If the business market and past experiences have taught us anything, then it is that you cannot predict the future. No matter how long you have been working in an industry or how proficient you are in your area of expertise, there is no way to accurately foresee what’s coming next. You always end up facing the unexpected and have to deal with it effectively. 

Trends come and go instantly before you can even prepare your business for it, abrupt patterns and changes force you to adapt quickly, and quite often, minor issues become major challenges without giving you any warning. Hence, the only best method to manage and tackle whatever comes our way is to live in the present, analyze what is happening at that moment, and ensure smooth adaptability. However, the bad news is that this is not how businesses and companies work. 

You can hear entrepreneurs and business owners complaining about the unpredictable nature of the market. With such cut-throat competition, a plethora of products & services, and so many innovations, customer preferences and demands change every day. Businesses have to rely on their ability to predict the future and anticipate the market conditions in the coming years. If they can accomplish this accurately, then they find success and gain a competitive advantage. 

Of course, companies have all the crucial and important data to know what the future holds for them. They generate information daily from various sources, such as feedback, interactions, customer demands, and more. There are many external factors as well, including national and international economies, weather conditions, changing laws, supply lines issues, and whatnot that can throw an entire organization on its head out of nowhere. 

And of course, we cannot forget customers that are the most influential and difficult-to-predict factor of all. But how to convert the collected information into meaningful data? How to change the unpredictable nature and be prepared for it? 

Well, the answer is Salesforce Consulting Services. Many of you might be aware that It is a key element to turn data into insights and make informed decisions. It contributes to business growth and success. However, predictive analytics is way more than that, and today, we are going to discuss Salesforce predictive forecasting/ analysis in detail. Let’s get started:

What Is Salesforce Predictive Analytics?

Hitherto, market analysts and businesses were using descriptive analytics as a primary source of market research. They collected all the important information through this mode that allows them to organize data that is accumulated over time and convert it into actionable insights and make it ready for further processing. 

In simple words, descriptive analytics refers to what you already have that you can use, such as data saved in spreadsheets on a drive or file. This is nothing more than an occupied space without any utilization. What’s more important is to know how to make the best of this stored information and use it for business success. 

This is where predictive analytics Salesforce comes into the picture and provides answers to all the questions. Data mining is an initial step that enables businesses and analysts to get detailed insights into data but they need a reliable tool to finally do something valuable with this information. Predictive analytics is the logical continuation of data mining and extension of advanced analytics, allowing data scientists and users to make predictions about unforeseen future events. 

It is a roadmap to use collected information that is garnered from various sources to come up with a predictive score for customers and several events that will occur in the future. Companies use predictive analytics to:

• Develop marketing models for future ad spends.
• Prioritize one lead over others.
• Assign a lifetime value to consumers based on their predicted spending.
• Explore better opportunities.
• Order particular products from suppliers.
• Identify the next best offer according to demographic information and past actions.
• Forecast sales numbers for the future.

Yes, there was a time when predictive analytics wasn’t used widely earlier due to the high amount of information that needed to be processed. 

However, as computational power has become cheaper than ever, enterprises, big and small have started using this technology and rely on it for informed decision-making. Salesforce predictive analytics is used across multiple industries, such as finance, travel, retail, healthcare, insurance, pharmaceuticals, etc.

Einstein AI - Predictive analytics in Salesforce

Now you know how important predictive analytics is and the role it plays in the overall business success. Considering its popularity and wide use, Salesforce has become the first CRM to employ predictive analytics and the scale at which it is adopted is impressive. Moreover, it also introduced an artificial intelligence helper called Einstein, a predictive analytics tool for all Salesforce users.

As we all know that organizations have sales teams that take a lot of actions and adopt robust sales processes. Using various technical tools and techniques, the experts maximize sales but many a time fail to attain their targets. Hence, Einstein assists them to sell smarter by empowering them to make intelligent predictions and recommendations regarding sales deals. It is through Einstein Forecasting that sales professionals understand what they can expect from the future at different levels and prepare themselves for it. Also, they make informed decisions with accurate revenue expectations, thereby boosting the team’s overall performance and productivity.

Similar to AI tools, Salesforce analytics also relies on quality data to extract information and create meaningful insights. Its work process includes capturing data, learning and understanding the collected data, and connecting it with sales reps so that they can have an in-depth analysis. It eliminates the manual entry of data and replaces it with a system that provides experts with more time to focus on business growth and sales. Salesforce predictive analytics leverages the benefits of machine learning, automation, and natural language processing to give the most relevant and authentic results.

Furthermore, this tool also helps companies to make predictions about customer behaviour, service channels, marketing, and more. It determines the preferences and habits of customers by digging through their emails and feedback along with their product usage, spending, and more. This allows companies to find more opportunities for the cross-selling, likelihood of potential sales, detect best deals, and identify risks involved.

Benefits of Predictive Analytics

Salesforce predictive analytics comes with powerful and sophisticated features that provide real-time data for enhanced business growth. Here are some of the major benefits of this tool:

Pipeline Management

One of the biggest advantages of analytics is for sales managers and team members who can know all the changes that are made in the opportunity pipeline in real-time. This is a responsive and modern technology that sales leaders use to read new deals that are coming in or going out of the sales amount and they can easily compare the deals that were either lost or won.

Einstein predictive analytics in Salesforce comes in handy in evaluating trends and opportunities for business growth. Businesses can have a list of all the top opportunities and explore the best ones within the application. As a sales representative manipulates the sales processes, the software also changes the parameters for sales process dashboards and showcases the data within a few seconds.

Actionable Insight

How do you predict the future or prepare for unforeseen circumstances? Companies use different methods for this but the most reliable and accurate way is to study customer data and their behaviour pattern. With Salesforce custom development for predictive analytics, you can use cloud technology to access the required data and uncover possible future events and patterns. Get all the insights about the past and reviews with just a few clicks and also get the latest updates about current market trends. This will help the business to prepare effective strategies, avail the best outcomes, and serve consumers better.

These patterns or trends were unable to find earlier but now it is possible and all the credit goes to this unified data mining tool. For example, marketing managers and specialists can know what needs to be fine-tuned to improve their campaigns across different platforms.

Informed Decision-Making

Irrespective of the size, companies need to make decisions almost daily. However, reaching a conclusion and making choices are not easy as managers have to study a lot of data and statistics for this. No doubt that they can use some help to make better and informed decisions that may impact the business and its success. Not only large companies but even small firms with no specific technical expertise or resources can make the best of predictive analytics.

The software is available to senior management and executives so they can evaluate data by using visual analytics tools, tips, and hints. It is a valuable asset that helps management at every step, from changing suppliers to acquiring new markets to introducing new products. It assists in implementing the change wisely and ensures higher profits.

Better Customer Experience

All these above-mentioned points contribute to one important factor, i.e., improved customer experience and enhanced client buying journey. Businesses can use recommended cases to address various challenges efficiently. Also, replying accurately and precisely to customer inquiries can be difficult at times but predictive analytics solutions help in giving the best response to all questions of customers. It provides appropriate and relevant answers, hence making a smooth shift toward customer-oriented business.

It has also made possible the existence of suggestion engines to find the products that customers see while making purchasing decisions and identify their buying behaviour. It is also used widely by banking companies and other authorities to detect frauds and protect people from theft, wire fraud, etc.

Conclusion

So, this was it from us on Salesforce Predictive Analytics. Honestly, there is so much to know about this technology and how it can be beneficial to businesses. We have tried to cover as much as we can. In a nutshell, we can say that predictive analytics is a vital factor to make informed and profitable decisions for companies, and if you wish to seek its benefits, then it’s high to adopt predictive analytics.

Author’s Bio: Alicia works with the editorial team of A3logics, a leading company offering product engineering services. Exploring the latest technologies, reading about them, and writing her views have always been her passion. She seeks new opportunities to express her opinions, explore technological advancements, and document the details. You can always find her enjoying books or articles about varied topics or jotting down her ideas in a notebook.