The manufacturing industry is inclined to fluxional patterns owing to the transition from supply-driven to demand-driven, and now to value-driven production of goods and services. Establishing value, based on an understanding of what a customer is ready to pay for a commodity, makes CRM (customer relationship management) an important aspect of this industry. The primary function of a CRM software is to support customer interactions and store them in a central database to observe demand patterns. It encompasses sales, marketing, and helpdesk interactions so that an all-inclusive data determines production cycles. CRM software, thus, ensures management of customer data and interactions as well as suitable analytics tools for demand planning.
At Oodles, we provide custom CRM software development for businesses belonging to different industries using an extensive technology stack. We integrate your CRM software with AI-powered analytics tools for accurate reporting and forecasting. Let’s analyze how a manufacturing enterprise can drive returns with CRM software.
Challenges of Traditional Manufacturing Management
Before delving into ERP software solutions for the manufacturing industry, let’s look at the setbacks of a traditional approach to manufacturing management.
1. A reactive approach, it takes up a lot of time before a product is launched. Also, it’s not good enough for a dynamic market where large amounts of data are easily available in real-time.
2. Lack of an integrated system for sales, marketing, finance, and other operations results in data scattered in silos. A lot of potential opportunities may be lost in this data.
3. The sales journey of a product needs to extend to establishing customer relationships by earning customer loyalty.
Need for CRM in the Manufacturing Sector
In a time when innovation sustains the market, a number of industries have moved towards a customer-centric, value-based production, and distribution. The manufacturing industry uses this dynamic approach with ‘lean manufacturing’. Using concepts like ‘value stream’, ‘flow’, and ‘pull,’ lean manufacturing creates a value chain where every action is in sync with another. All this, without any interruption in the manufacturing processes! Lean manufacturing is employed to eliminate waste and schedule processes such that the time frame between production and sales order is minimum. It is only possible with an efficient CRM software that can accurately forecast demands and exactions. Considering how it is the optimization of sales, marketing, operations, and production that drive profitability, an automated CRM software will increase both production rate and customer satisfaction. Other factors that influence the manufacturing industry include mobility, sales analysis, opportunity identification, lead management, and retaining a customer base.
Features of Manufacturing CRM
Adopting CRM software can be a game-changer for a manufacturing firm. Here’s a list of the features to meet specific business requirements that are subject to consumer trends and competitive dynamics.
1. Product Catalogue and Quotations
A CRM software often consists of a ‘products and quotes’ module where a comprehensive catalog can be put up and maintained. Also, it’s possible to add modifiable quotes for products. It features formatted quotation templates to automatically send to the customer while maintaining uniform quotes across the organization.
2. Inventory Planning
The manufacturing and sales data is readily available in the CRM. It improves decision making, production scheduling, and location-based marketing with the help of machine learning forecasting tools. CRM, thus, aids manufacturers with intelligent inventory planning so that there is no excess, less, or obsolete inventory.
3. Leads Management
A well-integrated CRM software enables manufacturers to put together all leads from different sources in one database. At the same time, it enables classification based on geography, business type, investment size, and client appointments. Leads can be auto-assigned as per geographical location as well.
4. Mobile CRM
As all sales and leads data is available in real-time, the sales team can assign leads and forward order details to their associates on-the-go. Managers can easily supervise these activities on a mobile CRM interface.
5. Track Client Journey
A CRM software augments manufacturing systems with a view of the sales pipeline at all stages of a deal. Managers can, thus, assign relevant resources and sales staff to manage the deal, at any time.
Along with managing client profiles, intelligent CRM software allows manufacturing firms to track their own performance through extensive reporting and dashboard data. A smart CRM comprises analytics tools that show their weekly, quarterly, or yearly leads, the number of high paying clients, or the success of a particular product and sales team.
Intelligent CRM software, therefore, paves way for effective collaboration, sales, and profitability for manufacturing companies.
Drive returns with Manufacturing CRM Software Development from Oodles
At Oodles, we are a CRM Development company with a goal of augmenting enterprises with detailed insights from customer and sales interactions and data. We undertake custom CRM software development to integrate salesforce, HubSpot, and more in a customized fashion to suit specific business requirements. We help you add value to your customer interactions to employ a value-based approach to production and sales as well. Talk to our experts to drive returns with manufacturing CRM software.
