Using Salesforce to Drive your Manufacturing Growth

Posted on October 17, 2021April 19, 2023 by Sudip Nandy

You may already think of Salesforce as a powerful Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) application, but it can also help manufacturers to identify, prospect and track opportunities, customers, and cases to drive revenue and growth opportunities. Manufacturers who take advantage of the full breadth of Salesforce’s functionality realize improved revenues and growth margins – all while lowering their SG&A and Operations Costs.

How Can You Improve Your Revenue?

Vertex Computer Systems has helped manufacturers conduct B2B marketing campaigns that expand their ability to understand and respect their customers and ultimately contribute to the continued success of those valued partners. Similarly, Salesforce Sales Cloud can be utilized to attract and engage new customers before, during, and after the sale. If you’re serious about keeping track of your customers at every stage, Vertex has the Salesforce expertise to help you leverage customer relationships to grow sales and improve customer satisfaction.

Because Salesforce provides a true 360° view of the customer, manufacturers can get a clearer understanding of customer needs as well as their journeys through the sales process. Would you like to shorten the cycle from prospect to sale? Salesforce provides standard and custom pricing solution options to help manufacturers accelerate deals. The Partner Portal’s Community Cloud can also enhance collaboration with a manufacturer’s business partners for greater efficiency.

Key Salesforce Features That Help Manufacturers Grow Sales Revenue

B2B marketing campaigns
Lead scoring and automated assignments
Lead-to-Cash process optimization
Custom pricing solutions to accelerate deals and maximize gross margins
Partner Portal access via Partner Community for maximum collaboration
Streamlined/automated customer service experience
True 360° view of the customer providing revenues, returns, support costs, et al

The other side of the profitability equation involves the standardization, optimization, and automation of processes. If you’re interested in lowering your SG&A and operations costs, Salesforce can help. Did you know you can eliminate manual spreadsheets, replacing them with real-time processing, reporting, and alerts? Salesforce provides your Manufacturing team instant access to the same up-to-date detailed information. That’s just one way of many that Salesforce enhances operations.

Key Salesforce Features That lower SG&A and Operations Costs

Eliminating manual spreadsheets with real-time processing, reporting, and alerts
Demand Forecasting – both revenues and units
Contract management
Simplified order processing/ERP integration
MS Outlook/Gmail integration
Reduced customer service and support costs
Integrated, automated, and streamlined credit checking

If you want to leverage Salesforce to quickly move the needle for your manufacturing firm, give Vertex a call. You won’t be disappointed.

Four Common Reasons for Failed Salesforce Implementations and How to Avoid Them

Posted on February 2, 2021April 19, 2023 by Suraj Pillai

Limitless Potential or Expensive Headache? Make the Most of your Salesforce Implementation to Avoid Pitfalls.

As customer relationship management (CRM) tools go, Salesforce is the Cadillac of systems. It empowers organizations to retrieve vast and deep pools of customer information. Users can easily view and act on individual accounts, contacts, tasks, opportunities, leads, and events. With detailed customer data and robust planning and collaboration tools, you instantly gain efficiency and productivity. So, why do so many organizations often experience an enthusiastic start with Salesforce only to be disappointed after several months of use?

Here are four reasons that lead to Salesforce fatigue or outright disillusionment – along with how to avoid them.

Lack of Vision, Planning & Communication

If you purchase Salesforce only because every other successful business is using it, and roll it out to your Sales teams, you’re not going to get much value. Before you jump in, ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish.

A successful Salesforce implementation requires a clear vision, definition of goals, careful planning, road mapping, and a well-thought-out communication plan for your teams. Only then will the execution work. In fact, insufficient and incorrect communication is the number-one reason we see Salesforce implementations fail. Without a well-defined vision, it would be impossible to carve out a roadmap and without a roadmap, you’re pretty much guaranteed to fail in your Salesforce journey.

Inexperienced Admins

Often, we see customers, especially those in the nonprofit world, dive head-first into configuring their Salesforce instance after reading a few blogs or tutorials. While this may work in the short-term, and with smaller teams, it’s ultimately not scalable. As your business and team grows, Salesforce will morph into its own bottleneck. While the platform itself is built to serve businesses at scale (almost all Fortune 100 companies use Salesforce), it takes an experienced admin or solution architect to avoid common pitfalls. To avoid this problem, either invest in the necessary training for your in-house resource or work with a qualified architect who understands how to configure your instance, considering how your needs will change over time as your organization grows.

Improper Schema

One of the biggest strengths of Salesforce is the ease with which it allows you to define new objects and fields to hold your data. A few clicks makes it available to everyone on your team. However, in the wrong hands, this can be disastrous. We have seen inexperienced admins go trigger-happy, adding new fields and objects with very little thought. This results in hitting all kinds of platform limits, frustratingly long data input forms, bad and insufficient reporting, and poor user adoption and satisfaction. In worst-case scenarios, it can prevent your business from scaling altogether. As I’ve mentioned previously, clear planning and knowledgeable admins will prevent the creation of improper schema and associated problems.

Automations

Salesforce prides itself on being the market leader in Sales Automation for fourteen years in a row. It offers multiple options when it comes to automating data enrichment and processes, each with its own pros and cons. However, being a multi-tenant platform, Salesforce enforces strict governor limits regarding the utilization of resources in each transaction. Consequently, poorly designed automations can hit these governor limits once your data and/or processes reach a certain scale. In worst-case scenarios, this can happen without warning and could bring your business to a standstill.

In fact, automations hitting governor limits is the single biggest problem that growing organizations struggle with, in Vertex’s experience. Fixing the problem after it happens costs more and takes longer than setting it up correctly in the first place. In some cases, backward engineering never fully alleviates the risks and issues. Identifying the right automations and designing them the right way, technically and architecturally, right from the beginning, is the cornerstone to Salesforce success.

Questions?

With the right planning, properly trained users, and an understanding of how data will be used and configured, Salesforce can transform your organization. Vertex is a trusted Salesforce solutions provider to manufacturers, suppliers, nonprofits and other industries. If you would like to discuss how a Salesforce CRM system can propel your organization to new heights, give me a call.

Can You Afford to Not Invest in a Well-Implemented CRM?

Posted on January 9, 2021May 13, 2023 by Rodrigo Fernandes

When business executives question Sales & Marketing professionals on investing in IT solutions for sales automation and process standardization, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. Yes, these tools provide insights into customer behavior, but that’s only the beginning.

The main point shouldn’t be on how this investment will provide the expected ROI or how long the process can take. Rather, the more comprehensive view should be on what the negative impact will be if the investment isn’t made. What will the long-term lost opportunity be?

Put your customer in the center of every decision. Creating products and services aligned with the company’s vision and values is essential to ensure excellence in customer satisfaction while building your brand recognition. Nowadays, customers are used to searching for a new provider or a unique solution and are apt to do a background check about your quality of services or deliverables. Testimonials, positive references, or referrals have never been as essential in continuing to attract new customers and keeping the ball rolling.

You need the right tools to ensure the best future options. Your marketing and communication must be clear, direct, and transparent. Your prospects will consume content through the most convenient channels. A well-configured and well-designed CRM tool with adherent business processes can be the foundation technology to ensure the correct information flow throughout your organization.

At the same time, you’ll also be compiling your data into a single version of the truth. Why not work to remove the silos between the departments, standardize data format, and follow the steps to get internal approvals and check the business policies?

Growing businesses can’t afford not to invest in a well-implemented CRM.