Case Study: Salesforce Experience Cloud for Distributor Partner Portals
The client is a German multinational tech conglomerate that is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport, and healthcare technology. They are one of the largest engineering companies in Europe, and they hold the position of global market leader in industrial automation and industrial software.
Business Problem
The company relied on a large number of distributors to drive sales; however, distributors did not have a centralized platform to perform sales activities like managing the pipeline, updating leads, and collaborating on new opportunities. However, communication happened through emails, spreadsheets, and phone calls, leading to delays, data inconsistencies, and lost opportunities.
Distributors struggled with product selection as the product availability and related Account and Contract details needed to be fetched manually. The distributors were also not able to add new Accounts to the system without the help of an account manager.
The pre-existing system through which ERP IDs were generated was manual as well and required multiple levels of approval, mainly boiling down to 3 main pain points:
- Sales Process Inefficiency
- Partner Distributor Miscommunication
- Decreased Visibility in Business Processes
These inefficiencies in the business process provided unnecessary friction, and the organization needed a secure, scalable, and self-service solution where distributors could directly manage leads, create and modify opportunities, and add products without relying on back-and-forth communication with internal teams.
Solution Design
The Astrea IT team worked with the client stakeholders to understand the requirements and the challenges. To overcome these challenges, the company implemented Salesforce Experience Cloud as a dedicated portal for its distributor network. The portal was designed as a secure, branded site where distributors could log in and manage their sales activities independently while staying connected to the company’s CRM data in real time.
Through the portal, access was provided to the distributors, and they were given the ability to update leads, ensuring that lead qualification and status changes were captured instantly within Salesforce. They could also add products to opportunities, adjust quantities, and configure pricing using the same product catalog as the internal sales team, eliminating the need for back-and-forth requests. This streamlined the opportunity management process and gave both distributors and the company’s sales leadership complete visibility into pipeline activity.
The team also introduced role-based access and approvals. This was done to ensure that sensitive data remained secure while providing distributors with accurate product-level access. Additionally, the increased visibility provided by Salesforce dashboards and reports.
This allowed upper management to track distributor performance, forecast revenue more accurately, and identify areas for support or growth.
Outcome
Distributors now had a single, self-service platform to manage leads and opportunities, which eliminated delays and ensured that data remained accurate and up to date. The ability to directly add products to opportunities reduced dependency on internal sales teams, speeding up deal cycles and improving overall efficiency.
This also improved collaboration and strengthened relationships with distributors, who appreciated the transparency and autonomy provided by the portal.
Technology Leveraged
Salesforce Experience Cloud, Custom And Standard Objects/Fields, Aura Component, Visualforce Page, Apex, Flow Builder, Validation Rules, Approval Process
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Contact Details
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- support@astreait.com