For the past 11 years, Perficient has been attending Dreamforce in San Francisco. Each year we leave inspired, intrigued and energized about the new developments, new technology and new applications that we can leverage for our clients. It is the place to dream, discover and – most importantly – collaborate with others in the industry.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution Is Here
This November, the overarching message was clear: the world is changing at an accelerated pace. We have stepped firmly into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where the digital, physical and biological worlds are fused through the implications of new technology – including the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and more. The moral implications are very real, too. But the better we can understand the potential to improve our world, the more we can navigate the murky waters and take advantage of the amazing technology before us.
What It Means for Manufacturing
Manufacturing is right at the center of this shift with machine learning, floor planning logistics and more. As the industry is shifting from a product-centric to a customer-centric model, manufacturers are recognizing that data is critical.
Typically a manufacturer has all kinds of different data for products, including:
- How products are built
- How products are sold
- How products are distributed
- And much more
Most of this data is stuck in spreadsheets, quarterly reports, factory floor inventory management or other non-connected sources. Our goal is to help utilize the new tools and latest developments to turn that data into a competitive advantage for manufacturers.
New Lightning Bolt Solutions: Packaged & Pre-Built
So what’s on the horizon? The most recent, exciting tools with Salesforce are Lightning Bolt Solutions. Built on the new Salesforce Lightning framework, Bolt solutions are packaged solutions with pre-built templates that help organizations get up and running quickly with a community.
At Perficient, we’ve developed a Bolt Solution for manufacturers called Market Share Analysis. This solution is available on the AppExchange and provides manufacturers with an easy-to-use interface for analyzing data, setting quotas for dealers and collaborating with dealers to contract for the upcoming sales period.
In fact, Perficient’s Bolt solution was named Best Bolt in Manufacturing at the first annual Lightning Bolt Trailblazer Awards. (It was quite an honor to be recognized among our peers and Salesforce at the Bolty awards!) We sincerely appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with the best in the manufacturing industry, as well as watch some of our clients share their success and connect with others in the industry.
Looking Ahead: The Big Picture
In the end, it all comes down to this: the power of Dreamforce is not the campus, the presentations, the keynotes, the sessions or the concerts. It is the people moving in one direction to change the industry, change the opportunity and change the world.
