Bridging the gap between digital manufacturing and complete digitalization
The arrival of Industry 4.0 has brought about a whole host of digital advances in the manufacturing industry specifically. But there is an important distinction between these processes, and the digitalization of sales and marketing systems which are responsible for getting the product from the factory into the hands of the customer.
For example, innovations in manufacturing processes include 3D printing, mechatronics, advanced robotics and smart (or connected) machines. Meanwhile, sales and marketing teams are often working with multiple legacy tools, such as CRM and marketing automation platforms, with no way of joining up these siloed systems.
Recognizing the disparity between manufacturing technology and content management technology is half the battle, but how can manufacturers go about completing their journey towards digital transformation?
Silo busting with sales enablement
One of the most effective ways to unite sales and marketing teams is to integrate a sales enablement solution, which taps into existing tools to provide a single source of truth, allowing everyone to access and update collateral as and when they need to. It also eliminates the content creep that occurs when years of conflicting and mismatching information is stored in different places.
With sales enablement, the sales team automatically receives approved collateral and information relevant to the specific status of their sales motions without having to manually search for them; and the marketing team gains insights into seller and buyer engagement with content; which interactions are making an impact on prospects; and which campaigns should be optimized.
By combining this with advanced automation tools, visions of personalizing customer content — both in real time and at scale — is now becoming a reality for Sales and Marketing. Augmenting CRM and marketing automation with sales enablement technology allows teams to carry out in-depth analytics across a range of areas to justify their marketing budgets and provide more accurate reports to their executive teams, empowering them to have more of an influence on future strategies.
Data governance and permissioning is also possible through sales enablement technology, meaning teams can now control which segments of their audience see which content, reaching the stakeholders they need to while remaining data compliant.
2020 may be an ambitious target for complete digital transformation, but by adopting a robust sales enablement strategy, manufacturers have every chance of succeeding.
If you'd like to find out more about how your teams could benefit from sales enablement technology, download our free whitepaper: From connected machines to connected content: the missing link in digital manufacturing.
