Salesforce recently launched Digital 360 for Industries, a set of services built to help companies in market segments like consumer goods, financial services, nonprofit, and the public sector embrace digitization. With prebuilt templates, industry-specific developer toolkits, and customer guides, Salesforce says that Digital 360 is designed to enable businesses to overcome challenges involving data capture, systems integration, and compliance requirements.
In a changing, all-digital pandemic and post-pandemic world, consumers are spending 54% more time on digital channels, according to Salesforce — creating major surges across all industries. This has required many businesses to change their operating models, even in industries historically reluctant to make the leap to digital. According to a recent Prophet report, digital transformation is still often perceived as a cost center, and data to prove return on investment remains hard to come by.
Digital 360 for Industries aims to ease the transition with a library of webpage layouts, prebuilt portals, and integrations with other technologies. The components address use cases including emergency response management, insurance agents, licensing, permitting and inspections, nonprofit fundraising, and more. For example, the insurance agent template delivers a portal for independent agents to manage their list of clients. The template enables agents to view client policy claims, life events, business milestones, and other key moments to help keep agents organized and deepen client relationships.
Digital 360 for Industries also includes the aforementioned toolkits, which contain code and app samples, documentation links, and best practice data for incorporating commerce into digital experiences. The toolkits come with guides for retail, discrete manufacturing, and retail banking that offer implementation blueprints, certifications, and industry best practices. Among other topics, the guides recommend ways to build ecommerce features for companies in the insurance, grocery, communications, and media segments.
Transforming the market
Digital 360 for Industries is Salesforce’s latest play in the growing digital transformation market, which is projected to grow from $469.8 billion in 2020 to $1 trillion by 2025, according to Research & Markets. Based on a recent survey of 1,200 mid- to large-scale US companies, the average digital transformation budget was $14 million in 2018, and it is expected to increase. And digital transformation is expected to add $100 trillion to the world economy by 2025, with platform-driven interactions enabling two-thirds of value at stake from digitalization, a report by the World Economic Forum found.
Salesforce says that clients including Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, Deluxe, Fanalca, and Foodstuffs are already using Digital 360 for Industries to deliver goods and services online via tools, websites, and portals. “With changing consumer trends and business models as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Foodstuffs North Island, New Zealand’s biggest grocery distributor, was able to use digital channels to extend wholesale relationships,” Foodstuffs chief digital officer Simon Kennedy said in a press release. “We were able to launch a new consumer storefront in only a few weeks, pivoting fast with Salesforce tools for grocery and digital experience.”
