Industry Research

Common Pain Points:

• Fragmented customer data across lines of business (wealth, banking, insurance all siloed)
• Manual compliance and regulatory reporting processes
• Legacy systems creating slow onboarding and poor customer experience
• Advisor time wasted on administrative tasks instead of client relationships
• Inability to personalize at scale due to data silos

Salesforce Solution Map:

Key Regulations to Know:

• FINRA, SEC compliance (US securities)
• GDPR / CCPA (data privacy)
• Dodd-Frank (financial reporting)
• PCI DSS (payment card data)
• HIPAA (health data if applicable)

Salesforce Customer References to Know:

Major banks, insurance carriers, and wealth management firms — ask your SE community for current references.

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Overview:

Healthcare is under pressure from staffing shortages, value-based care reimbursement, patient experience expectations, and regulatory compliance. Life sciences faces drug pipeline pressure and increased payer complexity.

Key Personas and Priorities:

Common Pain Points:

• Disjointed patient experience across care settings
• Manual prior authorization and referral management
• HCP engagement and sample management for life sciences
• Care plan adherence and patient no-show rates
• Inability to measure outcomes across the care continuum

Salesforce Solution Map:

Key Regulations:

• HIPAA / HITECH (protected health information)
• 21st Century Cures Act (data interoperability)
• Sunshine Act (HCP payments disclosure)
• FDA (for life sciences)

Manufacturing & Industrial

Overview:

Manufacturing is experiencing digital transformation pressure through Industry 4.0, supply chain disruption, and shifting from product-selling to outcome-based business models (servitization).

Key Personas and Priorities:

Common Pain Points:

• Sales agreement vs. actual order variance (forecast misses)
• Reactive vs. predictive field service (asset breaks before it's serviced)
• Disconnected dealers/channel partners
• Long sales cycles for complex, configured products (CPQ pain)
• Lack of real-time visibility into asset performance

Salesforce Solution Map:

Retail & Consumer Goods

Overview:

Retail faces omnichannel complexity, rising customer expectations, and margin pressure. Consumer goods companies are shifting to DTC (direct-to-consumer) models while managing complex retail partner relationships.

Key Personas and Priorities:

Common Pain Points:

• Disconnected online and in-store customer data
• Customer service agents without a unified view of order history and loyalty status
• Seasonal demand forecasting accuracy
• Loyalty program fragmentation across channels
• Slow response to customer complaints escalating on social media

Salesforce Solution Map:

Public Sector

Overview:

Government agencies and education institutions are modernizing on tight budgets with high security requirements and constituent experience expectations. FedRAMP and StateRAMP certifications are often required.

Key Pain Points:

• Paper-based and legacy processes creating citizen service backlogs
• Data silos across agencies preventing a unified constituent view
• Federal/state compliance requirements limiting cloud adoption
• Grant and case management complexity

Salesforce Solution Map:

# Industry Briefing: [Industry / Sub-Vertical]
**Prepared for:** [Meeting / Role] | **Date:** [Date] | **SE:** [Name]

## At a Glance (60-Second Version)
- **Market pressure:** [The one thing driving change in this industry right now]
- **Their world in one sentence:** [Who our buyer is and what they deal with daily]
- **Salesforce's strongest angle:** [The product/capability that resonates most in this vertical]
- **Biggest risk in this meeting:** [What to avoid saying or assuming]

## Industry Context
[3-4 sentences: market size, key trends, macro pressures]

## Key Personas We're Likely Meeting
| Persona | What They Care About | Opening Question |
|---------|---------------------|-----------------|
| [Role] | [Priorities] | [Question to ask them] |

## Common Pain Points → Salesforce Solutions
| Pain Point | How It Manifests | Salesforce Solution |
|-----------|-----------------|-------------------|
| [Pain] | [Specific example] | [Product/feature] |

## Regulatory Context
[Brief overview of key regulations that affect data, compliance, or the buying process]

## Industry Vocabulary (Glossary)
| Term | Definition |
|------|-----------|
| [Acronym/term] | [Plain English definition] |

## Customer References to Know
- [Reference 1 — brief description of outcome]
- [Reference 2]

## Questions to Ask This Customer
1. [Discovery question tailored to this industry]
2. [Discovery question]
3. [Discovery question]