How are you finding current business conditions?

The lockdowns across Australia may have stunted the growth of the manufacturing industry, but manufacturers have also pivoted their businesses to ride out the challenging environment.

They have also responded to rapid change by shortening their supply chain, placing emphasis on JIT (Just In Time), and creating  value for their customers.

In general, the pandemic has fundamentally changed how we work and live, and has driven accelerated adoption of digital channels, such as eCommerce and social commerce, across multiple industries.

In fact, in the most recent report from Essence Global, 71 percent of Australian consumers surveyed are highly likely to buy from social channels in future and 50 percent have already participated in live shopping and conversational commerce. 

At SugarCRM, we see more effort from our customers in making the (personalised) customer experience their mandate.

CRM is now businesses’ primary source of customer data and information; they can manage their goals, workflows, and processes, as well as continuous communications with customers no matter where they are.  

With the rise of the digital economy, sales, marketing, and service teams are swimming in copious amounts of customer data to interpret and inform personalised, empathic communications.

They need capabilities to help them sift through and find customer insights through that data. 

Capabilities such as AI-driven sentiment analysis are supercharging CRM functions such as sales, marketing, and service interactions with the insight into each customer’s and prospect’s emotional state and intent.

And these AI-driven solutions are doing so seamlessly in the background, sifting through massive data sets across customer channels to help teams on the customer front lines identify the next-best actions and opportunities.

More businesses are also starting to understand the criticality of sales and marketing to be in lock-step to win business and support growth.

To succeed in the “new normal,” both need better, faster, stronger sales and marketing alignment and collaboration. 

Both departments have the same goal of driving sales and revenue from new and existing customers, so constant collaboration and keeping in sync should be a daily occurrence.

Sales and marketing teams must find common ground for a higher purpose: to create a seamless customer journey. 

How are you finding staff retention in the time of the virus?

At Sugar we took a slightly different approach right at the start of the pandemic. We didn’t know how bad things would get so we went into War Room Planning mode.

We modelled a range of different scenarios from multiple downside cases to a doomsday case. What was encouraging was being able to report to the team that even the worst case didn’t factor in a pandemic led workforce reduction.

This enabled us to reassure everyone that their jobs were safe and from Day 1 this reassurance provided an environment where the Sugar team could focus on the most important mission of how we could help our customers.

I think it also engendered a sense of loyalty in many of our team when they saw competitors take advantage of the situation to shed thousands of jobs when they didn’t need to. 

During the pandemic it was more critical than ever to help our customers move to the cloud because they really couldn’t afford not to; however, at the same time, many couldn’t afford the transition.

In response, Sugar provided a lot of cloud migration education and services at no charge. It was a soul-searching opportunity for the Sugar leadership team and the entire company – one which aligned with our focus on building customers for life. 

Do you enjoy leading a tech company in the USA?

I certainly do. Sugar is the third company I have been at  the helm of since I moved to the US and it has been an amazing journey across all three companies.

There are so many positives about life in the US and there are so many positives of life in Australia. Both are great countries but the scale of the opportunities in the US particularly in the tech sector are immense.

Australia is an ultra competitive environment across most sectors and if you can do well here there are huge opportunities stateside.

What are the differences in the Australian and American mindset regarding business?

The US is one of Australia’s trade and investment partners and with the free trade agreement, the collaboration between businesses in the US and Australia has increased. 

Every country has slightly different needs and ways of doing business, including nuances in manufacturing operations.

Regardless of where your company operates or manufactures its goods and services, the pandemic has put a universal pressure on the need to maximise the convenience that you offer to customers.

However, our global research tells us that organisations lack the necessary insight to provide a customer experience that will keep them competitive – costing them an average of US$5.5 million each year due to customer churn alone. 

Businesses need to deliver a customer experience that is consistent with a predictable level of high-performing services.

Companies that remain frozen with a fragmented, outdated, and incomplete view of their customers may find the gap between them and their competitors can no longer be closed. Companies that significantly improve the accuracy and completeness of their customer data stand to improve retention, increase revenue, and gain better business outcomes.

Today, innovations in AI have also been moving the dial in customer experience efforts.

AI is single handedly putting CRM back at the heart of customer experience, providing the foundational technology needed for businesses worldwide to drive engagement and deliver experiences that keep customers coming back for more.

For example, with better visibility and more profound insights of customers, businesses will have a better grasp of customer sentiment and provide them with the services and attention they need.

Customers will benefit from the proactive, personalised service and targeted offers that will save them time and decrease potential frustration.

Businesses could also offer suitable engagement activities to drive better relationships with customers. 

As the world slowly begins its path towards economic recovery, the difference in the Australian and American mindset regarding business will not be too big a gap since we have the same mandate, and that is to use technology as an enabler to offer services that satisfy the thirst for convenience for customers. 

What effect has the Covid virus had on CRM?

The Covid-19 pandemic impacted the DNA of every business, including manufacturing. It was all-consuming for the first 12 to 15 months and poured fuel on the fire of the acceleration to digital channels and many other customer experience trends.

As a result, it’s now indelibly etched into the corporate psyche that organisations need to be able to pivot and be digital-first. 

In the past, it was common for industrial companies to focus heavily on the product and somewhat neglect the customer experience.

Today, pandemic disruption has further reinforced that it’s no longer enough to make a fantastic product – manufacturers must drive exceptional experiences to foster loyalty and connect better with their dealers, distributors, retailers, and customers.

This requires a CRM solution that flexes with the manufacturing industry’s needs and ultimately delivers a straightforward way to get ahead. 

Too often, businesses struggle with a fragmented, dated, and distorted picture of their customers, affecting the level of service they can deliver and severely impacting their ability to grow.

For customer experience to be a competitive advantage, businesses need to replace their hazy view with a sharply focused picture rich in breadth and depth.

At Sugar, we call this high-definition customer experience, and by delivering on it, companies can reach new levels of performance and predictability and increase customer lifetime value. 

Sugar is on a mission to help solve this “customer relationship crisis” for our manufacturing customers, specifically by working to consolidate their systems onto a robust platform to deliver a consistent customer experience.

By doing so, the platform does the hard work, aggregating information across networks to help gauge performance and identify gaps. 

Where are new areas of expansion and development for CRM?

The CRM industry is ripe with innovations. Sugar is taking hold of the latest in AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics to help make the hard things easier for manufacturing businesses and their sales, marketing, and service teams.

In many ways, high-growth mid-market manufacturing businesses are ahead with these innovations purely out of necessity to prioritise automation tools and services to free their teams of burdensome administrative tasks and make better use of their time. 

We say “let the platform do the work” to automate the mundane and humanise the exceptional. This is a mantra that our customers have responded to very well. Our customers get out-of-the-box value from Day One.

AI is often out of reach for many companies due to the lack of funds and/or technical expertise.

We are making AI accessible to all – purpose-built and pragmatic AI that is embedded into our platform. It’s a very different philosophy and approach to AI that again meets the customer’s needs by turning investment into value as soon as possible.

Our customers can uncover unique insights into their business with AI-powered predictability – even with limited or incomplete CRM data.

Sugar Predict taps vast external data sources to analyse factors a company’s data doesn’t cover and makes predictions that enable businesses to make better decisions and focus on the highest priority sales activities. 

These insights enable manufacturing businesses to forecast future production accurately and truly understand past performance and pipeline.

AI-driven predictability helps drive performance because it gives organisations the ability to focus on areas that deliver the most impact on business growth.

Export markets?

Over the last few quarters, Sugar has had record quarters and is growing at a tremendous rate. We’ve made eight acquisitions over the past two years, and we’ve assimilated this technology quickly.

Sugar’s go-to-market strategy – direct and through partners/channel resellers – consists of some 400 across the globe in 122 countries. This go-to-market strategy is all about the customer – giving them an extensive breadth and depth of resources and expertise. 

Sugar recently announced full data residency in Australia – reaffirming our commitment to the Australian market. Full data residency in Australia ensures that customer data is stored locally in the country as more of its products and services are offered to Australian customers.

SugarCRM is one of few providers to ensure all Australian customers’ CRM and marketing automation data is now stored securely and locally onshore. 

As SugarCRM continues to enhance its investment in Australia, it sees significant growth in the demand for its solution, with the company on track to achieve 50% growth in 2021.

By adding new solutions offering local hosting in Australia, SugarCRM further enhances the value for strategic partnerships in the region.

Is supply chain delays affecting your clients and delivery?

Supply chain disruptions are creating a lot of upheaval in the manufacturing industry. The need to collaborate with suppliers and customers has never been greater. Inventory and delivery uncertainty and unpredictability means that customer service departments are being besieged with a greater volume of customer inquiries and issues – most commonly around the issue of “where’s my order?”

In Australia, Sugar has an extensive customer base within the building and construction industry. They face shortages and delays in materials they need to build houses as many of the raw materials could originate overseas.

The demand for fast delivery, fast solutions are crucial in many ways and can put Australian manufacturing back onto its growth path.

In September, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released numbers showing that its GDP and trade terms have risen with increased domestic demand, household spending, and public investment. In addition, the recently announced Modern Manufacturing Strategy will also be a game-changer for the industry’s growth in Australia.

By focusing on science and technology, taking advantage of the country’s resources, building capability and resilience – I believe the future is bright for Australia. 

Do you have an observation to share as to how business is likely to be in 2022?

In 2022, the post-pandemic landscape will be less “gut-feel” and more scientific and data-driven as businesses emphasise using technologies and data to help them solve their customer’s business challenges.

Sales reps will use data to inform their approach and ideas to bring to customers. Marketing will use data to aid in their decision-making when it comes to communicating with prospects and customers.

Service agents will use data to ensure that they are focused on holistically servicing customers’ immediate needs.

The executive team will in turn use their CRM as a barometer to understand the customers and gauge customers’ voice, as long as the CRM contains data that align with customer needs.

Organisations trying to drive their go-to-market strategies by looking in the rear-view mirror of customer insights will quickly find themselves outmatched by competitors with forward-looking sales strategies.

Companies need the power of data insights and predictive analytics now more than ever to navigate the new normal. 

The pandemic has fueled a rise in the adoption of digital channels for sales interactions. As a result, companies can no longer rely on age-old ways to influence their prospects, forcing them to be more creative.

This leveled the playing field for vendors of all sizes, and sales teams have found themselves having to work harder to win hearts and minds. 

It also presents an exciting opportunity for sales organisations. All data across the entire buyer lifecycle can now be captured and analysed.

Their analysis can help companies triangulate the specific marketing and sales efforts that contributed to the close of each piece of business – across the full range of web clicks, downloads, phone calls, emails, SMS messages or chat interactions – and cross-correlate those activities with buyer roles, account demographics, specific needs, pricing, promotions, and more.

To capitalise on this opportunity, organisations must have the means to collect and analyse this “sales digital exhaust” to optimise future sales efforts by tapping into the power of machine learning and predictive analytics capabilities.

Technology plays a massive role in the “new world” of selling – providing meaningful insights across the entire customer journey.

Technology must rescue sales, marketing, and service teams from the intense manual labour of entering data in the system and yet make more data readily available to help them make better, faster decisions that result in revenue growth for the organisation.

LOOK Cycle partnered with Sugar to embark on a profound digital transformation and has taken steps to centralise its data on a customised digital customer experience platform that is helping them deliver a superior experience reflected in the company’s products and services today.

With the help of Sugar, Bishop-Wisecarver managed to have more transparency into its CRM and gained a deeper 360-degree view of their customers by integrating their enterprise resource planning and marketing automation platform data.

This has made things easier for sales agents that now have access to the real-time internal data, all from one view in Sugar. They’ve had so much success that they call their internal CRM department “The Sweet Spot.”