What is Salesforce for Consumer Goods, and how can digital transformation help reduce business costs?

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If you’re a brand looking for a better way to navigate the complex nature of the market, drive profitable growth, expand opportunities for selling and grow customer loyalty through connected data and automation, Salesforce for Consumer Goods can assist.

With digital transformation at the forefront of companies in the consumer goods industry, a large push for efficient and resilient infrastructure that can withstand any shifts in the economic landscape is needed. Salesforce for Consumer Goods delivers with one platform to help grow the business. This addresses many challenges occurring in the marketplace, such as global supply chain issues, cost increases, and tighter margins. Here’s where the software shines:

• Trade Promotion Management – Sales teams can maximize revenue with allocated trade funds and avoid overspending. Promotional plans can be effortlessly managed with an in-depth view of trade budgets, forecasts, and dynamic funding.
• Offline Penny Perfect Pricing – Sales reps of consumer goods need access to critical data while in the field. This offline app assists those reps, giving them the ability to take orders from anywhere. The exact price is calculated based on customer-specific discounts, current promotions, and other pricing variables. This solution makes upsells easier, inventory-related tasks flawlessly executed, and visits rescheduled. Once online, everything can be synced to a mobile device.
• B2B Commerce & Marketplace – Wholesale buying efficiency for consumer goods companies can be maximized with the new B2B Commerce Wholesale Retail App. Virtual showrooms, large cart ordering, and sales collaboration help unite the fragmented buyer and seller landscape with the new Commerce Marketplace. This creates new streams of revenue while allowing distributors and brands to expand their reach with inventory that can quickly get to retail partners.
• MuleSoft Accelerator for Consumer Goods – When it comes to critical data needed for trade planning, the MuleSoft Accelerator connects critical systems, applications, and data. Trade promotion management, product information management systems, and enterprise resource planning all come together to enhance the execution of trade and retail capabilities that leverage existing master data housed in traditional systems.

These components help drive customer loyalty by creating unified customer profiles to plan, optimize, and activate personalized engagement strategies more efficiently. A digital transformation strategy can help reduce business costs in all three critical business areas: operations, management, and strategy. The process starts with customers and the experiences being delivered. The better the experience, the more brand loyalty and investment from the C-suite to acquire new customers. Companies using the right digital tools understand that recurring revenue comes with maturity in digital transformation. According to a Deloitte Insights’ survey, there is a direct correlation between digital maturity and financial performance.

There are different ways a company can use digital transformation to reduce costs while keeping quality customer experiences, including centralizing software, using automation tools, cloud migration for storage and computing, IoT for enhanced maintenance, inventory management software, payments and collections management, administration, sales/leads management, team management tools, and shipping and logistics.

When used effectively, companies can realize a significant reduction in costs across the board. These are some major areas where recurring costs are lessened with digital transformation:

• Reduced errors – Human errors can cost the company thousands of dollars, if not more, in almost every area of the business. One of the biggest is advertising, marketing, sales, and promotions. With digital transformation, these errors can be reduced by up to 90%.
• Reduced downtime – Businesses suffer when machines are down, and employees cannot work. Productivity is increased with a digital transformation agency that automates maintenance, tech support, or customer care.
• Effective supplier negotiations – When there are problems with the supply chain, the business can be severely affected. Technology can help streamline processes for operational costs like work orders and purchases. With an organized database of supply chains and suppliers, negotiations are much better nationally and internationally.
• Reduced overhead – With maintenance schedules, systems, and equipment digitized, energy bills are reduced as conditions are optimized.
• Lessened personnel costs – Savings are quickly realized when multiple personnel management tasks are automated. This streamlines information and processes to save on manpower.
• Increased agility – As companies market their products and services, digital transformation plays a significant role in accelerated innovations, better delivery of products and services, projects are handled more efficiently, and customer satisfaction is higher.

Why use it?

1. Launch quickly – Companies can stay ahead of the competition and launch their businesses or new products and services leaner and faster.
2. Boost more revenue – When processes and systems are in order, costs are reduced while productivity and profitability stay high.
3. Collaborate more with your customers – There’s nothing better than providing a memorable customer experience that makes them want to do business with you. You’ll be able to form deeper connections and meaningful relationships to personalize engagement and build brand loyalty.
4. Tailor to industries – Your sales team will be able to streamline and tailor their sales movements based on real-time data to enhance their leads and expand selling opportunities.

Digital transformation helps reduce the cost for consumer goods companies, but it’s important to figure out the goals and objectives before considering the best route to take for implementation. Consider the processes that are costing you money due to a lack of efficiency and productivity. You must also consider how digital transformation will add to the customer experience. Once you figure out these elements, you will be able to identify where costs can be cut, and the type of growth you wish to see by implementing digital transformation tools.

Even in the midst of an economic shift, companies can continue to thrive with the right digital tools in place to manage operations, sales, and infrastructure. CLOUDSTREET offers salesforce optimization solutions to help businesses manage and realize more benefits from their sales, marketing, and other digital transformation goals. For more information, contact a team member today.