasting, inventory management, asset visibility, and analytics.
