Manufacturing conglomerate kick starts digital transformation with Salesforce

Electrotherm

“Salesforce gives us rich data to service customers faster and drive new opportunities.”

Dr Vishad Rahangdale, CIO

Manufacturing conglomerate kick-starts digital transformation with Salesforce

Electrotherm India is at the forefront of worldwide innovation in the engineering metal melting industry. The US$400M manufacturing conglomerate services customers in 44 countries across the globe. Rapid growth has nearly eclipsed its operational capability, triggering an ambitious digital transformation. The primary objective is to connect management and every business line with a seamless flow of information.

Dr Vishad Rahangdale, CIO, said, “We didn’t have easy access to data on our customers and projects, which impacted customer service. We saw the Salesforce Customer Success Platform as a way to turn that around, giving us a constant flow of rich data to service customers faster and drive new opportunities.”

Before Salesforce, Electrotherm was sifting through spreadsheets and emails to understand customer requirements, which was a big drain on time and resources.

Electrotherm was also missing details around their customisations and preferences – information it needed to deliver fast service. Delays in the business are costly for customers – every hour that Electrotherm’s equipment is inactive within their sites loses the customer revenue. It knew that to be successful it needed to put the customer first and eliminate that loss.

Electrotherm builds trust with customers by prioritising service goals

“When we heard that Salesforce’s value proposition is to connect to customers in a whole new way, it was not a difficult decision to go down the path of the Salesforce Customer Success Platform to address information silos that would ultimately remove friction from our customer service delivery,” said Dr Rahangdale.

Transformation takes time in the manufacturing space, but in just three months Electrotherm has achieved remarkable progress. This early success is supported by Salesforce partner Saasforce, which delivered to aggressive timeframes to minimise the disruption to Electrotherm’s business and ensure quick success.

Electrotherm intends to differentiate itself in the market as a clear leader in service and is fast realising this ambition. Agents and engineers now have a complete view of customers, products and supplies in one place that is easy to access from anywhere. It means they’re equipped to solve problems faster to minimise customer downtime and revenue loss.

Electrotherm was also keen to enable its workforce on mobile devices, giving them the ability to update and access information on-the-go. It’s improving data accuracy and real-time visibility into customer accounts.

The biggest win for Electrotherm is that its managers finally have an end-to-end view of leads and can track these in Salesforce. They also have rich analytics at their fingertips in real time dashboards, that make decision-making faster and deliver a strategic view of new opportunities in the market.

“In the past, reporting was quarterly and it was difficult to get an accurate forecast. To increase market share and compete internationally, we needed that bigger picture of the business which Salesforce provides. It’s really expanded our point of view and helped inform decisions like where we should outsource,” explained Dr Rahangdale.

Also for the first time, Management has detailed reporting on customer complaints and resolution. It can track the progress of key projects and analyse the success of marketing campaigns. And, it’s this holistic view of how every line of business interoperates that is making the biggest difference to the customer experience.

“People across the board feel more empowered to make decisions on improving performance and service. Our business strategy is now data driven and analytics are paving the way for business growth,” said Dr Rahangdale.