As Concentrix pushes its position in the market for manufacturing sales, marketing, and aftermarket services, it will face not only competing executive priorities for cost and customer experience but also many established competitors. Manufacturing providers must ensure that they’re clear in their go-to-market; their solutions and sales pitches must not only create new, targeted business opportunities and better customer experiences but also clearly link to tangible growth and improved bottom lines. Manufacturing providers must prove these benefits in their established success stories if they’re going to cut through the competition.

New business models and disruptive competitors are causing manufacturing execs headaches; Concentrix has a big pool to influence, but it faces competing priorities

Concentrix’s solutions for sales, marketing, and aftermarket services in manufacturing are directly addressing the pressures we’re seeing manufacturing execs face, as Exhibit 1 shows.

Exhibit 1: Emerging new business models are the biggest pressure weighing on manufacturing execs, and the threat of disruptive digital competitors isn’t far behind

When you look at today’s immediate business pressures, what are the major burning business challenges faced by your company at the moment?

 Source: HFS Research, State of Operations and Outsourcing 2019, n=53 manufacturing executives

Despite Concentrix’s solutions’ (detailed in the next section) ability to address these pressures, it must make sure its manufacturing clients’ priorities are in the right place; their success stories must prove the achievable business value, given that manufacturing execs show a continuing view for top- and bottom-line improvement which overshadows customer experience and generating new business models (see Exhibit 2).

Exhibit 2: Creating new business models and delivering better customer experiences compete for manufacturing execs’ priorities with the top and bottom lines.

Please rank the following statements about your organization’s strategic objectives for digital transformation over the next three years?

Source: HFS Research, Business and IT Industry survey 2019, n=32 manufacturing executives

Uncertainty about the required financial investments to digitally transform manufacturing processes is also a barrier, making outcomes and benefits backed up by success stories even more crucial. Concentrix’s view for outcomes in its marketing solutions and manufacturing use cases will help eliminate some of the uncertainty and allow execs to better-quantify ROIs. However, it must be careful in its go-to-market, as will its competitors, given the split priorities in Exhibit 2..

Concentrix’s data- and analytics-driven marketing solutions give manufacturers the tools to boost customer acquisition, retention, and loyalty

Concentrix’s marketing solutions add to its historically strong BPO brand while also meeting the needs we’ve shown in manufacturing, that grapples with pressure from emerging business models and digital disruption. Concentrix’s use cases, shared with us in a recent briefing, rely heavily on data-driven marketing and analytics to finding manufacturers new communication channels and revenue opportunities.

One manufacturer was seeing low response rates to its communications and campaigns. To improve the value per marketing dollar spent, Concentrix incorporated sales and aftermarket services messaging into one platform to cover more of the customer journey. The manufacturer was able to personalize communications and channels in combination with analytics-driven segmentation and predictive modeling; it could also use predictive analytics to trigger sales communications. The customer achieved a 7% increase in customer response with 7% fewer communications required. Its average customer now spends more per service, and 42% of active customers are targeted with analytics-driven communications, returning a (coincidentally) 42% lift in response rate.

Manufacturing providers are mature in sales, marketing, and aftermarket services; Concentrix is in a challenging space

In addition to manufacturing execs’ competing priorities, our Manufacturing Services Top 10 report  also suggests that many providers already have mature services in sales, marketing, and aftermarket support (we asked providers to rate the maturity of their own services across the value chain; see Exhibit 3); Concentrix has another challenge on its hands.

Exhibit 3: Concentrix’s sales, marketing, and aftermarket services are competing with other manufacturing providers’ most mature offerings

Source: HFS Research, Manufacturing Services Top10, 2019

Cognizant acquired Mustache in December 2018 and Netcentric in 2017, adding to its marketing, advertising, and digital experience capabilities. Cognizant also identified industrial commerce (digital commerce, digital service, and digital marketing) as one of its three strategic growth opportunities in manufacturing services, alongside future mobility (through smart and connected products, human-centric design, and digital twins), and connected operations (Industry 4.0 solutions and automation).

OnProcess is a supply chain and post-sales-focused manufacturing service provider. Its in-house solutions include the OPT vision platform, which aims to improve customer satisfaction by embedding predictive analytics that feeds automated decision making based on business rules, enabling “accelerated and targeted outcomes.” OnProcess can provide real-time visibility of processes, predictability, and action throughout the post-sale ecosystem. OnProcess has also developed and launched a solution (IntelliForce), where heavy fixed costs are eliminated, and on-demand field labor is enabled in a crowdsourcing model. OnProcess also wields OPTimize, a managed service for unlocking post-sales business value.

Infosys and a Japanese automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEM) wanted a dealer communication system for North America to boost ecosystem collaboration. Infosys developed a portal solution that helped increase sales, boost productivity at dealerships, and enhance customer satisfaction. The OEM started with non-uniform methods of information sharing with its dealers, high data redundancy, and low productivity at dealerships. The portal solution helps dealers maximize sales and enhance productivity throughout their networks. Access to the portal was also enabled on mobile devices alongside the launch of three mobile apps that allowed dealers to serve customers and respond to market dynamics better.

An experienced and established arm in automotive services will help Concentrix in an industry which, more than most manufacturing sub-sectors, is striving for an aftersales reinvention.

The Bottom Line: Manufacturing providers, including Concentrix, have mature technology toolboxes and an established focus on sales, marketing, and aftermarket services; to cut through the competition, success stories must stand out.

The provider ecosystem for manufacturing services must recognize that:

• Data-driven sales, marketing, and aftermarket services can solve manufacturing execs’ current challenges.
• There are competing exec priorities between customer experience and cost (a historic hallmark in manufacturing).
• The market space is relatively mature, with many providers established with prominent use cases.

For new and existing providers to succeed in this space, they must cut through the competition’s narrative by

• Proving through success stories that value proposition simultaneously creates revenue opportunities through new business models, fosters growth, and improves customers’ bottom lines.
• Emphasizing that these should not be competing priorities, but part of the whole journey that manufacturers face in achieving their current and future goals.