Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud: A Comprehensive Overview

Introduction

In the ever-evolving consumer goods industry, leveraging cutting-edge technology is paramount to staying ahead of the competition. Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud stands as a transformative tool, designed to enhance various aspects of the business. It not only fosters improved customer engagement but also optimizes operational efficiency and enables data-driven decision making. This article delves into the comprehensive capabilities of Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud and how it can revolutionize the consumer goods sector.

Since its inception, the Consumer Goods Cloud has continually evolved to meet the changing needs of the consumer goods industry, proving itself an invaluable tool in this dynamic market.

Furthermore, its impact has been recognized by the Promotion Optimization Institute. They have awarded it the ‘Best in Class’ product for four consecutive years. This recognition highlights its significant contributions to improving enterprise planning, as well as the promotion and distribution of consumer goods.

What Is Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud?

Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud is a comprehensive suite of cloud-based software solutions built on the Salesforce Platform, tailored to the unique demands of the 

consumer goods industry, enabling brands and retailers to manage operations, elevate customer experiences, and drive revenue by connecting and engaging with retailers, distributors, and customers. This game-changing solution solves problems that consumer packaged goods companies are having by combining industry-specific features with the power of Salesforce CRM. This speeds up growth, streamlines operations, and boosts productivity across the whole business, from managing customers to managing the supply chain.

What can you do with the Consumer Goods Cloud?

Consumer Goods Cloud lets companies unify planning and execution on one connected platform. This powerful consumer goods CRM uses a data model designed for the industry, allowing key account managers to optimize forecasting and improve trade promotions, field teams to perfect retail execution, and service teams to deliver excellence.

Accelerate growth and drive productivity

• Account and Opportunity Management

Move deals forward faster by guiding sellers through the sales process. Get deal specific insights and easily unify opportunity and account data for a single customer profile — whether in CRM or on the go.

• Einstein Activity Capture

Automatically capture emails, events, and other types of engagement activities directly in CRM. Manage activity data associated with the relevant leads, contacts, accounts, and opportunities in one spot, creating a single source of truth. Get visibility into selling activities at scale with out-of-the-box reporting to make it easy to focus on what matters most.

• Reports and Dashboards

Use data to drive action with out-of-the-box reporting tools. Visualize metrics with dashboards and personalize reports so every sales representative has the information needed to sell faster.

Optimize account planning

• Customer Business Planning

Conduct volume, cost, baseline management, and target planning from one unified customer business plan.

• Data Visibility and Aggregation

External data source integration enables planning at the region, customer, or SKU level by letting teams review real-time performance vs. actuals.

• Real-Time Reporting

Review store performance and quotas with platform analytics to prioritize store visits and in-flight embedded reports for live, offline reporting.

Improve trade promotion effectiveness

• Trade Planning Calendar

See a Gantt-like visualization of all the promotions and activities on one screen with filters like category, time range, account, and product. category, time range, account, and product.

• Funds Management

Get clear visibility into trade budgets and checkbooks, including live rate and dynamic funding.

• Account Scenario Planning

Determine the best promotion to run prior execution by testing various tactics to produce an optimal cost/volume ratio.

Unlock perfect retail execution

• Visit Planning

Plan each visit and determine which tasks will need to be completed at each store.

• Visit Execution

Optimize field execution with real-time insights, configurable activity lists, and task assignments to guide employees in the field.

• Offline Mobile App

Give mobile employees the power to access retail execution capabilities and operational insights on the Offline Consumer Goods iOS and Android apps.

Grow customer satisfaction and revenue

• Omni-Channel Case Routing

Automatically route any object that can be put into a Salesforce queue directly to reps to ensure critical assignments are taken care of quickly.

• Service Console

Surface key data, insights, alerts, and actions in a prebuilt timeline view of visits and orders designed for the Consumer Goods Service agent.

• Telesales

Build a cart with advanced features taking into account product promotions, manual discounts, unit of measure specification, and more.

What Are the Key Features of the Consumer Goods Cloud?

• Account Management: Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud allows you to categorize and manage accounts effectively, delivering a comprehensive assessment of each customer’s profile, buying history, and preferences. This aids in creating tailored strategies to nurture and grow targeted accounts. 
• Unified Planning and Execution Platform: Consumer Goods Cloud offers a connected platform that allows companies to bring together their planning and execution seamlessly. It leverages a data model that is designed for the consumer goods industry, allowing key account managers to optimize forecasting, enhance trade promotions, and facilitate retail executions. 
• Retail Execution: The platform allows companies to optimize in-store merchandising, product visibility, and promotions. It offers tools for collecting real-time data on product availability, promotional compliance, and shelf space, fostering better decision-making in the shop. 
• Service Excellence: The suite allows service teams to deliver excellence by offering access to relevant customer data and tools to support high-quality customer experience and satisfaction. 
• Analytics and Reporting: Consumer Goods Cloud provides advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, enabling companies to track sales performances, analyze market trends, and monitor inventory levels. These insights assist in optimizing sales strategies and making informed decisions. 
• Integration with ERP System: Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud seamlessly integrated with enterprise resource planning systems, offering a unified platform for managing sales, supply chain operations, and inventory. 
• Mobile Sales Tools: The platform empowers field sales representatives with mobile tools that streamline order management, payment processing, and product catalog browsing. This allows sales teams to engage with retailers better and boost sales numbers. 

How Does Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud Impact the Retail Industry?

The retail industry has gone through a seismic transformation over recent years, driven by evolving consumer behavior and the growth of e-commerce. To stay competitive, retailers must put consumers at the core of their operations, delivering personalized experiences across all touchpoints. This is where Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud plays a pivotal role.   

Access to Consumers Like Never Before   

Consumer Goods Cloud provides a real-time video of customer engagement, preferences, and behavior. By integrating data from various sources, such as social media, websites, online purchases, and in-store interactions, retailers can gain a better understanding of their customers’ needs.  

Streamlined and Efficient Operations  

The solution is designed to automate and optimize vital business processes, including inventory tracking, order management, trade promotions, and financials. This allows retail teams to seamlessly collaborate, access real-time data, and make informed decisions to drive operational efficiency.   

Empowered Field Teams  

The Mobile Apps feature on Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud is designed to empower field representatives. It puts data at their fingertips, allowing them to access useful information anywhere. This way, they are equipped to provide the best customer services and enhance the brand value.   

A Strong Foundation for a Dynamic Future   

The retail landscape is ever-evolving, and companies within it need flexible and scaled solutions for future success. With continuous innovation and AI-powered capabilities, the platform allows retailers to stay ahead of the curve and embrace the latest trends.  

Improve Customer Satisfaction with Consumer Goods Cloud for Service

Give your service agents easy access to accounts, visits, orders, and engagement history records so that they have all the information necessary to plan and provide personalized customer service. Service agents can also drive revenue growth by placing orders over calls using Order Management and Penny Perfect Pricing.

Latest Updates in Consumer Goods Cloud

With the latest Winter 21′ release, Salesforce has launched some exciting updates in its high-in-demand Consumer Goods Cloud to expand the scope of introducing new experiments in Consumer Goods Cloud objects.

Most of these changes are applied to only those editions in which Consumer Goods Cloud is enabled, like Lightning Experience in Developer, Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions.

Here is the list of new updates in the Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud:

• Faster Set up Of Retail Stores: Salesforce added a new Address field on Retail store objects. It will support Sales Managers in quickly creating records of their retail store as they won’t have to create location records every time they can update or create a new store record.
• Easy Sharing of Retail Store Records: Now the retail store objects get the sharing rules from the account object that gets your sales representative access to records of your retail store automatically when you provide them access to account records.
• Understand Visit Recommendation Flows: Users can easily understand how the visit recommendations are generated through Sample flows.
• More Power From Consumer Goods Object Records: Now Consumer Goods object records allow you to add notes, attach files, and create Chatter posts. It also helps you create formula fields and enable field history tracking on crucial consumer goods objects.
• Improved Managed Access With Updated Permission Sets: The default access levels of Consumer Goods objects are updated at the beginning of Winter ’21 in Lightning Retail Execution Starter, Lightning Retail Execution Merchandiser, Lightning Retail Execution Plus, and Lightning Retail Execution Contractor permission set. Users can now change the level of access as per the requirements.

With all these updates in Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud, users can experiment with different objects and build proficiency in managing their retail store.

Summary

Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud is a solution that can benefit companies in multiple ways. It can help improve efficiency, boost customer engagement, and drive growth through its advanced tools and features. 

This scalable solution is the need of the hour for the retail industry to keep up with the present and future changes. By leveraging data-driven insights, enhancing operational processes, and fostering better collaboration, it positions retailers to stay competitive in a dynamic market.