4 Reasons that Make Salesforce a Powerful Digital Transformation Ally for SMBs

From being a survival code to being the code of evolution, digital transformation has not only taken enterprises by storm but has also propelled small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) to evolve. For SMBs, investing in digital transformation is a medium to uncover new market opportunities, create new revenue streams, and drive overall growth. No matter if your business is in a fledgling stage right now, by arming yourself with the latest digital tools, you not only enjoy an edge over your competitors but also streamline your operations, reduce costs, and improve employee productivity. And this digital adoption should continue for sustained success.

Here’s a quick look at the factors that drive SMBs to adopt digital transformation:

• The Growing Importance of Data Analytics: Data analytics is the fuel that drives business growth. However, without considerable investment in enhancing their data analytics capabilities, small businesses end up leaving valuable data unused. By investing in platforms with data analytics capabilities, small businesses can develop actionable insights to drive informed decision-making, improve customer experience, and optimize operations.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation: For small businesses, AI and automation translate to higher employee productivity, cost-saving, and an insightful view of the future. AI and automation make way for your employees to take up more complex tasks that need human intelligence.
• Crafting Connected Experiences: How can small businesses stay relevant and cut through the digital noise? How can they break departmental silos and craft more connected experiences for their customers? It is by investing in new technology tools that make their entire tech stack work together, unify their data streams to get a single, unified view of the customers, and enable their business to function smoothly.
• Cybersecurity: Security concerns loom large on organizations of any size. According to a study^[i], 43% of companies have no defense plan in place for cybersecurity, which leaves their sensitive data (business, customer, and financial) at risk. SMBs, therefore, need to invest in secure cloud technology to keep their data safe.

At the heart of all digital adoption lies customer happiness. As modern customer expectations are largely driven by digital technology, it is best to expand while keeping your customers in mind. The best way you can do it is by directing your investments towards better customer experiences, bringing your sales, marketing, and support teams closer together. And one such digital platform that is poised to help businesses of all sizes prepare for digital evolution is Salesforce. A CRM platform with its wide coverage of features and functions, it is getting increasingly embedded in the organizational fabric and serves as the foundation for organization-wide digital transformation.

But what is it that precisely makes Salesforce the foundation of digital transformation for any business? There are four main reasons for it. Let’s take a look.

• Salesforce Offers the SMAC Bundle: For a business to transition into a digital business, SMAC is the basis for its ecosystem. SMAC refers to social, mobile, analytics, and cloud, and Salesforce comes with all of them. It works entirely on the cloud, offering access from mobile devices as well. It helps integrate mobile technologies into the sales lifecycle and ensures businesses can take advantage of technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) to enhance customer experience. Salesforce also enables companies to effectively manage their social media presence and deliver connected experiences. And lastly, Salesforce serves as an analytical powerhouse using Artificial Intelligence to convert data into actionable insights.
• Salesforce is User-friendly: Any kind of transformation in companies starts with their employees. From altered workflows to new software systems, employees usually take time adapting to change. However, Salesforce is an intuitive and user-friendly platform that employees can get easily comfortable with. By automating a lot of difficult, complex, and repetitive tasks, Salesforce makes employees’ daily jobs easier. So, whether it is a support rep using Macros on Service Cloud or any other user utilizing Salesforce’s drag and drop functionality, they are likely to get their jobs done faster. Also, when a user finds it difficult to navigate through the tool, they can use Salesforce Trailhead to train and comprehend the features.
• Salesforce Improves Collaboration: One of the topmost goals of digital transformation is improving collaboration within and outside the company. With Salesforce Sales Cloud, sales teams can collaborate from anywhere over a single platform. They can keep up with critical projects, topics, and teams with an easy-to-access social feed. It recommends relevant people, files, and information for you to follow based on your activity and interest. You can also access critical sales information from your mobile device using Salesforce1 Mobile App.
• Salesforce Helps Leverage Automation: Multiple customers step away from their cart from your website in a day, a week, and a month. Imagine your team individually following up on such customers with an email, reminding them to complete their purchase. That would cost your small business a lot of time and sap your employee productivity. However, Salesforce enables you to leverage automation and your customers can receive emails automatically when they leave the cart. And it is available for not only your marketing set-up but for every section of the sales funnel and every department in your business. Being on the Salesforce CRM, you can automate time-consuming tasks and streamline your workflows.

Salesforce Will Drive Digital Transformation in the Future

Customer-centric businesses are most likely to have a CRM system in place. When small businesses grow, they outgrow their basic software systems and alter their business processes. So, they need a CRM platform that is scalable. This is where Salesforce comes in. It runs in the cloud and can be accessed by anyone in business from anywhere. It is a platform that is extensible as businesses grow. And when they need to add extra capabilities to their CRM, they can use thousands of free and paid apps in the AppExchange or build custom apps on the Salesforce platform. With so much flexibility, customization, and convenience at their disposal, most businesses are likely to adopt the world’s #1 CRM platform to make their customers happy and business function smoothly.

Conclusion

The gamut of digital transformation is huge. With small businesses poised to digitally transform themselves, technology will remain at the core of every business operation and customer-centricity will increase. All these businesses need to do to stay relevant and competitive is to start right. And doing that with Salesforce is a win-win.

Statistics References: