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Introduction: Be’Anka Ashaolu, Director of Marketing, Propel
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Be’Anka Ashaolu: Companies with established digital strategies, whether this year storm better than most why because their team was ready to handle a crisis they use a strong adaptable platform. And they built supply chain resiliency.
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BA: Up next, very differentiated propels VP of customer success moderated a panel of executives with a proven track record of embracing the technologies and benefiting from being early adopters.
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BA: Your first hand from Adam and fall senior AVP manufacturing vertical at Salesforce and Michael far VP of operations and plant manager and Sierra monitor an MSA safety company.
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BA: Unfortunately, due to a last minute conflict Josh that CTO by corporation is unable to join us today. Now here's Adam and my goal with Mary and go clap for the wing
Session
Moderator: Mary DeFrenchi, VP of Customer Success, Propel (MD)
Panelists:
Adam Alfano, Senior AVP, Manufacturing Vertical , Salesforce (AA)
Michael Farr, VP of Operations and Plant Manager, Sierra Monitor an MSA Safety Company (MF)
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MD: Good morning everyone and welcome to propulsion. Today I'd like to welcome Adam and Michael to our panel.
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MD: Unfortunately, Josh was not able to join us today, but I think we'll be able to have a really good conversation with both Michael and Adam. Thank you both for joining us today.
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MD: All right, yesterday we kicked off propulsion with Jeffrey Moore's keynote, where he presented why he believes we're in the age of the customer.
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MD: And then Tiffani Bova came up and wrapped up the one with an overview of the connected customer and their ever increasing expectations.
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MD: The takeaway. I took from that was that manufacturers must be doing a better job of building products and experiences, their customers are expecting, Michael, what was your thoughts on that. So it's, it's been important to our organization for
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MF: half a decade, just to be more and more connected and unified in our connection and then
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MF: Changing that to our ability to serve the customer from beginning of our relationship, all the way through supporting their needs. As we deliver product to them.
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MD: You know, what are you seeing from some of your customers at salesperson regards to this. Yeah, look, I think it's a phenomenon we saw
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AA: A little earlier in markets that weren't so manufacturing have anywhere omni channel customer engagement and unified customer experience retail high tech and otherwise became really prevalent.
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AA: I'm a lot of a lot of our manufacturing customers that I work with, we often look in their back office for efficiencies and process improvement and execution.
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AA: So I think the uptake on some of the age of the customer type phenomenon was maybe a little slower.
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AA: Um, we've seen some interesting activity, driven by the pandemic though always opportunity and crisis.
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AA: Because there are a lot of cases, the order book isn't telling these customers exactly what the reality is, for their supply chain.
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AA: So there's been an even greater need you're really efficient and automate it and create better experiences in their value chains.
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AA: To really inform backwards to the operational teams, what needs to be produced. And what's coming, and really create a better both customer and internal experience so
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AA: I thought we were in the age of the customer, maybe five years ago, it was easy for us to say I'm talking to executives manufacturing companies, every day, who are prioritizing
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AA: Customer experience being easier to do business with creating better digital connections, partly because it's the best way to get underneath the demand and really trying to execute more efficiently.
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MD: And something else that we've been talking a lot about of course is the digital transformation story and I know you know, throughout this session, you know, Michael will kind of share this year monitor story.
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MD: But I know Salesforce has also enabled digital transformation across multiple industries.
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MD: You know, Adam, what is your definition of digital transformation. And you know what do you believe are the benefits for your customers.
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AA: Yeah, look, it's a good question, but I think it is a time something that feels a little ambiguous. The term gets thrown around pretty broadly and
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AA: You know, forgive me, I'll naturally traverse more the front office, partly because of what we do. So I think there's lots of different ways to think about this hack. There's some great
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AA: Digital opportunities with processing equipment and otherwise, right. So, and I don't, um, I don't disregard any of that.
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AA: But in my mind when I think about the components. And what I'm discussing every day. I think about four buckets. I definitely think about process improvement and automation right there's great opportunities to go and refined processes. Both. Both.
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AA: Distribution based processes as well as production. I think about an improved customer user experience as well as improved access
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AA: To creating mobile tools, creating various points of access. Um, we're definitely seeing a lot of opportunity with scale and flexibility, we're in a very acquisitive market. Everybody's trying to get time to value out of acquisitions Michael you're involved in one pretty recently.
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AA: If we can drive flexibility and process and distribution execution that certainly creates an easier path to time to value and better scale as new products are launched and
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AA: New Markets are covered. And then the fourth one, we're seeing a lot of is the ability to drive insights and predictions.
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AA: Right. I think if you have those other three, then you start to get to a place where the data can guide you a little bit
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AA: And boys that paramount in driving efficiency employee engagement and even great customer experience. So that's a bit of what we see. But that, you know, if I tried to give you the whole list. It's probably 20 things right.
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AA: But those are for that are standing out to me and the engagements. We were having
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MD: Fair enough. I appreciate that and it Michael would it from Sierra monitor, you know, kind of evolution. Have you seen. Yeah.
mfSo in being in the back end of the organization. I am at the bottom of the funnel and it all comes to my organized my part of the organization and having
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MF: Access to all of the farming information that has gone on all of the mining information all the tools that the sales and marketing team have put together.
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MF: And funneling that into the engineering side of it and then getting us that information into the operation side is so key and to be able to go to one place and have all of that connected information makes it so much easier today than it was even five years ago.
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MF: And I think everybody benefits from it. The customer benefits from it, though the whole team benefits because everything is so connected and it just, it makes it that much easier. And it's more accurate and more timely.
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MD: No, I agree, and I think so, you know, and yesterday and raise keynote, he kind of made it clear on that belief as well and
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MD: You know, an idea if you implement a digital strategy focused on growth and acceleration, you'll be better prepared for unforeseen challenges and I know you've seen quite a bit.
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MD: You know through these COVID times and working from home. Perhaps you could talk a little bit about how you were able to adapt to this new environment.
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MF: So,
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MF: We quite honestly haven't missed to be and I'm so proud of our team. I think most organizations can probably say the same hi everybody has just really stepped up and if I missed the camaraderie. I missed the
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MF: Talks around the coffee pot, so to speak, but
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MF: Everybody's been really supportive and our process wouldn't be able to be complete if we didn't have tools like propel and Salesforce and when we start contacting customers and we decided that there is an avenue that we're going to go down that we need
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MF: Sales engineering resources engineering resources operations resources, we've been able to easily fulfill those with with tools like propel and Salesforce and there I can you're connected
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MF: And all the players are so
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MF: Join together to make this happen. And we can really prioritize things very clearly very easily.
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MD: And I know a lot of times we talk about remote access for suppliers and and you know communications there.
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MD: What about kind of the return to work. I think you mentioned that you and your team have been kind of in the office. This whole time, but
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MD: There's trying to now become back into the workforce. How was that process for you.
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MF: So obviously there's protocols and how can you follow to make sure that everybody is is safe and stays healthy and we've been able to document.
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MF: And take published documentation from CDC from the county health department and lay that into our training programs so that as
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MF: These employees are coming back to work. Well, even if they're just popping into the office. We made sure that they're aware that there are certain
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MF: Processes that they have to follow and we can track that they've actually seen this and and use that documentation and it's easy to keep a con as well. That way to track any changes are taking place.
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MD: And so, from your perspective, you know, what are you seeing from, you know, regards to the growth and acceleration. And, you know, preparing for these challenging times
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AA: Well, first, Michael back to what you said, I just, I think is a great opportunity to commend the ingenuity and courage that manufacturers, I'm talking to every day are showing in the face of this of this time and just an incredible
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AA: Adaptability. I mean, you mentioned the business is still rolling along pretty well I'm hearing that a lot. A lot of folks have one product up one product down, you know, sort of up is down and everything sideways.
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AA: And there and they're maintaining and they're executing and they're delivering for their customers.
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AA: Along with a lot of personal sacrifices and going and offices and being essential workers. So, Michael, I want to commend you, like, I work at Salesforce. I'm in my house, you know, selling cloud computing and you're you're building essential products and
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AA: Then the face this thing. So I really truly just want to commend that work and and also just salute the incredible ingenuity. I've seen in the market.
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AA: Um, you know, back to the question, I, I'm always a little careful with the growth word like I've got a lot of great customers that grow exactly at the rate of GDP and insert no exception. Save maybe acquisitions.
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AA: Um, but, but I think there's just such a tremendous opportunity to take friction out of both the distribution process and to Michael's point the connection between sales and operations that has a really great op X potential to it.
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AA: In terms of getting more efficient and saving some money and creating better customer experiences and a lot of the lower growth sort of higher density companies ideal with
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AA: Has become even more important to get really underneath every nuance of the customer and and just nail it in terms of data focus service quality expectations.
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AA: No longer like showing up and missing a delivery with the wrong stuff like when you're dealing with a pen down. It was just like, not an option.
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AA: So I think there's a lot of foundational stuff here that's really important. I look. Believe me, I love grow up in a growth company for a long time.
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AA: And I worked in the steel business before I was at Salesforce and growth was pretty situational in the market. So I'm sensitive to that.
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AA: I think there's an incredible opportunity to return off X create efficiencies and drive better connections to employees and Michael said again everything in one place.
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AA: And wonder that creates growth efficiency or whatever manner. You're trying to operate the business on, you've got a great
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MF: guy sat in a meeting yesterday with that was had players from all around the world quality people engineering people sales people on Beck's people, and it was to focus on a quarterly review on
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MF: product quality, if you will. And we broke it down by product type, we broke it down by issue.
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MF: And we were even able to drive down to the customer level and this the sales team pops up and says, Wait a minute. I've got a big meeting with this customer coming up next week. Let's take this data.
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MF: And analyze and pull it together and look at our 30s, that we're working on. And it would, it wouldn't have happened. You would not have happened if we didn't have these tools to be able to assess that. And it's so easy. What it's all in one place.
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MD: Of knowing, you know, kind of going off of that, you know, that's a lot of discussion about, you know, internal kind of communication and efficiency.
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MD: You know for those in the audience that may not know this, but there was not a twist in our discussion or panel today that we're going to talk to you a little bit about house here monitor supplies products to fight.
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MD: We were going to ask Josh to kind of address that and how that's working. But unfortunately wasn't able to join us. So
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MD: You know, maybe, Michael, you can kind of talk to it a little bit and how you see that working with suppliers.
Mf: Yeah. So fight has been a customer of ours for for a number of years and
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MF: You know, obviously started out where we developed in the relationship with them and understood what product needs that they had. And from that, we were able to establish a
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MF: A custom effort that we do for a number of our OEM where we document exactly what they need are and we follow the the qualification of our product.
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MF: Through a process that they are key and including first article approval and any sort of tightening that we need to do to to make them meet their requirements.
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MF: Once that's done, it's, it's, it's almost automatic they they send in their purchase orders. We have the product, released in our back end in our era P system and we continue processing and shipping, but then
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MF: On the other side, when they get our product. And if they have any issues at all. We're, we're tracking
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MF: Case support through sales force and from those cases we're handing back into engineering, if there's a reason to get the engineers back involved.
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MF: We can document those changes that are needed and bring about that the end to end track quality at track the number of cases because she was, why do the 20 and and really focus on that and it wouldn't happen.
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MF: If we again. We didn't have have all these tools and fight benefits from that by us being able to again quickly and we react and support them and they continue to be a strong customer of ours.
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MD: And Adam, from your perspective, are you seeing multiple Salesforce customers kind of partnering with each other in this manner as well.
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AA: We are. And a lot of times it's different steps in the value chain.
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AA: I mean, I think one phenomenon, we're seeing a lot of his companies that sell through Complex distribution networks take, let's say building supply and other and other products like that I'm
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AA: Trying to get insight into line betters of their distribution distributors their contractors, the architects, maybe the end user, and often creating, you know, some kind of unified data experience that gives better insight.
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AA: You mentioned into delivery to quality and all issues to all those things.
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AA: Because we're hearing stories in the absence of that the need for daily stand up meetings just to truly understand what's going on out there because of the lack of clarity on
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AA: Both demand and supply chain and otherwise. So I'm seeing a lot of that I'm seeing a lot of customers of mine in different parts of their own value chain aligning and
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AA: There's a ton of opportunity in that long term. It's I see what's happening in the face of crisis, but certainly has the potential for the end consumer to have a much better experience.
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MF: Yeah, that that's a great comment that you just referenced Dale as a stand up a daily stand up, we have that throughout the enterprise, where we call them huddles and
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MF: We're a safety company. So one of the subjects is safety and other is the various KPIs. And then we'll focus in on what the departments.
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MF: Are doing. And it's a 10 to 15 minute session. But again, it wouldn't happen if there wasn't a foundation underlying all of this, where we can grab all the data and understand where to focus that better attention to and it really engages everyone
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MD: Million. We know that both, you know, salesforce Fike into your monitor or kind of embrace the Salesforce platform.
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MD: You know, five was kind of using multiple Salesforce products first and then decided on propel
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MD: Michael, I know you're a little bit of reverse you were kind of my profile first and then kind of now putting everything onto a single platform. Can you talk a little bit about that evolution process. So we're, we're a classic
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MF: Evolution in the sense of in the, in the early in the 21st century, we were. We have so many databases, where we were trying to track all of our information, our quality metrics, our safety our productivity.
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MF: Our engineering changes our customization efforts, they were all across the board, and we would have regular meetings and trying to pull all this information together and having to remember where all the information was just a real challenge. So
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MF: Or three years ago, maybe a little more than three years ago, we made the decision that we needed to get on one platform and that platform obviously needed to be some somebody like Salesforce and Salesforce was the best solution with so many applications out there. It was just
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MF: a no brainer, if you will. So moving in that direction. And we were able, and we literally just finished pulling our last database into propel
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MF: A month ago, but we have our own quality management system in place our engineering change process. We do a lot of customization.
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MF: Of our products where we integrate our products with other people's products we're tracking that inside propel and that's all linking into what the sales.
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MF: Then sales person requirements are that we identify and track it in the CRM side of it. It's just, it's quite phenomenal. And again, you can relate everything in one place, connect people you can follow it. You can champion it. It's fantastic.
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MD: Adam, what do you see now that you're seeing that from the Salesforce side that may be a little bit more color customer
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AA: Yeah, I mean, Michael kind of said it all, like we've got the ability and, in particular, you know, this incredible power with propeller and Salesforce to connect customers and people to products and drive agility.
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AA: Everybody's trying to figure this thing and I'm right now. And in my mind, the more scale and agility, you can have to bury your market reach
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aa Bush: And execute differently and be sort of a culture of first is so important, but some of the product execution that we see out there is so rigid
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AA: That it makes that all really difficult. So I thought that was just, you know, I don't have a ton to add on top of what Michael said I thought that was really just
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AA: Super well said. And certainly a destination wedding for I'm assuming a lot of folks on this meeting and really impressive.
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MD: Definitely. And I think yesterday, you know, we've been kind of talking about the, you know, technology and Tiffany both also mentioned yesterday that she doesn't think we necessarily have a technology problem.
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MD: For many reasons you both have been kind of discussing through, you know, our last few minutes together.
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MD: And she says, The technology's there, but it's, you know, really requires the right people and the right process to realize that benefit.
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MD: Of, you know, using technology, you know, Michael. Would you agree with that statement.
MF:Yeah, I, I'm a staunch believer in getting rid of paper and that just says we're going to technology and
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MF: You know, it's funny. My, my desk. I used to have manila folders all over it and and I needed a place to store those and I still have a few co workers that come into meetings with stacks of the folders on were
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MF: organizing things but less than less. And they're coming in with their laptops or their or their handheld devices and they're able to get all the information digitally right there in one place.
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MF: So I think it. It's a hard process because some people are resistant. But, and it's not even hard to bring about the change because you see how productivity improved so much when you have the accessibility and it's all organized
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AA: Yeah, I just I just add there. I mean, I think it's okay, Mary.
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AA: There is a bit of a couple different barriers. I see two folks getting started and I think of three things. Number one, you're talking about the people in process.
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AA: I do think just about every manufacturer and distributor. I work with has been burned at some point down the line on an AARP project on slightly arrive and was like, just send them down a rabbit hole.
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AA: And those platforms are great, but they're so rigid, you really have to nail them. And sometimes what I see. Get in the way of
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AA: Innovation is just this desire to articulate and nail and refined every process before starting a project like propeller Salesforce.
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AA: For fear that they'll suffer the same sins of maybe a misguided. He or b roll out and I just encourage everyone that we're seeing incredible things with using technology to sort of guide process improvement.
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AA: With these next gen sort of new platforms like ours and propel
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AA: You don't need to be perfect. In fact, the benefit of it is you can try some things and you can be wrong and quickly acclimate, which I think is massive. Um,
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AA: You know the other thing that I see a lot on the people side back to your point, Michael some some audience concern. I mean, I've looked at 125 year old company before I came to Salesforce.
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AA: You know, there was a fellow who refused the last four shifts in technology. So someone sat beside him to enter his orders which is just phenomenal. A true um
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AA: And I think there's often a little bit of resistance of adoption and just have got these these grizzled bats. They're integral to the company. They have great relationships and I'm not sure they're going to use this
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AA: I'll play it time and time again, if you're from some some really long standing companies with long tenured employees that if you get it right. Those folks also know what good looks like. And they often become your super users. So I think that
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AA: That concern can get in the way a lot and and I don't think it should. And then the last thing, which I think is equally important.
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AA: Um, I try to find a partner be in us via propel, be it be at some kind of services company. I don't know. To help you construct an end division of what this all looks like. I think it's really hard when this is all really
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AA: Incremental to see where it goes in it and it starts to create some opportunity for mistakes.
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AA: We we'd be happy to sit down and I'm sure propel what and show you
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AA: What maybe a three or five year roadmap could look like. So there's something you're driving that starting with the end in mind. And I think with those three things.
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AA: Might be a great opportunity to ask you. That was really long winded apologize for that.
MF: Adam, you bring up some really excellent points and we had a master plan when we rolled out propel and when we rolled out Salesforce.
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MF: And the timing went awry. But, but, but we've we've been able to achieve all of our goals and it took in the case of everything that I wanted to do inside propel
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MF: It took three years ago and I wasn't sweating that out at all. I knew we were going to get there and
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MF: We rolled out two of them just this year, very quickly because of the maturity of the users that have been used it using propel and it was so easy. And we did have champions. We did. We have people just embrace it early on. And as you said there.
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MF: Was a was wonderful to super users.
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MD: Yeah, and I think along those lines. Michael broken on our previous conversations you've talked a little bit about
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MD: Seeing growth without having to grow headcount and I think that probably plays into that whole concept of having, you know, the platform to support that.
MF:Absolutely. Yeah, we have not added a person in my organization.
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MF: And many years and and we've been growing at about 10% rate over, over the last few years. So yeah, it's, it's nice to have the right tools to be able to do that. Definitely.
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MD: And so, Adam, you know, looking at Salesforce, of course, it's a very customer centric platform you know that promotes its customers 360, you know, what are the benefits you in your perspective for, you know, manufacturing products using a customer centric platform like Salesforce.
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AA: Well, I think you get it on both ends, you get you get better better serve customers better insights were happier and you create an environment you're easier to do business with
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AA: You can attract talent and that certainly in the front office and create
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AA: Better ease of use for your users. But I think the other big opportunity. A lot of folks don't think about Michael talks a lot about it is just the ability to actually create more efficiencies and operations by tying all that data together.
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AA: But I do think back to the age of the customer, you know,
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AA: A lot of there's been a long history of building from the back office forward with good reason is supply chain so vital, but I really think we're seeing that inverse now.
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AA: You know, really, really nailed the customer experience and work your way back into the value chain, you'll probably have a little more success, that's what's really driving and information, all of the demand and executions, though.
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AA: Opportunities abound and and I and it doesn't have to be a seven year project. And we're seeing folks take wins off the table. Very quickly stuff for the here and now in a couple weeks. Couple months to make some big impact. So this isn't all rocket science, for sure.
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MD: Yeah, definitely. So, you know, to me, we just have a few more minutes to go, but I definitely want you know the audience to kind of hear from your view.
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MD: You know what recommendations would you share you know with manufacturers, considering the digital transformation.
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MD: For their businesses and selecting the right platforms and you know path forward, Michael, why don't we go ahead and hear your thoughts.
MF: First, so I think it's really key to understand that.
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MF: The cloud is reliable and it's, it gives access to everybody, especially what we've seen take place this year without a cloud platform working from home is would not have happened. It just would not have happened so Salesforce and propel certainly allow us to do that.
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MF: The other important thing this week when we rolled out each of our platforms and propellants Salesforce, we decided which steps we wanted to take first and and and in the case of propel that was getting engineering change under control and
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MF: And we had a map, as I said earlier, and we continue to follow that map, but it wasn't there wasn't a lot of pressure because the evolution happens so quickly and the adoption happens so quickly. So I think
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MF: Understanding your platform understanding your business and being able to adapt it to
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MF: To to grow and to a digital application. It is key.
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MD: Adam
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AA: Yeah, look, I think, you know, there's a lot. There's a lot of great opportunity out there with with customer platform with the product stuff you're doing with with insights and analytics.
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AA: I'm and I am thoroughly thrilled with the progress. I'm seeing in the market and the courage to go and innovate and change. I guess the two things I would leave with that.
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AA: I could recommend a platform, but I'd be biased and two things I'd leave with is
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AA: You know, start with the end in mind and build a picture of the future and build for scale because there's a lot of products out there that could probably solve for the year. And now, but may fall apart when you start executing a bunch of change, which you inevitably well
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AA: Then the second part is pulling together and Michael I know your team's done this.
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AA: A really solid cross functional steering committee center of excellence that can guide to bring forward for all facets facets of the business.
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AA: Because if you build too far from the front office back office and ignore the balance.
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AA: I think that's where you end up with problems. So I've seen just some excellent examples, my customer base of these great cross functional teams from
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AA: Operations to production into sales to marketing to, you know, distribution and products really getting on board with a shared vision of the future and execution and accountability and you got to have that to execute in this environment. So right, two things top of mind for me.
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MD: Excellent. Well, I thank you both for your time today and sharing, you know the value of the cloud platform and moving through your digital transformation initiatives in your customer stories. So thank you both for today and your time. I appreciate it a lot.
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MD: And hope everyone else will be able to jump in and join us and our next session today. Thank you. Very.
AA: Thanks so much, Mary, Michael.
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