I’m a big fan of Salesforce. It helps in driving operational excellence so that we can grow at scale and identify where we can innovate going forward.

The world as we know it is changing. The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) means billions of everyday devices are now connected via touchpoints, turning everyday devices into virtual personal assistants, smart trackers, and sensors. And the amount of data being generated is astronomical.

Swissbit is a leading manufacturer of storage, security, and embedded IoT solutions helping customers to navigate a connected world. As more Swissbit customers get smarter with the latest technology, Salesforce is behind the scenes supercharging efficiency and unlocking valuable insights across the organisation.

“Salesforce isn’t just at the heart of our operations, it’s also helping us to get more predictive about the future, fuelling steady growth year-on-year,” said Ueli Stricker, Director of Supply Chain, Swissbit.

Established in 1992, the company, now known as Swissbit, became independent from parent company, Siemens, in 2001. It is headquartered in Switzerland and manufactures all of its products in a dedicated factory in Germany. It has global operations, and together its 300 employees creates three million units for customers every month.

With ambitions to become the leading supplier of memory and IoT devices in the world, Swissbit began a digital transformation in 2013 to achieve operational excellence and greater resilience through accurate forecasting. And it partnered with Salesforce to bring its vision to life.

“The customer experience doesn’t stop with sales. What began as a sales transformation to break down silos evolved into a project to connect the entire customer experience on one platform,” explained Stricker.

When the company began looking for that one platform, it turned to Gartner to learn about the leading solutions on the market. As well as being the world’s #1 CRM platform, the broad product suite and user-friendly interface made Salesforce the best fit for Swissbit.

The initial implementation of Sales Cloud was supported by PARX, who then handed management over to Swissbit’s internal team. “It’s really easy to do things with drag and drop in Salesforce, so we were able to translate our business needs into processes on Salesforce and optimise it with small customisations,” said Stricker.

Salesforce is integrated with the company’s ERP system to capture both sales and transactional data. “Swissbit is a manufacturer, not just a retailer,” said Stricker. “That makes it more complex to track the customer journey in one place. We need total visibility to quote a project, complete the transaction, and ship potentially thousands of units to our customers.”

Today, the sales team can track order status right down to the shipping details and tracking number to ensure they can always have productive conversations with customers without having to pass them between teams.

By creating a single source of truth for all operational and sales data, the company can also leverage insights for richer forecasting, which is crucial for supply chain planning.

“Salesforce gives us a significant competitive advantage because we can accurately predict what our customers will be ordering in the coming months or years,” explained Stricker. “That has a huge impact on capacity and resource planning, and when other companies were hit by supply chain issues in 2021, we weren’t affected because we already had everything we needed for the foreseeable future.”

Better visibility has been a benefit for Salesforce users across the company, from smarter reporting, to dashboards with easy access to KPIs, and transparent communications on Chatter.

“Using Chatter is much easier than sending lots of emails or having calls. Notes can be linked to a record, and everyone can see and learn from communications,” added Stricker. 

In fact, Salesforce has triggered a shift in culture, spreadsheets and duplicated effort are a thing of the past. Adoption rates are high, and with insights readily available, senior management teams can easily track performance to identify areas to improve or staff who need more support.

In 2020, Swissbit rolled out Manufacturing Cloud to help simplify quoting for new business and to ensure orders are filled in line with each customer’s bespoke agreement.

“Some projects take years to complete, and keeping track of pricing and agreements was a time-consuming manual process,” Stricker explained. “Now, we can see everything about an order at a glance. Nothing is operating in silos.”

The team also launched a reseller community on Experience Cloud to help partners register new products and track them as opportunities until they convert. Reseller projects amount for around 40% of sales, and previously operated via manual spreadsheets and emails.

Swissbit products are competing on a global stage, and with cheap labour available in other regions, it’s the customer experience, rather than price, that sets it apart from other brands.

“We need to give great customer service to go with our great products, and with Service Cloud, the whole team have complete visibility of every customer interaction,” Stricker commented.

Customers can raise a ticket in minutes using web-to-case. It’s then routed to the most relevant support agent or technician via digital workflows, giving every member of the team full visibility of status along the way.

Data captured doesn’t just provide insights on how well agents are handling cases, it also helps the team respond quickly to other customers with similar technical issues or to identify where a particular product needs improvements on its next iteration.

To get the full benefit from its Salesforce implementation, Swissbit is an active member of the Salesforce community. The team attends workshops on how to get the best from products or AppExchange apps, and to share stories with other Trailblazers at events.

“The best companies in the world either use Salesforce or have plans to. It’s great to connect and hear what other people are doing with the platform,” revealed Stricker.

Next on the agenda, the team plan to roll out Pardot to take email marketing to the next level. And with the in-house expertise they’ve learned, they can complete the rollout without the expense of bringing in third-party partners.

“I’m a big fan of Salesforce. It’s helping in driving operational excellence so that we can grow at scale and identify where we can innovate going forward,” commented Stricker. “It’s a game changer for staying ahead of the competition.”