How do you turn a staple purchase like petrol into a positive customer experience? That’s one of many challenges PETRONAS has overcome while shifting from a product-centric business to one that’s customer focused.
Established in Malaysia in 1974, the progressive energy and solutions provider is now one of the world’s most recognised brands. It has a presence in over 100 countries and a global workforce totalling more than 46,000 employees.
Aadrin Azly, Chief Digital Officer at PETRONAS, joined us at Dreamforce to share how the business is transforming for the future with Salesforce Customer 360. Here are highlights from Aadrin’s session, including best practices on how to move from vision to value.
Kick-start your transformation journey with early wins
PETRONAS’s journey with Salesforce began with a project to improve the experience of retail customers. The project included the implementation of Service Cloud to manage the resolution of equipment failures within petrol stations.
With support from Salesforce Professional Services, PETRONAS completed the project 100% on time and on budget. This was in spite of the project kicking off just weeks before the pandemic and everyone pivoting to work virtually.
“Salesforce sent in their A team and stuck by our side. They were there with us for every call and every stand-up and we navigated every challenge together,” said Aadrin. “We are now reaping the benefits, including reduced downtimes and an increase in resolutions from 76% to 94%.”
Put customers at the centre of your business
The success of the retail project led PETRONAS to think about what to do next. PETRONAS’s customer interactions inside petrol stations represent one of many touch points it has with its wider customer base. In fact, the diversity of its portfolio means that some business customers interact with many people and departments.
“I once visited a customer who told me that they couldn’t see me until 4pm because they were too busy. It turns out they were busy with PETRONAS. They had a total of four meetings with us that day which is something that should not have happened,” said Aadrin.
PETRONAS realised it needed to stop looking at the business from a supplier point of view and start seeing things from a customer point of view. This gave rise to the PETRONAS360 vision which puts the customer at the centre of the business.
PETRONAS360 brings together customers, partners and employees across the enterprise to provide a single source of truth to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions and grow new markets that create exponential value at scale.
Aadrin shared the process PETRONAS and Salesforce went through to co-create the vision for its digital transformation and secure internal alignment.
“Digital transformation is not easy. You need a seat at the table or sponsorship from management to drive it through. At the same time, you need people on the ground who will feel the program hits their pain points. So we spent the first part of our journey speaking with stakeholders and staff to co-create our vision,” said Aadrin.
Stay on track with clear and measurable goals
PETRONAS wanted to avoid a never-ending transformation. So once the business had clarity on its vision, it set very granular and measurable KPIs. These included a US$43M increase in revenue over five years, a 15% reduction in customer churn, and a 33% uplift in productivity.
Aadrin shared that the clear KPIs acted as a North Star for PETRONAS’s digital transformation, helping everyone to stay focused on what they needed to achieve.
“Breaking things into bite-sized pieces meant we could quickly pivot when things went wrong and celebrate when things went right. And celebrating those small wins created unstoppable momentum to drive our transformation.”
Take a data-driven approach
PETRONAS has applied a data-driven approach to its entire transformation and tracked results every step of the way. This has involved breaking KPIs down into more tangible and measurable goals.
“You sometimes see big value goals like $16B or 42x and they are impossible to track. I think it’s more important to identify the enablers behind the value you want to create and track those religiously,” said Aadrin.
The focus on measurement is reflective of PETRONAS’s wider commitment to becoming a more data-driven organisation. Work is beginning with MuleSoft to help PETRONAS unlock data from various on-premise and cloud-based systems, including Salesforce. The data will be orchestrated into functional data hubs with APIs to enable easy reuse and consumption. Data will also be protected from vulnerabilities with standard security policies and governance across all APIs.
On top of this, PETRONAS has started to train teams on no-code and low-code data visualisation with the goal of democratising data science.
Drive digital adoption with human-centred design
PETRONAS’s digital transformation is ongoing. Since launching Service Cloud, the business has deployed a dealer portal on Experience Cloud and adopted Sales Cloud for management of accounts and opportunities. It is also set to go live with a number of other Salesforce solutions, including Energy & Utilities Cloud, Manufacturing Cloud, Tableau, and Marketing Cloud.
Asked how PETRONAS drives adoption of new technologies across its diverse range of businesses, Aadrin highlighted the importance of human-centred design.
“You need to start by identifying who will use the solution and understanding their pain points. And you can’t just ask them about their pain points as they will provide a list of a thousand things and the solution will become too expensive. So observe and understand their pain points because the moment you understand those pain points, driving adoption becomes easy.”
PETRONAS service transformation with Salesforce has heightened customer experience and productivity. Chief Digital Officer Aadrin Azly demonstrates how PETRONAS is executing on its vision to deliver in this video.
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Learn more about how Salesforce Professional Services helps customers move from vision to value and deliver proven ROI. Download “The Total Economic Impact™ Of Salesforce Professional Services”, a 2022 Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Salesforce.
