“We're going back to that one-on-one relationship where people knew you, but now we're doing it on the scale of 100 million.”

“To be a successful global brand in the 21st century you need to be agile and locally relevant.” For 120+ years, Philips’s innovative lighting, healthcare, and consumer lifestyle solutions have improved the lives of people all over the world. With Salesforce, the company gets a deeper level of understanding of its customers in individual markets so it can provide products that meet their needs more closely than ever before.

“We are creating local solutions, while leveraging global scale,” says Wim Van Gils, Vice President of Global Commercial Excellence. “Salesforce is helping us develop tools, processes, and new ways of working so we can cater to the needs of customers and consumers in specific markets. It’s a collaborative tool that connects the dots.”

Sales Cloud gives sales and operations employees working everywhere from Africa to Brazil to the Netherlands real-time customer insights, so every interaction is meaningful. It brings together information from all over the world so data isn’t siloed in different departments or markets, but provides true 360 views. “We want to connect sales, service, marketing, and anyone that’s customer-facing with Salesforce so we can share best practices and pockets of excellence. We also want to give our R&D, supply chain, and product groups insight into evolving customer needs and opportunities.”

The giant electronics company uses Service Cloud to give 7,000+ call center and field service engineers in its global healthcare division the complete customer views they need to provide real-time service. And, with Chatter, it’s easy for everyone to share information and collaborate across time zones and geographical borders.

Philips also started to use Marketing Cloud to get to know customers even better and engage with them on social channels. “To be a customer-centric company, you need to listen to your customers every day, and — since listening alone isn’t enough — you need to have a dialogue with them.”

It’s not just employees and customers that are communicating in the new, connected world: Philips is building products that can share real time data about how they are being used. The company’s “Digital Accelerator” lab helps researchers develop connected products and understand how they are used. “We work with every business unit to connect products to Philips so researchers can understand consumer habits to better meet their needs,” explains Jeroen Tas, CEO Informatics Solutions and Services, Philips Healthcare. “We’ve already connected lamps, air purifiers, coffee machines, toothbrushes, and more.”

“In the past we built products that were self-contained, but now these products become plug-ins for digital solutions,” Tas continues. “Whether it’s lighting or healthcare devices, ultimately we want to create a better, healthier world and improve people’s lives by better understanding our customers and consumers. Salesforce is helping us.”