Salesforce releases its first Trends in Manufacturing Report

Photo: Salesforce.

Salesforce has released its first Trends in Manufacturing Report, which includes a survey of 750 manufacturing leaders globally, including 50+ Canadians, to help guide decision making in becoming “future ready” across all areas of business.

Key report findings include:

• Eight in 10 global manufacturers (81 per cent) say they need both new approaches and new tools for accurate forecasting.
• 95 per cent of global manufacturers admit to applying manual approaches to their forecasting, with less than half of manufacturers using mostly-automated tools.
•  31 per cent of global manufacturers say COVID-19 significantly changed their need for improved marketing/customer communications and 30 per cent of manufacturers say COVID-19 significantly changed their need for customer service capabilities.
• Over half of manufacturers consider the changes to customer service and sales capabilities to be permanent.
• Over half of global manufacturers rely on a primary manual process for generating quotes/proposals, prioritizing leads/opportunities and determining what action to take on accounts.
• Canadian C-suite manufacturing executives say the following is critical or high priority over the next 24 months:
  • Increasing process efficiencies (82 per cent)
  • Demand planning (82 per cent)
  • Digital transformation (86 per cent)
  • New service offerings (86 per cent)