In volatile economic times such as these, we’re all seeking just a little bit of stability. For manufacturers in particular, this is made ever more important as industrial products and services support foundational infrastructures for nations all over the world. Manufacturing needs reliable sales forecasting functionality and the coinciding revenue visibility that comes with it not just to protect their own profit margins, but to support the entire global economy with the goods it needs to keep on running. Unfortunately, only 22 percent of companies have a proactive supply chain network to provide that kind of visibility through the business’ sales funnel and clear through to their critical financial projections.

If your organization is looking for more revenue visibility and sales stability as a player in the industrial space, Manufacturing Cloud is the answer for all of these needs—and more. In this article, we’ve outlined just three of the many ways Manufacturing Cloud can improve sales forecasting and overall revenue visibility for manufacturers: 

Intelligent account-based forecasting captures critical sales information

First and foremost is the intelligent account-based forecasting feature of Manufacturing Cloud. This is a powerful way for manufacturers to capture sales input with data straight from their customers. The holistic forecasting includes predicted volumes and revenue streams for both your new and run-rate contracts, providing more transparency, dependability, and predictability on sales data for your entire organization. Forecasts can be edited for new KPIs and accessed with dynamic user profiles that have approval to manage the reports. 

Refine selling motions and plan sales plays holistically 

Next, Manufacturing Cloud is the perfect tool for encouraging greater sales team accountability by placing more control and power in a single platform for your reps. Reps can refine their selling motions virtually and monitor goals against set KPIs, performance benchmarks, etc. with a pipeline management engine powered by AI directly in Salesforce. Additionally, account manager targets are perfect for sales reps in the manufacturing space—you can drive better planning with powerful analysis of forecasts and growth plans that align sales plays across the organization with company-wide targets. 

Expand with Community Cloud for additional visibility on opportunities

Finally, Manufacturing Cloud is built to easily expand with the demands of your company’s growth. That means your revenue visibility doesn’t have to stop at just your internal sales processes alone—partner collaboration is made possible and easy with the addition of Community Cloud for Manufacturing through Salesforce. Sales agreements involving partners can integrate with partner data in real-time, driving more accuracy for your forecasts, leads, and opportunities as you align more closely with distributors, suppliers, etc. 

Manufacturing Cloud is the ideal solution for manufacturers of any size and specialty area. With dynamic sales reporting and forecasting and seamless integration to expand your enterprise tech stack for partner and self-service engagement, the potential to scale is tremendous. If you’d like help getting started, Simplus’ Manufacturing Cloud Strategic MVP Offering is the perfect way to start understanding what capabilities your organization could use to realize more revenue and forecasting accuracy. 

Want to take your Manufacturing Cloud to the next level? Salesforce CPQ builds upon Manufacturing Cloud to enable more standardization in price quotes and contracts, increase productivity by reducing the time to quote, and set complex account-level pricing on an annual basis. Reach out to Simplus today to learn more.