blockchain

Superior customer service lies at the heart of every business undertaking. Today, every customer looks forward to a frictionless and Omnichannel experience from their service providers. So, when customers face any type of friction during routine activity, not just their perception about the organization changes but the brand value of the institution too takes a hit. The banking and the financial sector is under tremendous pressure to fulfill the growing expectations of both customers, as well as its employees. This is because of the legacy systems, outdated processes and changing regulatory requirements that have pressurized banks and financial institutions to balance the provision of personalized customer service with the rising cost involved in meeting their rising expectations.   According to a survey conducted by Finextra and Pega, 90% of premium corporate clients consider switching financial institutions for superior servicing.   To get rid of friction across every single touchpoint in the customer journey, banks basically need a system that does more than plug gaps in old legacy setups, it also has to be tuned so it can deliver fast, tailored, and premium services. With salesforce consulting services in place, companies can also bring in newer tools , like blockchain, to modernize everyday operations and make the customer experience feel smoother. Blockchain, which is really a distributed ledger technology, may help with a lot of the usual banking and finance headaches by streamlining workflows, boosting transparency, and removing small-to-big inefficiencies that keep stacking up. Honestly, more forward-thinking organizations are already moving toward this approach , and they do it with the support of salesforce consulting services, so they can fix broken processes and disconnected systems while building a more flexible, customer first kind of financial ecosystem.   How Does Blockchain Benefit the Banking Sector?  Over the past few years, this innovative technology solution has drawn a lot of attention from investors and other banking experts, thereby propelling its popularity beyond Bitcoin enthusiasts. So, what is so unique about Blockchain that has taken the banking and finance sector by storm? The features of decentralization, immutability, and transparency make it an extremely secure, transparent, and nearly impossible-to-alter platform. That consensus mechanism that comes from the smart contract side of this solid tech kinda gives a path for different actors, or parties, inside the Blockchain network, to sort of line up on an agreement without needing a middle person. Because the system gives access to a ledger that isn’t managed by any one entity, Blockchain can end up supporting a bunch of financial services, like record-keeping, third party transactions, cross-border transfers, plus the back-end operations, and even audit or regulatory compliance, all in a secure, transparent, and efficient style. And on top of that, more and more organizations are looking into Salesforce blockchain Integration benefits so they can mesh reliable customer relationship management with decentralized data. In practice this helps bring more visibility, better protection, smoother processes, and an overall boost in operational efficiency across financial services. While Blockchain offers endless possibilities for the Banking sector, the challenge for the financial firms lies in identifying the right use case as per their business needs. In other words, the journey of introducing Blockchain into your business model is indeed a challenge? Since the functioning of Blockchain is powered by data (usually stored in multiple places and formats by legacy business networks) it’s prudent to move the company’s database onto a Blockchain. This brings together data from the company’s databases, as well as other parallel systems including its partners’ data.  With this, all the parties will have instant access to a single source of truth (data and other important information) about a particular business process.   How Does Blockchain-powered Salesforce CRM Transform the Financial Sector?  While a robust CRM system like Salesforce offers a centralized location for storing data that comes from multiple sources, combining it with an innovative technology solution like Blockchain can help financial institutions significantly improve their workflows and build reliable partner networks that extend the CRM. Besides extending its’ capabilities of transparency, trust and traceability in every single customer interaction, a Blockchain-powered solution can help break down data silos and business boundaries.    The recently launched Blockchain initiative by Salesforce is the first and one of its kind Blockchain integrated into CRM. Powered by Salesforce Lightning and built using Hyperledger fabric, this low-code platform extends the capabilities of the Salesforce CRM by helping businesses build trusted partner networks that share substantiated and distributed data. Allowing developers to build DAAPS or Blockchain applications with simple clicks and no code, Salesforce powered Blockchain platform can help financial institutions understand their pain points while ascertaining opportunities to advance their business models. In a nutshell, it provides the trust and transparency that the financial sector requires to share with their customers, as well as themselves.   The Road Ahead:  Though banks and financial institutions are under strict regulatory pressure, more and more financial institutions are leveraging the tremendous potential of Blockchain technology to streamline it for transparent, reliable and accessible financial transactions. When integrated with a robust CRM platform like Salesforce, businesses can create new processes and models that can help them accelerate business speed and agility. As a forward looking financial organization, you can draw benefits from a Blockchain powered Salesforce platform by partnering with a reliable Salesforce consulting company.  

Everything that you consume on a day to basis be it food, clothes or any other finished product has to cover a long journey before it reaches the customers. Besides the outlet where you go and make a purchase, there is a network of interrelated elements known as the ‘supply chain’ that works on getting these products at your disposal. However, increased globalization has led to a more complex supply chain ecosystem, which has allowed issues related to trust, speed, and accuracy to penetrate through it. However, the biggest impediment to fixing the otherwise broken supply chains is to find out a way of consolidating data across all the supply chain entities that usually work in silos. The solution lies in integrating disruptive technologies like Blockchain and Salesforce, which can be made possible by partnering with a reliable Salesforce consultant. Role of Blockchain in Streamlining the Supply Chain:                                                  To understand the role of Blockchain in streamlining the supply chain ecosystem, let’s quote the example of temperature-controlled logistics (perishable food and pharmaceutical) that require to be stored and transported within a certain temperature range to ensure they remain preserved till they are delivered to the end-users. However, managing the integrity of the cold supply chain has become challenging with most of the products either getting lost or contaminated during transit as a result of exposure to unsafe temperature ranges. This happens because of the inefficiency of the current track and trace system that fails to provide sufficient supply chain visibility. Blockchain – a distributed ledger technology can help resolve issues pertaining to the supply chain ecosystem by reducing inconsistencies, increasing visibility of products during transit through the supply chain and streamlining processes. This becomes possible as every physical asset that is a part of the supply chain ecosystem is represented as a digital asset on the Blockchain network. This is also known as tokenization of assets, which enables increased traceability of products in the supply chain by helping identify the point where food/drugs have been tampered with so that product that is either tampered with or gets contaminated is removed before it reaches the store shelves. This track and trace feature of Blockchain allows customers to track the journey of a product right from the point of origin till store shelves. With an IoT powered Blockchain system in place, data attributes such as the temperature of food/drugs, location, etc. could be gathered and stored. Since data once uploaded on the Blockchain is immutable, errors could be minimized and quality of products can be ensured.   How does Salesforce fit in?  While Blockchain promises to resolve issues related to trust and transparency within the digital economy, Salesforce offers much more than a robust CRM solution. By offering solutions for streamlining information, task automation, analytics, and enhanced communication, this robust CRM platform has transformed the way businesses operate. Just like Blockchain, Salesforce places the power in the hands of the buyers by increasing transparency through tailored solutions and empowering the sales representatives to provide customers with a better quality of service.   When it comes to supply chain, the Salesforce CPQ that stands for Configure, Price, quote provides the necessary tool-set to transform the complex and bulky Sales process into a streamlined one. By providing a consistent process for quotes, Salesforce CPQ can be leveraged for tracking orders and renewals concerning quotes. By allowing buyers to directly see the status of their orders, trust and transparency are enhanced.    How Does the Integration of Blockchain and Salesforce Work?   The integration of Blockchain and Salesforce paves way for a solution that enables information (regarding orders) to reside on Blockchain. This establishes better visibility, security, immutability and most importantly assurance that all the entities will be operating on the shared data across different organizations. Apart from this, all the existing supply chain actors can access their profile from their individual Salesforce orgs along with with product-related details (quality certifications, etc.).   So, what enables the integration of these two technologies? It is to be noted that the product suite (Blockchain ledger, Ethereum app manager and the Hyperledger app manager) created by Salesforce enables the distributed app suite available on Salesforce instance. While the app fixes a listener on the Blockchain, as well as the Salesforce platform in a way that any data that is uploaded on Salesforce gets added as a transaction on the Blockchain platform and vice-versa, the Hyperledger Fabric is built on components such as the consensus mechanism, smart contract functionality, and oracles. The data gathered by these agents are then utilized by Blockchains smart contract functionality.  In the context of the supply chain, a sales rep can create a new quote while generating a proposal by using Salesforce CPQ. Once the opportunity is won the sales reps can create an order including a list of items to be supplied. The DApp(Distributed Apps) suite is set up in a way that the data gets sent to Blockchain after the order receives a specific status. As data regarding the temperature, location, humidity, etc gets recorded on the Blockchain, it gets redirected to Salesforce following which historical details regarding the product’s journey from packaging till delivery can be observed on Salesforce instance. Such reverse integration allows sales reps to validate the exact location of the order on the supply chain.   Conclusion: Besides the above-mentioned benefits, the integration of Blockchain and Salesforce also enables creation of reports and analytics basis the shared Blockchain data. This will generate new revenue models besides improving supplier/buyer logistics significantly. To sum up, it can be said that the promising integration of Salesforce and Blockchain will not just substitute rigid supply chains but will create a roadmap for the future by working across industries. It’s prudent to get in touch with a reliable Salesforce implementation partner to ensure seamless integration of Salesforce and Blockchain.