Mahindra & Mahindra today announced its partnership with US-headquartered Salesforce, a leading CRM (Customer Relation Management) solution provider.  The partners say together they will deliver a one-of-a-kind digital transformation for the Indian automobile industry, which will focus on innovating and digitising Mahindra's entire customer experience value chain.

Mahindra says it has embarked on a digital transformation journey to deliver an industry-leading connected customer experience, connected employees experience and an intelligent dealer engagement. To achieve its digital vision, Mahindra in partnership with Salesforce, Sitecore and PwC India will move from various solutions to a single unified platform to provide a holistic, coherent and connected view of its customers by capturing all customer data in one place.

The deployment of Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud with Einstein Artificial Intelligence and the Salesforce Lightning Platform will deliver an omni-channel consistent with One Mahindra digital experience. It will focus on growing the company's target customer base, leveraging AI-driven insights, and provide personalised recommendations. Most importantly, this will offer a seamless customer journey from online to retail.

In addition, by collaborating with dealers it will offer guided selling consultation, proactive customer service, on-the-go connected vehicle services. The latter will come with real-time vehicle diagnostics with linked predictive maintenance services delivering a unified customer journey.

Veejay Ram Nakra, chief of Sales and Marketing, Automotive Division, Mahindra & Mahindra said, “At Mahindra we have always been at the forefront of disruption with the customer at the epicenter. Disruptions necessitate innovative 360-degree digital platforms to address the rapidly evolving needs of our customer at various touchpoints. Hence we partnered with Salesforce to reimagine the entire customer experience. This digital journey focuses on innovating and digitising the entire customer experience through integrated sales, service, marketing and engagement capabilities, for a connected and immersive experience. This is the start of an exciting journey for us and we look forward to setting new standards of digitisation for the Indian auto industry.”

Sunil Jose, SVP and country leader, Salesforce India, said, “The automotive industry has gone through a lot of major changes in the past few decades. Companies need to get the most out of disruptive technologies to meet customers’ demand for always-on and intuitive experiences, reshaping value chains with faster time to market. A good experience begins when companies connect with customers at the need recognition stage  — and it all starts with data. We are proud to be a technology partner for Mahindra enabling the team with true 360-degree view of customers delivering seamless experiences.”

Achyut Jajoo, Vice President and Chief Solutions Officer, Salesforce Automotive , added “New types of technologies are changing the way people interact with the world around them, and they are beginning to expect similar experiences while both driving and shopping for their cars. Salesforce Customer 360 empowers Mahindra and Mahindra and their dealers to connect with, acquire, engage and retain their customers in new and powerful ways by analyzing data coming from a multitude of sources - digital channels, the car, dealer systems, and internal systems - and deliver outstanding customer experiences.  We are excited to be a part of this journey and look forward to driving more transformations for a diverse country like India."