The world of sales has irrevocably changed and it’s altering the way companies across a wide variety of industries must think about, approach, and engage with customers, technology, and emerging markets. In the past, the way a car salesman, a jet engine rep, and a medical device rep would sell their products would have had little in common. Now, with the power of Salesforce and Quote-to-Cash solutions, sellers are able to achieve measurable outcomes for their customers and accelerate deals like never before. From the field, a rep can configure complex equipment, machine data services, maintenance and repair plans to fit a customer’s specific needs, access pricing approvals in real-time, and build a quote tied to contracts in minutes as a opposed to months.

For a number of businesses, achieving these measureable successes for their customers and increasing deal velocity are still a challenge. Adjusting to customer needs has never been easy, especially when challenges are caused by disparate systems, working in silos, or a lack of innovative solutions. However, a select number of companies have been able to reach sales efficiency by taking the initiative to adjust to the pace of technological innovation, making what was once a challenge a breeze.

Companies like Aesynt and GE Aviation are in the business of making and selling incredibly powerful technologies designed to improve and save human lives, move people and goods across the world, or change the way we look at and interact with our world. For these companies, it’s not just about their technological improvements – it’s about the factors and drivers that are pushing their businesses to invest in and optimize technologies like Salesforce and other applications.

The good news is that on Thursday, July 30th at 11am PDT/2pm EDT, Aesynt and GE Healthcare will join us on a SalesforceLive webcast. Reserve your spot today!

Here are five reasons why manufacturing companies must leverage cloud computing to increase sales efficiency:

1: Modern customers want the sales cycle to move fast, going from identifying and expressing interest to understanding and exercising purchasing options very quickly. They want the seller to be the expert, helping them identify needs and a solution to the problems they know they have, and ones they didn’t know existed.

2: Customer buying behavior is changing. The CEB estimates that 57% of the buying cycle occurs before a prospect actually talks to a sales rep.  Sellers can no longer depend on people walking into a store, browsing a catalog, or getting plenty of face time before they make a decision.

3: Buyers want to be served via the same channels, devices, and apps they use every day. These include their smart phone or watch, social media, places they shop, and alternative payment systems like Apple Pay. The way customers buy has changed and manufacturers have to adapt to thrive.

4: Customers want to be guided into making smart choices that are informed by the experiences and practices of buyers like them. They want the system to predict the best options. They are increasingly expecting machines to talk to other machines without requiring any input or configuration. This is often referred to as the Internet of Things (ioT) or machine-to-machine (M2M). They want providers of products and services to use this information to identify their needs for things like maintenance, upgrades or even new solutions transparently.

5: Finally, customers don’t want to bother with complexity. They use Uber because they don’t want to call someone to ask how far away a taxicab is or whether they accept credit cards for payment. They don’t want to answer questions about themselves or waste time translating their unique requirements into their industry terms, industry practices or regulatory and data requirements each time they want to buy something or implement a better technology to improve their lives. This applies to consumers buying tax software or businesses implementing built-for-industry contracting, incentives or channel rebates tools.

When this becomes the norm, then companies are able to achieve incredible outcomes from their investments on Salesforce1 such as:

• Reps gaining nearly a third of selling time

• 45% increase in deal size

• 100% adoption

On Thursday, July 30th at 11am PDT/2pm EDT, Mary Beth Gargani of Aesynt will join fellow Apttus customer, Richard Grubb of GE Healthcare on a SalesforceLive webcast.

They will share how their respective organizations enable customers and sellers to achieve measurable outcomes for their customers. This includes configuring and pricing solutions that put complex equipment, machine data services, maintenance, repair and even new revenue models together in a way that transitions seamlessly from a contract to an invoice. They will touch on how Salesforce and Apttus Quote-to-Cash make this achievable in two of the world’s most regulated and engineered products’ industries. Join us for this live webcast to learn how to utilize cloud technologies to simplify complex manufacturing environments.

Gopkiran Rao is the Associate Vice President of Vertical Markets.