Manufacturing Customer 360
One customer, account and asset view across direct sales, distributors and service networks.
Discuss This Playbook- What it is
- A reference architecture that unifies customer, account, asset, contract and service data across direct, distributor and dealer routes for manufacturers.
- Who it is for
- Commercial, service and channel leadership in industrial and discrete manufacturing.
- The problem it solves
- Customer, installed-base and entitlement records are split across ERP, CRM, warranty and field systems that do not agree, so sellers, service and channel partners work from different truths.
- Technologies involved
- Salesforce Sales, Service, Field Service and Experience Cloud, Data 360, AI agents, ERP/SAP and IoT integration.
- Industries it applies to
- Manufacturing, industrial equipment, semiconductor capital equipment and adjacent asset-heavy sectors.
- What AX3 provides
- Industry-led design, data and identity resolution, Salesforce build, integration engineering and the AI layer that makes the unified record useful.
What is actually going wrong.
Industry: Manufacturing
Manufacturers sell through direct teams, distributors and dealers, then service the installed base for decades. Customer, asset, contract and service records sit in ERP, CRM, warranty and field systems that were never designed to agree with one another. Sellers cannot see service exposure, service cannot see commercial context, and channel partners operate on stale data.
The constraints most programmes underestimate.
Three routes to market
Direct, distributor and dealer motions each carry their own pricing, data quality and visibility rules.
Decades-long installed base
Assets outlive the systems that recorded them; serial history is scattered across warranty, field and spreadsheet records.
ERP is the system of record
Order, pricing and inventory truth lives in ERP, so CRM has to integrate rather than duplicate.
Entitlement ambiguity
Contract, warranty and service coverage are interpreted differently by sales, service and finance.
How we sequence the work.
- 01
Resolve the customer and the asset first
Identity resolution across ERP and CRM, then a serial-level installed-base registry both sales and service can trust.
- 02
Design one commercial workflow
Quote, agreement and order flow modelled once, then implemented across direct and channel routes.
- 03
Layer AI where the decision is
Guided selling against the installed base, case triage in service, coverage validation in warranty.
From business process to business action.
- 01Business process
Demand → quote → order → commissioning → service and renewal
- 02Data
Customer and hierarchy resolution, installed-base registry, entitlement and pricing
- 03AI
Guided selling, case triage and warranty coverage agents
- 04Salesforce
Sales, Service, Field Service, Experience Cloud, Revenue Management
- 05Integration
ERP/SAP orders and pricing, PLM/MES product data, IoT telemetry
- 06Engineering
API layer governing partner access and event-driven asset updates
- 07Business action
A shared account and asset view that sales, service and channel act on
The end-to-end path we design against.
- 01
Identify and qualify demand across direct and channel routes
- 02
Configure, quote and agree pricing against contracted terms
- 03
Convert to order and hand off to ERP fulfilment
- 04
Commission the asset and register it to the customer record
- 05
Serve, maintain and renew across the asset lifecycle
Industry expertise, applied through four connected layers.
Salesforce
Explore →- Sales Cloud with Sales Agreements
- Service Cloud
- Field Service
- Experience Cloud for partner and distributor access
- Revenue Management for quoting and contracted pricing
- Data 360
Data
Explore →- Customer, account and hierarchy resolution across ERP and CRM
- Installed-base and asset registry with serial-level history
- Contract, entitlement and warranty coverage
- Pricing, discount and rebate structures
- Service, parts and claim history
AI & Agentforce
Explore →- AI Sales Assistant for guided selling against the installed base
- AI Service Agent for case triage and resolution
- AI Warranty Agent for coverage validation
- Account intelligence surfacing whitespace and renewal risk
Engineering
Explore →- ERP and SAP integration for orders, pricing and inventory
- PLM and MES connectivity for product and configuration data
- IoT and telemetry pipelines from connected equipment
- API layer governing partner and distributor access
Where this applies.
Manufacturers running direct and channel routes over a long-lived installed base — industrial equipment, components, capital equipment and building systems — where commercial and service decisions depend on the same asset truth.
How AX3 gets this built and sustained.
Forward Deployed Engineering
ERP, PLM and telemetry integration is where this architecture usually stalls. AX3 Forward Deployed Engineers work inside your estate to close that gap.
- ERP and SAP integration for orders, pricing and inventory
- IoT and telemetry pipelines from connected equipment
- Partner and distributor API governance
Specialized talent
Where you want to run this internally, AX3 can supply the specialized capability alongside or instead of a delivery team.
- Salesforce solution architects
- Integration and MuleSoft engineers
- Data engineers with ERP experience
What changes when this works.
These are the outcomes this solution concept is designed to produce. They are directional, not measured results from a named engagement.
Manufacturing Customer 360: common questions
What is the Manufacturing Customer 360 playbook?
It is a reference architecture for unifying customer, account, asset, contract and service data across direct and channel routes, then applying AI to the workflows that use it.
What business problem does it solve?
Sellers cannot see service exposure and service cannot see commercial context because customer and installed-base data is fragmented across ERP, CRM, warranty and field systems.
Which industries can use it?
Industrial and discrete manufacturing, capital equipment, components and other asset-heavy sectors that sell through both direct and channel routes.
Can this be implemented on Salesforce?
Yes. The playbook uses Salesforce Sales, Service, Field Service and Experience Cloud with Data 360, integrated to ERP as the system of record for orders and pricing.
Can AX3 provide the engineering capability required?
Yes. AX3 delivers the Salesforce build and the surrounding integration engineering, and can embed Forward Deployed Engineers for ERP, PLM and telemetry work.
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