Salesforce has an obsession with perfection. It manifests itself in different and quirky ways. So much so, they are never happy with their product names as well.

• Some of the most well-known name changes are
• Salesforce CPQ rebranded as Revenue Cloud
• Community Cloud rebranded as Experience Cloud
• Exact Target became Marketing Cloud and so on.
  

Most recently, however, another rebranding exercise took place. However, this rebranding , although initiated via acquisition, was much much more than just a rebranding.

In February of 2020, Salesforce acquired Vlocity and quickly rebranded it as ‘Salesforce Industries’. That same year, Salesforce also made their largest-ever acquisition of Slack so this news did not get the attention it deserved.

Both the acquisitions, however, represent a shift in Salesforce thinking & strategy. With Slack, Salesforce wants to redesign its technology to be ‘Collaboration’ first. Vlocity acquisition represented a shift from Solution-driven Sales towards Industry-specific solutions. Just to drive the point and to show its commitment to the shift, Salesforce rebranded Vlocity to Salesforce Industries.

What is Vlocity?

Perhaps, the first logical question to ask is, what exactly is Vlocity and what it brings to the table for Salesforce. 

Vlocity builds industry-specific CRM solutions on top of Salesforce. This is really important. It is a native Salesforce application that provides industry-specific solutions to its customers. It comes with extensions and customisation options specific to an industry. 

This allows a telecom company, for example, to install Vlocity and be up and running in no time. It comes pre-bundled with a product catalog, CPQ (Configure, price, quote), and contract and order management which are some of the building blocks for any digital transformation.

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In short, Vlocity provides industries with products and solutions that speak the language of its industry. Salesforce took the idea of Vlocity and combined its other tools to expand on Vlocity’s industry-specific solutions to bring around eight industry-specific clouds. A helpful Salesforce-provided infographic showcases Salesforce Industries breadth of industry-specific solutions.

Is Salesforce Industries the right tool for you?

Salesforce Industries is not a single solution rather a set of tools, products, and services tailored to specific industries. This makes it sometimes difficult to evaluate Salesforce Industries.

If you are an organisation thinking about embarking on a digital transformation, the utility of Salesforce industries may best be explained by understanding the various clouds in its offerings.

Communication Cloud

If you are a Communications Service Provider (CSP) with a complex product catalog, pricing structure, and order management, then Communication Cloud is the tool for you. Communication Cloud delivers a complete digital Business Support System (BSS) suite that’s catalog-driven from commerce to cash.

It is built on top of the Sales and Service Cloud and allows for rapid configuration with out-of-the-box solutions. It comes pre-bundled with powerful functionality, including Enterprise Product Catalog, Industries Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ), Order Management, and a growing library of prebuilt applications, product models, and integrations. 

The experience can be further enhanced using plugins like Tableau CRM for Communications, Contract Lifecycle Management, Experience Cloud, and Digital Commerce.

Media Cloud

Media Cloud provides a media-specific omnichannel industry solution across the subscriber and advertising sales lifecycles. It empowers its customers to quickly launch and monetize media products and services to deliver growth.

Broadly speaking, Media Cloud offerings are clubbed into Advertising Sales Management and Subscriber Lifecycle Management. Below we briefly discuss the two.

Advertising Sales Management

“Remember my name”. Is this single line enough for you to bring back memories of Walter White from the hit AMC series Breaking Bad? 

This is the power of Advertising. Effective advertising reaches potential customers and informs them of your products or services. Effective advertising needs effective campaigns and this is where ASM (Advertising Sales Management) shines.

• ASM helps in
• Delivering cross-channel and multi-format advertising from a single converged platform.
• Surfacing timely and actionable insights to optimize campaign performance all powered by AI
• Future campaign planning
• Always on analytics and reporting
  

Subscriber Lifecycle Management

Subscribers are the lifeblood of any business. A happy subscriber not only brings repeat business but can recommend your services to bring in even more customers. Advertising Sales Management delivers personalised and efficient subscriber care.

It empowers media companies to keep subscribers loyal and happy with a comprehensive and modular solution.

• SLM (Subscriber Lifecycle Management) comes pre-bundled with the following media-specific features 
• Industry-specific Subscriber Data model
• Customisable Subscriber Interfaces
• Advanced Pricing, Promotions, and Discounting engine
• Subscriber Lifecycle Management Process Library
• Personalised Offers and Next Best Action
• Guided Selling and Troubleshooting
• Digital Commerce for High volume B2C transactions
  

Health Cloud

The world today is connected. The pandemic has provided a thrust and incentive to connect anything and everything. Today’s patients expect to make appointments online, make requests for perspectives online, and if possible to have the initial chat with their GP online as well.

This changing landscape means modern healthcare systems must evolve to meet these new expectations of the connected patient. This is where Salesforce Health cloud shines.

• Salesforce Health Could put the patient at the center of the care by giving caregivers core advantages: 
• It provides a 360-degree view of every patient with integrated data from wearables, Electronic Health Records (EHR) in a single, HIPPA-compliant platform.
• Smarter Patient management by prioritising tasks across all patient needs, segments and manage patient population and can even map personal and professional care networks, so you can assign ownership of health goals to anyone on the care team.
• Connected Patient engagement utilising Salesforce collaboration tools, assigning tasks to care gives, and sharing secure messages with the patients.

Salesforce Health Cloud empowers you to go beyond health records and build meaningful relationships with patients.

Consumer Goods Cloud

Consumer Good Cloud's mission statement is to “Turn every store into the perfect store by putting data in the hands of every rep in the field”. 

Enter Retail Execution. 

Retail Execution is a digital tool that allows shelves, within stores, to be stocked with the right products and the right price. It provides field reps with a precise, timely, and intelligent solution that helps elevate the in-store experiences for the end consumers.

• Some of the key capabilities of the Consumer Goods Cloud are
• Streamline Account Planning by obtaining a 360-degree view of accounts, sales agreements, stock, inventory, etc.
• Trade promotion management where brands can plan, execute and optimize trade spend to drive revenue growth. 
• Territories management by designing and deploying territories and optimizing field teams. Consumer Goods Cloud comes bundled with Salesforce Maps which makes it easy to visualize critical data to improve field operations and drive revenue growth. 
• Einstein Analytics for Consumer Goods provides out-of-the-box KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), such as inventory stock-outs or percent orders increase per store visit.

Public Sector or Government Cloud

Government agencies across the world upended traditional processes and systems in record time as they raced to support surging demand in response to the pandemic. Almost overnight, processes that largely relied on in-person interactions pivoted to virtual environments, propelling government agencies to adopt new technology platforms to meet their constituents’ needs. 

Government cloud is the platform that helps the Public Sector transform its engagements - giving public servants a 360-degree view of citizens, stakeholders, and partners. It helps public services quickly evolve in a modular way by streamlining services, increasing efficiencies, and supporting innovation.

Salesforce for the Public sector encompasses multiple verticals and is useful and used by Central Government, Local Government, and Police. The flexibility of the Salesforce platform allows it to be molded to various public sector enterprises and scenarios. A handy list of public sector uses of Salesforce is available here.

Retail Cloud

Today’s consumer is connected and expects its retailers to be connected as well. Some people are old school and prefer physical visits to the store but still want the ability to return items online or get in touch with someone if there is an issue with their order. Further, a customer today expects personalised experience and useful recommendations. 

Retailers also want to sell products through multiple channels and offer channel-specific promotions and discounts. 

Retail Cloud is the amalgamation of all Salesforce technologies and tools which when combined deliver a seamless experience for retailers and their customers alike. It is a mixture of retail technology and AI, automation, and personalisation tools to help create joyful purchasing journeys for customers. The tools typically employed in transforming Retail are Commerce Cloud, Community Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud to name a few.

Watch this Retail Cloud demo from Salesforce to get a feel of the power of Retail Cloud.

Manufacturing Cloud

Salesforce introduced Manufacturing Cloud to unify account planning and forecasting. Typically, CRM solutions had gaps in functionality which led manufacturers to build custom solutions on top of the CRM or adopt a swivel chair approach to work with disparate and isolated systems. 

Salesforce is trying to fix this issue with a dedicated manufacturing-specific solution.

• Manufacturing Cloud is built on top of Salesforce Sales and Service cloud but extend these clouds in key specific areas:
• Sales Agreements; which helps in managing agreement lifecycle including the pricing for new agreements and handling renewal scenarios.
• Account-based forecasting; helps in capturing a sales forecast with predicted volumes and revenue streams.
• Actionable manufacturing analytics. Salesforce has extended Tableau CRM capabilities to provide insights into product performance, Account health, and how Sales agreements are performing.

Financial Service Cloud

Salesforce Financial Services Cloud gives you 360-degree visibility into the financial profiles of your clients for various sectors ranging from wealth management to retail banking. This helps you put your customer at the center of every interaction. It is the first industry-specific offering, aiming to provide a way for financial advisers to closely-knit programs together, such as client's investment portfolios or their financial goals. 

Financial cloud is built on top of Sales and Service cloud but comes with custom fields and objects modeling financial accounts, assets, liabilities, and goals for clients. 

Summary

We live in a world where digital transformation is given. Everything has to be connected and the digital transformation projects need to happen fast, scale fast and adapt fast. This is where Salesforce Industries shine. 

If you are an Industry, Salesforce probably has a cloud for you.