This is the second blog in a multi-part series entitled “Prioritize Efficiency in Your Digital Transformation Journey.”
Inefficiency costs companies anywhere from 20% to 30% of their revenue every year (IDC). Of course, there will never be a truly 100% efficient business operation. As soon as you identify and address one inefficiency here, another one will pop up over there. This game of “inefficiency whack-a-mole” is normal and expected within complex organizations, but there are three domains that must take precedence: technology, integrations, and data/analytics. Ignoring inefficiencies in these areas will eventually derail any digital transformation initiative. Continue reading to learn about specific Salesforce solutions that help address inefficiency in these three critical spheres.
- Technology: Leverage Industry-Focused Cloud Solutions to Accelerate Time-to-Value
“There’s that cloud again.” – Erlich Bachman, HBO’s Silicon Valley
While cloud technologies have come a long way in driving productivity, heavily customized cloud solutions can take up significant time, IT resources, and budget. It also creates technical debt that will cause problems, limit business agility, and decrease the efficiency and business value of cloud investments down the road.
Industry-specific cloud platforms, such as Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud, address customization-related challenges with industry-specific functionality out-of-the-box. For example, Manufacturing Cloud provides: 1) one platform to manage customer-centric operations across the business; 2) prebuilt objects, processes, and frameworks for manufacturers, as well as 3) low-code tools and embedded AI to streamline innovation.
By uniting manufacturers’ run-rate business with CRM data, Manufacturing Cloud empowers businesses to forecast demand more accurately, manage sales agreements more efficiently, and serve customers with greater personal touch. In the current economic climate rife with supply chain uncertainty, inflationary pressures, and workforce shortages, Manufacturing Cloud is a cloud-based tool that empowers manufacturers to do more with less. Experts from Argano recently demonstrated the power of this solution in a webinar. Click here to learn more.
- Integrations: Standardize API Management While Boosting Security
When everything is a priority, nothing is. Never has this been truer than in the sphere of integrations, where every application under the sun seems to have an API available for organizational use. According to a recent report by MuleSoft, the average organization uses 976 different applications. Developing and maintaining integrations and APIs for an enterprise business without the help of an iPaaS (integration Platform as a Service) solution is slow and costly, pervasive challenges that impede business agility and innovation.
It’s also a security risk as organizations that use point integrations often don’t have an overall governance policy. Many businesses have 100’s of APIs in use, each with different security rules and protocols. You can start to see how manually managing APIs could turn into a nightmare and end up costing more in lost time, business opportunities, and security breaches.
Not only do iPaaS solutions like MuleSoft automate and standardize integrations & API management, they streamline the entire integration/API lifecycle. For example, MuleSoft provides pre-built assets and templates that accelerate API development. Through its Anypoint Platform, MuleSoft makes it easy to deploy and run APIs/integrations in any cloud environment. Finally, and most importantly, MuleSoft provides out-of-the-box compliance for various data security standards and delivers a powerful security framework to govern every API consistently.
- Data & Analytics: Empower Business Users to Make Data-Driven Decisions
Sherlock Holmes would have made a great SQL administrator, as he once stated, “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” The problem is that today’s organizations are drowning in data, and it takes great effort to bring it all into focus. Predictions estimate the world will generate 181 zettabytes of data by 2025.
With vast amounts of new data being created every day, it’s no wonder that every business struggles with efficient data management and effective data utilization. Being able to “connect the dots” and make data-driven business decisions is a true differentiator in the current business climate. Analytics solutions such as Salesforce Einstein and Tableau make this possible by enabling business-level users to extract value from data such as predictive insights, new product opportunities, and churn analytics.
In the case of both Einstein and Tableau, the business value is compounded by layering the AI and data visualization functionalities on top of the customer data stored in Salesforce CRM. This combination provides a complete view of each customer – or Customer 360 – within the respective Salesforce record. Equipped with Customer 360 supercharged by AI and predictive analytics, salespeople can sell more faster, customer service representatives can accelerate case resolution, and management teams can forecast revenue and future product demand with greater accuracy.
Conclusion
Cloud technology, integrations, and data and analytics are foundational aspects of digital transformation. Logically, maximizing the efficiency of these components is table stakes to ensure a successful digital transformation program that is within budget, on time, and meets ROI expectations.
As the 2nd installment in the multi-part series “Prioritize Efficiency in Your Digital Transformation Journey,” this blog builds off of themes introduced in 4 Ways Salesforce Can Optimize Your Digital Workplace, which focused on the people and process components of digital transformation. If you need help identifying or prioritizing digital transformation initiatives, contact us for a complimentary assessment.
