In my last blog How Complete is your Digital Footprint, I made a case of why enterprises need to have a holistic view of their investments to ensure successful Digital Transformation. Having a strong Digital Core that caters to business needs for today is important, however making sure that the investments that are made today results in sustainable profitable growth in the future is also very critical. Two crucial investment decisions that any business must focus on to drive success are Customer Experience (CX) for revenue growth and Operational Excellence for increased profitability. Let’s look at these two aspects and see how the right decisions in these areas will drive the right outcomes.

Customer Experience (CX) today is extremely critical to survive and compete in the brave new digital world where information travels at the speed of thought. How do your customers interact with your brand? How do you deliver your products and services to your customers? How do you attract customers to your brand online and offline? How do you measure your campaigns and promotion effectiveness? Do you have a 360-degree view of your customers so that you can upsell and cross sell? These are some of the critical questions every company must decide early on and have a comprehensive strategy to provide an exceptional CX. In his book Competing Against Luck, Clayton M Christensen makes a case that it is easy to copy products or services but very hard to copy a great customer experience. Companies like Starbucks, Apple, and many more have understood this very well and their success is a clear example of why investments in CX can add fuel to the rapid revenue growth and help companies stay competitive.

Operational Excellence focuses on producing value for your customers with profitability in mind. This requires companies to optimize costs with a focus on lean processes that can help companies adapt to changing business conditions. Digital Transformation in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution looks much different and it needs innovations in managing the entire Supply Chain. Companies must consider investments in a robust Cloud ERP solution that can support the complexities that come while operating in a dynamic environment. End-to-end support for business processes like Order-to-Cash, Procure-to-Pay, etc. becomes very critical. A well-integrated Financial system is necessary to not only track costs but manage accounting needs for receivables, payables, cash flow statements, P&L, and Balance Sheet. Staying compliant with regulatory needs has to be well integrated to drive end-to-end operational excellence for companies.

What if you could have the best CX and a robust Cloud ERP in one place? This has been our core premise at Rootstock. We have been working hard to extend the value of an exceptional Customer Experience solution with Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud and bring deep and broad functionality in Rootstock Cloud ERP that covers Inventory, Supply Chain, and Financials. With Salesforce and Rootstock, we enable all the core capabilities that a company would need to confidently deal with the changes during good times as well as challenging times. As you can see above, your Enterprise Digital Core is comprehensive as it covers Systems of – Engagement, Record, Insights, Innovation, and Differentiation. Various elements of this Digital Core with the corresponding technologies can be leveraged to drive efficiencies across the business as and when needed.

When Customer Experience and Operational Excellence is available in one platform it has immense value for customers. Here are some of the important factors to consider:

1 – Cost Benefit

Unified Data Model for Salesforce CRM and Rootstock ERP on ONE robust platform reduces integration costs and provides one end-to-end offering. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is lower when CX and ERP are in one cloud. Consolidating Admin and other resources on one platform would also optimize costs and benefits combined workforce using CRM & ERP.

2- Protect Investments for Future

As Salesforce Platform capabilities improve, our customers benefit with new improved capabilities in CRM as well as in ERP. Users on Salesforce CRM and Rootstock ERP get the benefit with consistent user experience that is also unified across various departments.

3 – Enterprise-wide Visibility

When data is in one place in a unified data model, companies can leverage the unified data model to get complete real-time visibility on KPI’s that cuts across CX and ERP. Actionable insights on combined data will drive increased profitability.

4 – Unlimited Growth

With a robust cloud platform with a Software-as-Service (SaaS) model, it brings the possibility for unlimited growth in users and data. When scalability is built into the platform, companies benefit from being able to make bold moves without worrying about capital investments needed to manage the software that supports the business. This helps when CX and ERP are together.

5 – Agility

Our Low-Code ERP approach allows customers to build unique experiences with Salesforce platform capabilities like Lightning and Flows. With our API driven approach customers can integrate with other vendors and bring the robust Cloud ERP to Mobile devices. Analysts at Gartner refers to such an approach as Composable Enterprise.

At Rootstock, we are taking a broad view of how we can deliver comprehensive value to our customers. We believe that we can become a reliable partner for our customers in their digital transformation journey. Read our blogs and connect with us to see how we can help you build a strong Digital Core for you that protects your investments for the future.