In 2020, Salesforce surveyed manufacturing decision makers to explore lessons learned about business agility and future-proofing in uncertain times.
After revisiting Salesforce’s Trends in Manufacturing report, I realized that, even four years later, many manufacturing businesses that contact us still struggle with being “future ready.”
In this blog post, we’ll explore some of the underlying reasons many manufacturing organizations lack the agility and resilience needed to adapt to change, and how implementing the right tech stack can take these businesses from unprepared to future-proof.
Five Practices that Prevent Manufacturers from Future-Proofing Their Businesses
Future-proofing your manufacturing business requires anticipating and preparing for changes in the supply chain, technology, regulations, market demands, and other factors that impact the manufacturing industry.
At Blueprint Advisory, we see five practices almost across the board when we work with manufacturers struggling to become future-ready.
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https://www.salesforce.com/resources/research-reports/executive-summary-trends-in-manufacturing/
Heavy Investment in ERP (and Nothing Else)
Technology-wise, manufacturing historically has focused on enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions that handle inventory management, production planning, quality control, and similar functions that help them manufacture their product or products and get them to market.
However, ERPs aren’t great at sales processes, like pipeline and lead management, making it difficult for businesses to respond quickly to market changes and limiting sales potential.
Siloed, Disparate, and Unusable Data
There is no denying that data is king, no matter what industry you’re in. However, manufacturing companies have been slow to adopt a data-centric approach to achieving business objectives.
Legacy systems and siloed data make it difficult for executives and decision makers to leverage analytics for business intelligence and data-backed decision-making. No matter how “good” your data is, it’s essentially useless if you can’t connect the dots across systems and applications.
Lack of Visibility into the Supply Chain
In the manufacturing industry, reliable, end-to-end visibility into the supply chain is essential for risk mitigation, inventory management, resource allocation, and compliance.
Inconsistent supply chain reporting across systems due to data silos or lack of integration impacts sales forecasting, resulting in unreliable data, inaccurate demand planning, and difficulty identifying and responding to market trends.
Heavy Reliance on Manual Processes
Fragmented tools and limited or nonexistent integration between systems create a disconnect that leaves sales teams and customer service reps relying on guesswork.
To overcome this lack of organization-wide insight, these teams often turn to manual workarounds, using spreadsheets, emails, and file folders to track and manage leads. This approach is inefficient, error-prone, and blocks valuable analytics and reporting capabilities.
Complex Quoting, Pricing, and Ordering Processes
Manually configuring and generating product quotes, managing complex pricing, and maintaining inventory is time-consuming, inefficient, and difficult to personalize.
Without a configure, price, quote (CPQ) solution, manufacturing companies risk underpricing or overpricing inventory, miss upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and lack data and analytics that allow them to optimize pricing, pinpoint areas for improvement, and measure sales effort effectiveness.
Tips to Build Resilience and Future-Proof Your Manufacturing Business
As technology becomes more integrated into manufacturing—both on the production line and in operations—businesses must take the appropriate steps to optimize for efficiency, scalability, resilience, and ROI.
Harness the power of data and AI.
Data and AI are essential tools in future-proofing a manufacturing organization, helping pinpoint inefficiencies, streamline workflows, and enhance decision-making.
Many manufacturing companies struggle with a common set of pain points that, fortunately, can easily be addressed with analytics and AI:
- Legacy system modernization: Replacing outdated systems with data-driven, AI-enhanced solutions can dramatically improve efficiency and adaptability.
- System integration: Seamlessly integrating various systems using AI can facilitate better data flow and more informed operational decisions.
- Business process optimization: Utilizing AI and data analytics to streamline processes can lead to significant improvements in productivity and cost savings.
Focusing your efforts and budget on AI and data utilization is essential in building a resilient, agile business.
Keep your finger on the pulse of Salesforce innovations.
Taking AI and data a step further, Salesforce recently announced plans to revolutionize business operations using Data Cloud and Einstein Copilot, Salesforce’s soon-to-be-available-to-everyone AI virtual assistant.
The Salesforce team introduced several new initiatives at its World Tour NYC event that promise to break down operational silos, drive enhanced analytics and insights, automate workflows and processes, and create seamless, intelligent connections between all of your data,
Because Salesforce releases platform updates three times a year, staying apprised of these new tools and innovations is a smart way to keep pace with evolving AI and data trends that impact the manufacturing industry.
Deploy the right tech stack.
The first step in building your tech stack is choosing the right platform. This platform will provide a foundation for your technology and can expand or limit your business process capabilities.
For example, the Salesforce platform is an excellent choice for manufacturing businesses that want to take Salesforce’s powerful customer relationship management (CRM) solution and build a tech stack that works seamlessly in that environment.
Manufacturing Cloud works with the CRM and other products inside the Salesforce ecosystem to unify siloed data and disconnected business processes, so information about inventory, quotes, orders, forecasts, parts, and warranties is available to every employee in one place.
Automation, analytics, and AI give manufacturers additional tools to leverage that data and derive actionable insights, maximize selling opportunities, create a consistent sales workflow, and align sales and operations with accurate demand forecasting.
Partner with an advisor who is also a technology implementer.
Technology changes fast, which makes it difficult to keep your tech stack current. Working with a trusted advisor who has the skills and knowledge to design, develop, and deploy right-fit solutions simplifies and streamlines your business processes and ensures your tech stack will scale as your business needs change.
Tips to Build Resilience and Future-Proof Your Manufacturing Business
Future-proofing your manufacturing business may sound overwhelming, but with the right roadmap—and an experienced partner—avoiding common roadblocks and navigating the most direct route to an optimized tech stack becomes exponentially easier.
Blueprint Advisory can help you harness the power of Salesforce to create a future-ready strategy and overcome the skills gaps many manufacturing businesses encounter when implementing new technology.
Contact us today and let’s talk about how we can help.
