Furthermore, case studies show that companies embracing change are seeing: 

• Reduced risk 
• Greater speed to market 
• Increased margins 
• Enhanced market position 

Now all that is great – but how do you implement change in a business that has standardized ways of working and roots in disciplined environments? If something does not seem obviously broken, then how do we go about fixing it? And how can we ensure that we are reaping the full benefits of digital transformation? 

Michelin discusses precisely how they went about this in their business, in a recent conversation with Seismic (subtitles available). By tying back to key mutual benefits across multiple functions, and ensuring all project partners were aligned internally, they managed to bring about change, in a scalable manner. In addition to this, buy-in across senior leaders and the wider business allowed them to address key challenges they were facing within the industry, such as: 

• Improving the sales process to be more efficient 
• Clarity and alignment in their go-to-market strategy with an expanding portfolio 
• Retaining existing customers effectively – particularly demanding task 

By implementing Seismic, they are able to achieve essential time savings – integrating content into their CRM tool which allowed their sellers to be more productive and proactive. Their sellers can now personalize content in ways never seen before, so that relevant content is shared, and conversations are happening at exactly the right moment in the sales cycle – without jeopardizing impact on their tightly regulated brand guidelines. Marketing now also have insight into how sellers and customers use and consume content, which allows them to refine their content strategies and investment over time to become even more impactful and efficient. 

Another benefit, often overlooked when making this digital shift, is around sustainability which is a huge challenge manufacturing and CPG industries face as regulations tighten. For GEFA Fabritz, the shift to digital meant that they were able to achieve cost savings by up to 50%, all through focusing on a reduction of printing materials.  

A final important aspect of driving change within manufacturing and CPG businesses is learning. Implementing a well-structured and interactive training and learning software that allows employees to learn and develop according to their own needs and schedules does not only save organizations time, but also helps to create consistency and alignment, ensuring that they are keeping pace with change at scale. Tails.com, a Seismic customer and supplier of dog food with a focus on customer experience, was able to decrease their ramp time for new hires by 34% through a streamlined onboarding process. In a small team of only 75 people, this is extremely valuable time that is being saved and can now be re-invested into conversations with customers. 

Change is inevitable, especially within the manufacturing and CPG markets, but it is up to organizations how they choose to react to this change. Implementing a thought-through change management and sales enablement strategy is a good place to start. In fact, Valtech research confirms that 59% of organization’s are now defining their digital transformation goals as ambitious, whereas a year ago this stood at only 47%.  It re-enforces the strategy that by ensuring leadership alignment, effectively engaging stakeholders, providing relevant content, and measuring success at the right levels, manufacturing and CPG organizations will be able to navigate the complexities of change and set themselves up for sustained success in their ever-evolving markets. 

Seismic partners with a range of manufacturing and CPG customers across sizes and geographies, helping to deliver a well-oiled go-to-market machine that is sure to deliver successful business outcomes. Find out more about Seismic for manufacturing and CPG here, or reach out to request a demo. 

The post Navigating Change: leveraging Sales Enablement to drive successful digital transformation for Manufacturing and CPG  appeared first on Seismic.

The attraction and retention of talent also present significant challenges for the industry. In the survey, Deloitte found that one-in-three executives listed retaining high-performing employees as a strategic priority for 2023. 

In times like these, it’s more important than ever for manufacturers to focus on their people, technologies, and processes to ensure that their organizations can execute their sales strategy and go to market quickly and efficiently. 

Sales enablement is just one of the technologies manufacturers can invest in. This can help them train new hires, upskill existing talent, and ensure that their sellers are prepared to deliver personalized experiences in a highly competitive landscape. 

How manufacturers go to market 

Today, sellers are being asked to manage more and unique products, service teams are strained, and marketing has little visibility or data about activities in the field. This slows down the sales process and decreases overall efficiency.

But there are ways to make the go-to-market process smoother. Sales enablement software like Seismic frees up time for manufacturing sellers so they can spend more time with their customers. Content management and automation capabilities allow sellers to personalize engagements for each individual buyer while simplifying access to content where and when they need it. 

Sales enablement fuels manufacturing sales engines

When content is stored in different locations, it’s difficult for sellers to create meaningful buyer engagements. Searching for content across different repositories means less time spent selling. It also means that the content that sellers share may be inaccurate, outdated, or lacking personalization. Sales enablement helps manufacturing sales organizations overcome these challenges by helping sellers:

• Find the right content at the right time
• Personalize content at scale
• Ensure version control 
• Deliver continuous training and coaching to sellers

These are just a few of the ways sales enablement helps manufacturing companies mitigate business challenges. 

1. Retain and upskill talent with continuous learning

Training and coaching don’t stop once a new hire is onboarded. Continuous learning opportunities are the cornerstone of a thriving workforce. Sales enablement software that includes employee training provides teams and individuals access to the learning materials they need when they need them. It also helps organizations continuously invest in their existing talent and provide opportunities for them to grow within their current or new roles.

2. Increase customer engagement with personalized content

Buyers and channel partners have become accustomed to receiving unique content in their personal lives, such as through Google, Amazon, and Netflix. Now, they are also demanding the same personalized experiences from suppliers and partners through value-added solutions and customized information. The right tools let you delight the customer with personalized sales collateral that can be built with the click of a button and distribute only relevant content across geographies, business units, and sales teams.

3. Maximize sales and marketing efficiency enterprise-wide with automated content generation

In matrixed organizations like manufacturers, it’s easy to lose track of the core value proposition and a single source of content truth. Your go-to-market sales engagement platform should automatically surface approved content when and where the seller needs it. This gives sellers more time to sell effectively, unifies the message, and reduces risk across the organization.

4. Quantify the ROI of sales materials with data and analytics

Without a clear view of how content is performing in the field, manufacturing companies risk reinforcing messages that don’t resonate with target customers. Sales enablement technology lets you gain visibility to your content’s impact on business results, easily audit the content library and justify marketing budgets based on real-time content-performance feedback.

Build a brighter future with sales enablement

When sellers have access to the right tools and technology to do their jobs effectively, they stay longer and deliver more revenue. In a time of uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to have confidence in the way your sellers go to market. Sales enablement helps by helping sellers develop the skills they need to effectively engage buyers while ensuring they have access to the right personalized content when they need it. If your organization would like to learn more about how it can build together with Seismic, get a demo. 

The post How manufacturers go to market faster with sales enablement appeared first on Seismic.

If manufacturers want to experience continued growth and ensure long-term success, they need to innovate in all areas of the business — not just with the goods they produce or how their factories operate. One particular area stands out: how and when go-to-market (GTM) teams — those that sell and support products — are trained and enabled.

Instead of relying on outdated and inefficient training, the best manufacturing companies embrace new and creative training methods. Online learning enables manufacturers to create training that improves their GTM team’s productivity and drives business growth. In this post, we’ll take a look at five reasons why manufacturers should leverage online training for modern-day enablement. 

Delivers an engaging and digital learning experience

Research from Deloitte shows that manufacturers are going digital at a steady pace. While many organizations focus on technology to simplify processes and increase production, it’s also a powerful tool that can improve training. After all, the emerging workforce expects better digital tools and experiences in all aspects of the job. And the right training tools provide learners with a digital learning experience that’s more engaging, easy to understand, and accessible. 

Streamlines the training process

We know how important it is for manufacturers to have streamlined processes across the organization. However, training can easily become inefficient and labor-intensive if you don’t have the right systems in place. Online learning tools enable leaders to create, organize, and maintain their training programs in a streamlined way. It also automatically tracks training engagement and completion rates so teams can easily track and assess their training programs for maximum success. 

Saves time

Time is of the essence in manufacturing, and traditional training drains teams of the critical time they need to support larger business initiatives. Traditional training requires organizations to spend a lot of time scheduling training sessions, creating and updating training materials, and tracking progress. It also means taking sellers and support agents away from their work so they can complete training. Thankfully, there’s a much better and more efficient way to approach training. With online training, leaders can easily create training content and push it directly to employees who can complete it from virtually anywhere. This drastically reduces the time that GTM teams spend on preparing and completing training, making it a win-win for leaders and employees alike. 

Creates consistency and alignment

It’s a challenge to get any group of people on the same page. It’s even more difficult when you have multiple offices and time zones to contend with. And with so many hybrid-work organizations, leaders and trainers need a way to deliver consistent training to remote and in-person workers. The manufacturing industry has a lot of moving parts, products to know, and processes to understand. And, online learning delivers consistent training content to every single member of your GTM engine so that everyone is aligned and on the same page. 

Keeps pace with change at scale

The manufacturing industry is rapidly evolving, and many processes can’t keep up with these changes. In order to move rapidly, organizations need a way to quickly enable GTM teams on new products, systems, and market developments. With online training, leaders can quickly deliver content on recent changes so teams can stay up-to-date with the latest and greatest. And because all of your training materials live in one central location, you can easily locate and update outdated materials instead of worrying that employees have old information. This empowers organizations to deliver ongoing training at scale and move as quickly as the rest of the industry.  

Create a well-oiled training program with Seismic 

Training is critical to the success of your manufacturing GTM team. If you’re ready to create an innovative, scalable, and engaging training program — we can help. The Seismic Enablement Cloud features a learning and coaching tool that helps manufacturers like you move training online. Get a demo to see how. 

The post 5 reasons why manufacturers need to leverage online learning  appeared first on Seismic.