Industry 5.0, Trusted Data, and Interconnectivity at the Salesforce Manufacturing Summit–and Beyond!

At the Salesforce Manufacturing Summit (January 10th in Atlanta), the agenda is packed with experts on leveraging technology to drive efficiencies and streamline operations. Heading into this meeting of the minds, we see several trends that will be central to the conversations in Atlanta and throughout the rest of 2024.

Industry 5.0 Beyond the Manufacturing Floor

Industry 4.0, as a trend, focused on automation and efficiency. Industry 5.0 adds people back into the mix and is more about leveragingtechnology to the benefit of people (both employees and clients).

“…At its heart, Industry 5.0 reflects a shift from a focus on economic value to a focus on societal value, and a shift in focus from welfare to wellbeing,” said Jeroen Kraaijenbrink in Forbes. Another way to look at this is ensuring your processes, systems, and data all ensure you are keeping your promises.

This aligns perfectly with the tight global job market–where it’s harder than ever to find and retain talent. It also can be a competitive advantage for savvy manufacturers who understand that equipping employees and customers with real-time, trusted ERP data improves their experience, increases loyalty, and drives incremental revenue.

Trusted Data + AI = Transformed CX

Building on the word on everyone’s lips at Dreamforce: it’s all about AI. But no manufacturer can look to leverage the power of AI to scale processes, identify market trends, power order management, or any other goal without Trusted Data at the core. Imagine the data disaster resulting from applying a machine learning algorithm to extrapolate buying trends, when all configurable products are excluded–because they can’t be purchased in the current eCommerce environment. 

To transform the customer experience, build trust, and become easier to do business with, the foundation is Trusted Data. As soon as an account-defined discount isn’t applied properly to a shopping cart, the customer loses trust. Or if a product is allowed to be ordered when the ATP is far outside the customer’s expected shipping window. These data points may seem small, but in aggregate these self-inflicted pains prevent you from living up to your customers’ expectations during a time of intensifying global commerce pressures.

Interconnectivity Driven by Purpose-Built Salesforce Integrations

For most manufacturers, your SAP ERP is your single source of truth. But is it really? With a proliferation of other systems, from CRMs, to quoting solutions, to eCommerce portals, it’s possible and even probable that data exists outside SAP that is critical to driving business. This disconnect between systems must be eliminated for data clarity, employee efficiency, simplifying maintenance, and driving incremental revenue.

That’s why it’s so critical to integrate inventory, CRM, project management, and finance systems to all use the same, real-time data that lives inside SAP. By unlocking SAP for instant use inside systems like Salesforce, manufacturers can transform customer experiences to power revenue acceleration.

What does this look like?  It looks like adding 3D visual commerce with an app like ThreeKit to enable customers to configure products within the shopping journey–using configurations and options detailed inside SAP. It looks like CPQ (configure-price-quote) that creates 100% acceptable-to-SAP quotes, without ever leaving Salesforce (and those quotes reflecting account-based discounts, ATP, and more). It also looks like field service reps being able to check parts inventory or order replacement materials without having to “call back” to the main office for pricing and availability.

Those are, of course, just a few scenarios–but none are possible without a purpose-built SAP integration that doesn’t replicate or batch-load data. They require real-time data virtualization so the information is accessible inside Salesforce, where employees and customers need it, but it’s always housed inside SAP.

Let’s Talk at the Salesforce Manufacturing Summit

enosix experts will be at the Salesforce Manufacturing Summit to talk about unlocking SAP data inside Salesforce. Come to our breakout session from 1-1:30 in Phoenix Salon II (2nd floor) to hear from enosix founder & CSO, Gerald Schlechter and HD Supply IT Director, James McEvoy about unlocking transformative experiences for internal users and manufacturing customers–driving automation and efficiency across the value chain.

You can also reach out to us and let’s talk 1:1 about your SAP – Salesforce integration opportunities (no matter if you are on ECC, S/4HANA, or between the two)!

And don’t forget, enosix is also the preferred SAP integration partner for Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud with MuleSoft–unifying the manufacturing value chain with pre-built SAP-Salesforce data virtualizations.