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At the recent Salesforce True to the Core, we heard that Trailblazers are eager to learn about the exciting future of Revenue Cloud and our newest product, Revenue Lifecycle Management.
In response, we’re giving you a glimpse into the upcoming capabilities that will enhance revenue operations—from empowering businesses to sell on any channel, to monetizing any revenue model—all while streamlining the work of admins. To learn more about the enhancements coming to Revenue Lifecycle Management, register for the Revenue Cloud Roadmap Sharing webinar on June 11.
Our customers are going through some major changes in how they engage with their customers and monetize their offerings. Over the past decade, we’ve seen a remarkable evolution from single transactions to recurring subscriptions, and now, to a hybrid model that blends various monetization strategies including consumption. Recent customer research reveals a clear trend toward embracing multi-channel selling strategies, with 88% of Revenue Cloud customers expressing their intent to leverage two or more channels to expand their selling capabilities.
This transformation has led to some amazing levels of engagement and interaction between businesses and customers. They’re connecting through multiple channels and touchpoints, creating a whole new level of customer experience. As a Salesforce Admin, you play a crucial role in helping businesses navigate and optimize these changes.
Gone are the days when sales, finance, IT, and legal departments could operate in silos. To thrive in this new landscape, these departments must collaborate and break down barriers—with admins leading the charge to streamline and automate processes.
To meet these changing needs, we introduced Revenue Lifecycle Management in Spring 2024. This powerful offering includes essential features like an Enterprise Product Catalog, Pricing Engine, Transaction Management & CPQ, and Contract Lifecycle Management. These capabilities are specifically designed to help you navigate the complexities of modern commerce. Created with extensible and application programming interface (API)-first components, Revenue Lifecycle Management empowers you to support revenue operations in the following ways.
Omni-channel: No matter how customers interact with your business—whether it’s through direct sellers, partners, or self-service portals—they should always see the right product catalog and pricing. With API-first logic, you can deploy Revenue Lifecycle Management capabilities anywhere transactions take place. This consistency is crucial for providing a smooth purchasing experience and building trust. With the ability to collaborate across different channels, admins can ensure that there are no discrepancies that could undermine customer confidence.
Monetization model flexibility: To keep up with market trends and meet customer preferences, businesses can embrace various monetization models, including consumption-based, subscription-based, or one-time purchases. By being flexible in how you monetize, you allow customers to engage with your business in the way that suits them best, without causing any disruptions to your operations. With this flexibility requiring collaboration across sales and finance teams, the admin helps reduce friction by connecting them in one unified system.
Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) on a single platform: This solution offers a composable, scalable, and extensible platform architecture, built natively on Einstein 1, the core Salesforce Platform. Einstein 1 unlocks AI capabilities across the revenue lifecycle, beginning with Contracts AI and now a Copilot that’s in development. With this solution, admins can bring together data and automate processes, leading to improved efficiency and better decision-making at every stage of the revenue lifecycle.
Efficient order processing is crucial in the revenue lifecycle. Enter Dynamic Revenue Orchestrator (DRO), the latest innovation in Revenue Lifecycle Management, set to debut in Summer ’24. DRO will transform how admins support businesses in handling complex order processes throughout the revenue lifecycle, from fulfillment to billing, revenue recognition, obligation management, and compensation.
At its core, DRO empowers businesses to decompose and orchestrate intricate order processes with exceptional flexibility and efficiency. By breaking down products and order lines, DRO allows for custom fulfillment plans for each product, ensuring a tailored experience for customers regardless of complexity.
One of the standout features of DRO is its ability to configure automation workflows that respond to events or exceptions based on the unique needs of any product or industry. This level of customization empowers you to streamline operations and deliver exceptional service.
Key to DRO’s functionality are Execution and Enrichment rules, which allow for the creation of custom rules for each component of the product. Whether it’s setting execution rules based on quantity thresholds or mapping attributes between commercial and technical products, DRO provides the flexibility admins need to adapt to evolving business needs.
Once activated, DRO guides products through a configurable fulfillment journey, triggering tasks, milestones, pauses, automation, or callouts to third-party systems along the way. Additionally, users can set Service Level Agreements for each step and define fallout rules for exception handling and automated retries, ensuring smooth operations even in the face of challenges.
For admins, the beauty of DRO lies in its simplicity and flexibility. With a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, you can easily configure end-to-end processes without costly customizations. From rules to dependencies and outcomes, DRO offers extensive flexibility, empowering businesses to meet even the most complex use cases with ease.
Product Catalog Management |
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Price Management |
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Product Configurator |
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Transaction Management |
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The need for more flexibility is driving changes in revenue models. Instead of the traditional fixed upfront fees, businesses are shifting toward a customer-centric approach: usage-based pricing. Both our customers and our customers’ customers prefer paying only for the services they actually use, following a pay-as-you-go structure. This trend highlights the significance of being adaptable and innovative in providing revenue solutions that align with the needs of today’s market.
In line with this trend, our roadmap includes enhancements to Revenue Lifecycle Management to support consumption-based pricing and quoting. By enabling our customers to embrace usage-based models such as pay-as-you-go, per-unit, and tiered pricing, we aim to empower them to better align with their own customers’ needs.
Our solution will focus on integrating usage metrics and billing data, giving you the information you need to make informed decisions and simplify processes. You’ll be able to adjust rates and tier levels, and initiate ARC (Amend, Renew, Cancel) processes, making it easy to meet the evolving needs of your customers. This will enhance operational efficiency and drive revenue growth for your business.
In this era of continuous evolution, businesses must embrace flexibility, collaboration, and innovation. By harnessing the power of Revenue Management Lifecycle and its developer resources, businesses can optimize their revenue operations, drive efficiency, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
Stay tuned as we embark on this journey together, shaping the landscape of revenue management for years to come!
The Salesforce Revenue Cloud team invites you to join a Revenue Cloud Roadmap sharing webinar on June 11, 2024, at 9:00 AM PT. We’re excited to tell you all about some awesome improvements coming to Revenue Lifecycle Management that will make consumption-based pricing and quoting a breeze. Register now to join us!
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