In this series, hear from Perficient’s Patrick McNamee, Portfolio Specialist, and Chris Kulish, Senior Technical Architect, as they discuss trends in the manufacturing industry and how the Salesforce platform can address business challenges. This post covers content up to the 9:02 mark in the below video. 

Our team recently attended Salesforce Connections, where they learned about new capabilities and product announcements, including Salesforce Data Cloud and Einstein GPT. Salesforce Data Cloud is a real-time, unified platform that helps businesses connect, harmonize, and engage with their customers. It provides a single view of the customer across all channels, enabling businesses to deliver personalized experiences in real-time. Data Cloud is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), which help businesses automate tasks, improve decision-making, and drive revenue growth. 

Einstein GPT is a generative AI CRM technology that combines Salesforce proprietary AI models with generative AI technology from partners, public large language models (LMMs), and real-time data from Data Cloud.  

Together, these tools can provide: 

Predictive maintenance. By analyzing data from sensors and machines, manufacturers can predict when equipment is likely to fail. This allows them to schedule preventative maintenance, which can prevent unplanned downtime and costly repairs. 
Demand forecasting. By analyzing historical sales data and customer behavior, manufacturers can forecast demand for their products. This allows them to produce the right amount of inventory, which can reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction.  
Quality control. By analyzing data from production lines, manufacturers can identify potential problems with their products. This allows them to take corrective action before the products are shipped to customers.  
Sales and marketing. By analyzing data from customer interactions, manufacturers can better understand their customers’ needs and preferences. This allows them to develop more effective sales and marketing campaigns.  

Data Cloud and Einstein GPT integrate with all Salesforce Clouds and can be leveraged across various industries to improve forecasting, sales, marketing, and customer service.  

The Manufacturing Industry and Addressing Business Challenges with Salesforce  

With over 10 years of SaaS sales and consulting experience, Perficient Portfolio Specialist Patrick McNamee joined Senior Technical Architect Chris Kulish, who has 10 years of experience delivering Salesforce solutions in the manufacturing space, to discuss trends in the manufacturing industry and how Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud can address business challenges.  

By combining their sales and delivery perspectives, Patrick and Chris lend a different lens to the conversation.  

What We’re Seeing Today 

Across the board, we’re seeing clients trim budgets and delay projects. The underlying cause is the economic slowdown, and we know that clients are looking for cost efficiencies. Now more than ever, they need to do more with less.  

There’s also an underlying fear of investing in and moving forward with new technologies. However, clients need to consider these new technologies in order to address business challenges and remain competitive.  

For example, Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud can help clients gain more visibility into the sales cycle and introduce capabilities for forecasting and sales. These features are pre-built into Salesforce and will likely not require extra funds or dev time to deploy.  

Connecting the Dots with Data Cloud and Einstein GPT 

At Connections, one of the main themes was leveraging Data Cloud and Einstein GPT to gain better insights into the manufacturing business itself. These products can see into sales agreements, forecasting, finance, inventory control, and storage, just to name a few.  

Two features that were highlighted are the data model and the process to follow and capture potential sales. Traditionally, clients have net-new opportunities within their Salesforce CRM, but what happens once that opportunity is closed and it’s now an everyday account that sellers call into every quarter?  

Predictive insights into sales agreements provide another record type to capture momentum. Sellers will be able to predict what a client will sell in any given quarter. This data point enables sellers to measure success and gain valuable sales insight into not just hot new deals but the overall health of traditional run-rate business.  

This feature could be adopted to help capture constant contact with clients and is the ideal way to cultivate relationships. Sellers will have more frequent conversations sooner and can fine-tune the data as time goes on.  

Perficient + Salesforce 

We are a Salesforce Summit Partner with more than two decades of experience delivering digital solutions in the manufacturing, automotive, healthcare, financial services, and high-tech industries. Our team has deep expertise in all Salesforce Clouds and products, AI, DevOps, and specialized domains to help you reap the benefits of implementing Salesforce solutions. Click here to learn more about our Salesforce manufacturing expertise.