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Iron Ridge & N28 Technologies Customer Story Hero Image
Customer Stories

How IronRidge Boosted Sales Agility and Forecast Accuracy with N28’s Manufacturing Cloud Expertise

March 27, 2025 n28tech

Customer Stories Customer Overview Company Name: IronRidge, Inc. Industry: Solar Company Size: 200+ employeesMission Statement: At IronRidge, we empower customers to be solar heroes by providing the most innovative and comprehensive products and services. Our mission is to make solar energy accessible, efficient, and reliable for businesses and homeowners alike. Key Services/Products: Solar Racking & Mounting Solutions Mounting hardware for solar modules Solar energy solutions for residential and commercial applications Website: www.ironridge.com Social Media: LinkedIn The Challenge IronRidge faced several operational challenges that hindered their ability to effectively manage product sales and revenues. With rapid growth in the solar industry, they needed to stay ahead of changing market conditions while ensuring efficiency across their sales processes. Key challenges included: Lack of visibility: There was little visibility into planned vs. actual product revenues and quantities. This lack of real-time data made it difficult to track sales performance and adjust forecasts accordingly. Inefficiency in sales planning: With no centralized system, the team struggled to adjust their sales plans dynamically in response to real-time data. Whether dealing with production issues or evolving market conditions, the team found it challenging to stay agile. CRM inconsistencies: The team faced difficulties in keeping their CRM updated with new and revised products, leading to miscommunications and missed opportunities with customers. Tracking issues: There was no clear system to track changes made by colleagues during quarterly planning, leading to confusion and lack of accountability when reviewing product performance and sales strategies. Customer Quote Why N28 Technologies? When IronRidge began searching for a solution, they turned to N28 Technologies for their proven track record with Salesforce, manufacturing domain expertise, and ability to provide comprehensive solutions that could integrate seamlessly with Iron Ridge’s existing systems. What stood out: Industry Expertise: N28 Technologies demonstrated a deep understanding of the solar industry and the specific needs of companies like IronRidge. Technical Proficiency: With a strong team of experts, N28 had the technical skills to implement a customized solution that would integrate with IronRidge’s existing CRM and ERP systems. Reputation & References: Positive reviews and testimonials from past clients gave IronRidge confidence in N28’s ability to deliver on time and within budget. Effective Communication: Throughout the partnership, N28’s clear communication and collaboration efforts ensured that both teams were aligned on objectives and expectations. Adaptability: N28 proved to be flexible in responding to evolving requirements and was quick to adjust the project scope as new challenges emerged. Project Management: N28’s use of established project management processes ensured that the integration was completed smoothly, with clear timelines and milestones. The Solution To address IronRidge’s challenges, N28 Technologies implemented an advanced sales management system that leveraged Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud and integrated seamlessly with the company’s existing CRM, ERP, and other customer data systems. This solution was designed to streamline sales processes, improve accuracy, and provide real-time insights into product performance. Key features of the solution included: Analytics Dashboard: A comprehensive, at-a-glance dashboard displayed planned vs. actual product revenues and quantities, enabling quick identification of discrepancies and allowing for immediate corrective actions. Dynamic Sales Planning: The system allowed for real-time adjustments to sales plans based on up-to-date data, enabling the sales team to respond quickly to market conditions, customer needs, and production issues. Real-Time CRM Updates: The system ensured that the sales team had access to the latest product information with immediate updates in the CRM, enhancing their ability to engage with customers accurately and efficiently. Automated Order Fulfillment Updates: The system automatically updated product quantities based on fulfilled orders, reducing the risk of manual data entry errors and ensuring that inventory levels were always up to date. Product Performance Insights: Detailed reports provided valuable insights into product performance across customer accounts, enabling IronRidge to make more informed, market-driven decisions. Change Tracking: A robust change tracking feature allowed the team to monitor modifications to revenue and quantity numbers during quarterly planning, promoting transparency and accountability. The Results With the new sales management system in place, IronRidge was able to significantly improve their sales processes, CRM accuracy, and decision-making capabilities. Key results included: 30% Improved Sales Efficiency: The sales team became more agile, able to quickly adapt to market shifts and production delays, leading to a smoother sales cycle and increased customer satisfaction. Data-Driven Decisions: The ability to access real-time data allowed the team to make more accurate forecasts and better align their sales strategies with actual market conditions. Forecast Accuracy: Achieved company initiative of attaining  forecast accuracy of +/- 10% of target Enhanced Collaboration: The change tracking and real-time CRM updates improved team collaboration, with everyone staying aligned on key metrics and objectives. Future Plans IronRidge is focused on expanding its capabilities by deploying an Advanced Manufacturing Cloud solution to further enhance their feature set. Their goal is to leverage multi-level data aggregation to gain deeper insights into sales performance across customer segments, regions, and product lines. This will enable them to make even more informed, data-driven decisions, especially when assessing forecasting accuracy. Additionally, the company plans to integrate automated account tracking, which will provide real-time visibility into sell-through trends. This will empower the sales team to proactively address performance changes and continue to improve customer satisfaction. By refining this solution, IronRidge is laying the foundation for scalable growth and operational excellence, and plan to strengthen their partnership with N28 Technologies to enhance their capabilities on Manufacturing Cloud, driving their business forward.

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Salesforce CPQ for Medical Manufacturers
Salesforce Revenue Cloud, Salesforce CPQ

Salesforce CPQ for Medical Manufacturers

March 19, 2025 Ajay Achuthan

Medical equipment manufacturing sales is a tooth and nail business. What we often hear from our clients is the need to be flexible when it comes to pricing. That translates to the ability to support different pricing strategies for different buying groups.  Recently, we  delivered a transformative pricing project with a global medical equipment manufacturer. There were three key components to this transformation project: Agility  Transparency  Workforce enablement  The overall challenge was simplifying the processes involved in delivering quotes to clients. The legacy process required coordination across multiple teams and systems. Getting a simple quote to the client required coordinations between three different teams using multiple systems.  Our objective was to consolidate these disparate processes under one roof: Salesforce CPQ. The aim was to not just streamline operations but to empower Sales and Marketing with self-service pricing capabilities. Given that medical manufacturers operate in a highly regulated market, it can take years—from initial concept—to putting out a saleable product. Therefore, go-to-market pricing strategies are often kept simple using a combination of cost- and reference-based pricing.  After the product is launched, the next big game is the ‘buying group’. The top three buying groups in the industry are group purchasing organizations (GPOs), aggregation groups (Agg Groups) and integrated delivery networks (IDNs—often also referred to as health systems). The size and volume of business these groups deal with often varies geographically. For instance GPOs are large, powerful groups in the US, but not so in Canada.  Here is an example of how a hospital is aligned to an IDN, GPO and Agg Group: Salesforce’ CPQ offers a wide array of pricing-related functionalities out of the box. Examples include product and pricing rules, product bundling, and so on. At N28, the art and science of configuring Salesforce CPQ for simple quoting has been done and dusted many times over for various clients. The complexity in this instance was due to the intricate web of buying groups and their overlapping pricing structures. A single hospital was accessing pricing from the IDN it belonged to and also from all the GPOs and aggregation groups it was associated with. The N28 team implemented a tailored Salesforce CPQ system that enabled multiple tiers of pricing access for a single SKU. This includes:  Tiered pricing for influential buying groups  Bundled packages for value-based pricing, and…  Support for distributor/reseller models.  Here is a custom pricing access view component we developed to simplify the complexity of the underlying business model. N28 equips medical manufacturers with the tools to master the complexities of pricing strategies. Our expertise in Salesforce CPQ implementation ensures that clients can seamlessly adapt to the diverse demands of various buying groups while optimizing internal processes. The result? Enhanced efficiency and profitability in an ever-evolving and competitive market landscape. Get In Touch Subscribe to get our latest insights and exclusive content straight to your inbox.

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get started on Agentforce
Agentforce, AI

How Should You Get Started on Agentforce

February 24, 2025 Ajay Achuthan

Most people we talk to share a common challenge: they recognize the potential benefits of Agentforce and are eager to explore but are uncertain about how to proceed. Many struggle to bridge the gap between Salesforce’s AI vision and the tangible value it can deliver to their organization. These conversations often highlight recurring themes: determining the most effective Agentforce use case for the business, assessing the effort required to bring it to market, and understanding the financial implications. Effective Agentforce use cases Different types of agents available with Agentforce. Salesforce’s Agentforce offers businesses customizable AI agents that automate routine tasks such as order tracking, customer support, and troubleshooting. These agents integrate seamlessly into various communication channels, improving operational efficiency and delivering personalized service. As AI handles simple tasks, it frees human agents to tackle more complex issues. The platform also uses AI for knowledge assistance and can escalate complicated queries to human agents when necessary, ensuring that businesses can provide the right support to their customers. For more details, check out Salesforce’s Agentforce Use Cases. At N28, we have successfully assisted clients in a variety of impactful use cases to get started on Agentforce. Here are some examples: Sales and marketing use cases Generate quotes: Where our AI agents interact with Sales staff to produce customized quote PDF documents for specific customers. AI Account manager: Recommend products based on insights from current orders and market data, optimizing sales strategies. Operational use cases Validate purchase orders: Automating tasks like price checks, identifying complex offer pricing, and initiating rebate calculations Admin AI: Automates routine administrative tasks within Salesforce orgs, saving time and reducing manual effort. Technical framework behind Agentforce Agentforce’s architecture is built on four fundamental components that work in harmony to deliver intelligent, secure, and effective agent-based solutions: Data for AI: Foundation begins with comprehensive data integration capabilities, supporting both structured and unstructured data from internal and external sources. This robust knowledge base serves as the fundamental building block that powers agents’ decision-making and operational capabilities.  Large Language Models (LLMs): Leverages state-of-the-art LLMs to transform raw data and analytics into natural, conversational interactions. This technology enables fluid communication between users and agents, making complex data accessible and actionable through intuitive dialogue. Agent Core: A sophisticated suite of tools for designing customized agent experiences. This framework enables organizations to: Define Topics: Create precise agent parameters through detailed instructions, descriptions, and clearly defined operational scope Configure Actions: Establish specific, executable tasks and operations within each defined topic area Trust framework: A comprehensive security and governance layer that ensures controlled access management, secure channel operations, compliant agent interactions and protected data handling. This integrated architecture ensures that Agentforce delivers not just powerful AI capabilities, but does so within a secure, controlled, and trustworthy environment. Other common questions Data Cloud: Agentforce leverages the power of Data Cloud while maintaining implementation simplicity. While Data Cloud activation is a prerequisite for Agentforce deployment, organizations can begin operations using solely their CRM data—eliminating the need for extensive Data Cloud configuration at launch. Key architecture points: Data Cloud houses the Vector Database infrastructure required for RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) implementations Initial deployment can operate efficiently with existing CRM data Flexible architecture allows for gradual expansion of Data Cloud functionality This approach enables rapid deployment while preserving the option for enhanced Data Cloud integration as organizational needs evolve. LLM options: Out-of-box support: Pre-configured integration with select OpenAI models Pre-configured integration with select Anthropic models Flexible deployment: Support for custom LLM integration (“bring your own model”) Maintain control over your preferred large language models This flexible architecture allows organizations to leverage either pre-integrated models or implement their preferred LLM solutions based on specific requirements. Financial overview License cost: Unlike traditional user licensing, Agentforce employs a conversation-based pricing structure, charging $2 per agent interaction, with potential volume discounts. This model shifts costs from upfront licensing to usage-based fees, potentially reducing initial expenses but increasing costs with higher usage. There might be additional costs associated with Data Cloud credit usages and LLM model usages. With this on-demand pricing model, organizations must evaluate the trade-off between automating tasks through Agentforce and the associated per-interaction fees to determine the most cost-effective approach. N28 implementation cost: Staged implementation approach. Understanding that AI adoption requires careful consideration, we’ve designed our AI services to support a measured, step-by-step implementation journey. Click the link below to review our Agentforce offerings. Check Out Our Agentforce Offerings Here. Subscribe to get our latest insights and exclusive content straight to your inbox.

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Why Smart Companies Are Doubling down on Salesforce AgentForce
Agentforce, AI

Why Smart Companies Are Doubling down on Salesforce Agentforce

January 22, 2025 Ajay Achuthan

Dreamforce ’24 was an outstanding event for Salesforce AgentForce. I gained valuable insights into Salesforce strategy, engaged in productive client meetings, and, most importantly, had meaningful conversations with peers about what customers are seeking in Data Cloud and Gen AI. For large companies with established data engineering capabilities and existing investments in business intelligence, what’s the value in further investing in Data Cloud and AgentForce? And for smaller companies, is AgentForce truly affordable? So, what is Agentforce? Salesforce’s solution empowers clients to build autonomous agents on top of their existing Salesforce platforms. It goes beyond traditional bots with integrated GenAI capabilities and surpasses standard data warehouses by grounding responses in real-time data. The standout feature is the intelligent learning engine, Atlas, which identifies the next-best action based on ongoing interactions. For me, the best part of AgentForce is its no-code/low-code functionality, enabling faster use-case deployment and significantly reducing time-to-market. Here is a summary of all the components that make up AgentForce: Why would Agentforce need Data Cloud? Data Cloud, on the other hand, serves as a microcosm of broader business intelligence capabilities—typically offered by comprehensive platforms like Snowflake or Databricks—integrated directly within the Salesforce ecosystem. It provides out-of-the-box extract, transform, and load (ETL) capabilities for data residing both within and outside of Salesforce organizations, laying the groundwork for advanced in-platform analytics. The platform’s zero-copy capabilities address the persistent data duplication challenge, ensuring data integrity and security. AgentForce relies on Data Cloud to deliver transformed business insights, enhancing response accuracy and relevance by incorporating contextually relevant information, regardless of data location. Here is a top-down view of how it works: Should larger companies adopt Agentforce? Absolutely—and for a straightforward reason: speed to market. For companies that prioritize building from the ground up and have substantial engineering resources, creating a fully customized AI capability in-house is achievable and may lead to standout, GenAI-driven innovations—you might be the next technology product unicorn start-up on Gen AI. However, for most companies where rapid market deployment is essential to maintain a high standard of user experience for both internal and external users, AgentForce offers a streamlined path to implementing GenAI use cases on the business front lines. This empowers agents to enhance sales and service team support with minimal lead time. Should smaller companies venture into Agentforce? Unequivocally, yes. With 45% of the U.S. population already using Generative AI, these capabilities are becoming a necessity. It’s only a matter of time before customers and employees demand GenAI features in every platform they interact with. While building in-house GenAI expertise and infrastructure can be costly—not to mention the ongoing operational expenses—AgentForce offers a compelling solution. Its on-demand pricing model, combined with a no-code/low-code platform, significantly mitigates investment risks, while the faster time-to-market makes it an obvious choice for smaller companies. What should the roadmap for Agentforce look like? This is not an easy question to answer, but there are several clear and established approaches for enabling the organic adoption of this new technology. To begin with, GenAI use cases focused on workflow automation represent the low-hanging fruit—such as automating customer interactions for service requests or automating lead qualification, for example. Future phases should concentrate on creating entirely new workflows driven by GenAI: replacing manual, time-consuming processes (like navigating through countless clicks) with more efficient, streamlined solutions. Additionally, developing next-best-action use cases will be key in maximizing the potential of GenAI. What is more important than all the tech talk is to STOP procrastinating. N28 is here to help. Use the form below to get in touch regarding your next project. Get In Touch Subscribe to get our latest insights and exclusive content straight to your inbox.

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