Salesforce Industries: A Closer Look at the Specifics [2025 Edition]

Salesforce is a robust, complex, and wide-reaching platform and is used in a range of spheres. Yes, it’s perfect for sales. Yes, it can rethink customer service management a hundredfold. But how can you jump by a mile and go beyond the all-too-known capabilities?

No matter, if you are in a healthcare, education, nonprofit, or any other sector – specially developed Salesforce Industries will take your digital transformation to a whole new level.

So, what are they? In this article, I walk you through these industry clouds, their perks, and ways you can use them wisely.

What are Salesforce Industries?

Salesforce Industries is a suite of pre-built packages and vertical solutions used to perfect organization growth and cover all its primary objectives, without the necessity to develop a solution on your own. Only a couple of years ago, it was called Salesforce Vlocity. However, after Salesforce performed the acquisition, we saw the rise of Salesforce Industries.

These out-of-the-box solutions are designed on top of the Customer 360 platform, preserving CRM, marketing, sales, and automation functionalities. They are fully customized and can cater to the needs of different industries. The list of these industry clouds is extensive (though we’ll uncover one of the most frequently used ones later). Thus, there are:

• Automotive Cloud
• Consumer Goods Cloud
• Education Cloud
• Financial Services Cloud
• Grantmaking
• Health Cloud
• Nonprofit Cloud
• Loyalty Management
• Manufacturing Cloud
• Net Zero Cloud
• Public Sector Solutions (Government Cloud)
• Communication Cloud
• Energy and Utilities Cloud
• Industries Order Management
• Media Cloud
• Salesforce for Nonprofits
• Salesforce Contracts

Nonprofit Cloud VS NPSP: Exploring the Key Differences

We’re hearing a lot of buzz about transitioning to Nonprofit Cloud, especially from nonprofits who previously used Salesforce’s NPSP pack. In this blog, we are providing you with an understanding of Nonprofit Cloud and its features, and exploring key differences between the solutions.

The Benefits of Salesforce Industries

If you are using Salesforce for IT, you know firsthand how hard it can be to set out on the right path when you are going to market, especially if you are a tech startup. Luckily, industry-specific solutions available in the Salesforce ecosystem can make this transition as smooth as possible.

But before you choose yours, let’s comb through the ultimate benefits that come along with the existing Salesforce Industry Clouds:

• High customization: thanks to robustflexibility, you can tailor these solutions so that they align with your business specifics and requirements. Be it a healthcare facility or a higher education establishment!
• Perfect customer relationship management: as you already know, Salesforce’s all-encompassing solutions are built based on Customer 360. This feature takes the guesswork out of the pitch-perfect customer data as well as provides a holistic approach to customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Coveted productivity: these pre-built industry solutions automate routine tasks, elevating your performance. This way, your team can concentrate on more complex issues, leaving the mess (or time-crunching tasks) to these cloud applications.
• Comprehensive data management: maintaining and processing huge chunks of data is paramount for any industry. With Salesforce its new vertical solutions, doing that would be a snap. They offer powerful data management capabilities that let your company store and easily manage valuable information under one roof.
• Innovative approach: Salesforce Industry Clouds are constantly changing. This evolvement brings about the latest technology know-how, advancements, and best practices. And you can give them a shot!

Types of Salesforce Industries

Each of them has its specifics, settings, and features that cover the industry requirements. To spare you the trouble of looking for the most widely adopted and promising Salesforce Industries, we break them down here. Plus, we at Advanced Communities specialize in these industry cloud solutions and can help you configure them!

1. Automotive Cloud

If you are an auto dealer, for instance, you can take this cloud to your advantage. The Automotive Cloud lets you create test drive appointments, schedule vehicle service checkups for your customers, and enhance inventory visibility on your Experience Cloud site.

What’s more, you can use a filter logic to allow your site visitors to find vehicles that meet their requirements (model, location, color, transmission, etc.).

This Salesforce Industry Cloud is used by a whole lot of companies you all know! For instance, General Motors, Harley-Davidson, Audi, Volvo, and others.

2. Health Cloud

In a world where customer-centricity is key, patient-centricity doesn’t trail behind. Salesforce in healthcare has proved itself as more than an ordinary CRM. It is a supporting mechanism for healthcare facilities that can make them forget about numerous routine tasks.

Salesforce Health Cloud allows you to schedule appointments for patients, educate them more about their conditions, collect and store patient preferences for services, let them search for beds in healthcare facilities, and a lot more.

Speaking of the healthcare facilities leveraging Health Cloud, there are such corporations as Sanofi, Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina, and Stanely Healthcare.

Healthgrades

Modernizing Medicine is a U.S. software company that specializes in electronic medical record (EMR) software applications designed to save physicians time. To continue their growth, Modernizing Medicine wanted to implement something that could help find new partners and healthcare providers.

3. Salesforce for Nonprofits

The Nonprofit Cloud is created for nonprofit organizations and associations to work together toward a mutual cause. If you implement this cloud on your Salesforce platform, be ready to experience:

• Streamlined fundraising, with such opportunities as a comprehensive Fundraising Portfolio, Donor Profile, and others;
• Mass-market fundraising, which lets you segment all the channels and donors and perform targeted campaigns;
• All-round metrics on key programs, donations, and outcome management;
• User-intuitive system where you can keep all the data neat and organized;
• Referral programs that can encourage other people to participate in your cause.

And what if your NGO has an Experience Cloud site? It’s perfect! Join forces with us, Advanced Communities, to digitalize and transform the way your organization communicates with donors, volunteers, and other suppliers. All within the Salesforce system and its Nonprofit Cloud. A few key things to tip the scale for you:

• Hassle-free donation process right from the Experience Cloud site;
• Easy event management and creation (online, offline, hybrid or paid, free, paid with donation, and free with donation);
• Custom fundraising campaign creation, donation tracking, etc. with native-to-Salesforce AC MemberSmart package;
• Member networking opportunities for your volunteers and donors via member directories and job boards.

Among the companies that successfully implemented Salesforce for Nonprofit Cloud, you will find American Red Cross and TechForAmerica.

4. Consumer Goods Cloud

Consumer Goods Cloud will become a hit among your customer service reps! This intelligent industry cloud is meant to improve customer satisfaction, streamline sales activities, track and gauge the effectiveness of your trade promotions with CRM analytics, and provide clients with full access to their accounts.

Besides, Consumer Goods Cloud lets your field teams maximize their time and effort by sending them to locations that need greater attention first. But that’s not the end of it. With task management tools, field rep productivity is easily manageable and foreseeable. Plus, Consumer Goods Cloud is a mobile-friendly solution, which makes your team see what needs to be done once on site.

The real-time opportunity to track and prioritize all deliveries elevates this industry cloud even higher. From the comfort of a unified dashboard, you can see which accounts are ready and when.

5. Salesforce for Education

Salesforce has gained some traction in education, too. Thanks to its AI, analytics, and CRM features, you can make sure students receive qualified assistance every step of the way, from recruitment to admission to graduation. Their parents will feel the difference as well!

Salesforce higher education cloud is built with some core functionalities in mind:

• AI-powered automation to nurture prospective students;
• A holistic view of student records where you get insights into their success, share advising notes with your staff, and develop personalized plans to better students’ experience;
• Application review dashboard for seamless check of all the admissions and other relevant data;
• Student timelines that stand the Education Cloud from the crowd and let you track their activities across the institution correctly (inquiry forms, cases, appointments, etc.);
• Drag-and-drop CRM interface which helps you navigate a student’s journey up until graduation;
• Dedicated alumni/student/online community hub or portal for further audience engagement, event management, and understanding them better.

Do you want to go further? This is how the Education Cloud and Experience Cloud collide. Given that higher education is an intricate matter and requires greater attention, one might need assistance implementing this industry cloud. Such a Salesforce education product partner as Advanced Communities can help you build an online hub for your students/alumni or their parents, streamline administrative processes, facilitate program management, and simplify event management.

Besides, you can design an online community, alumni, or student portal in a few clicks, using drag-and-drop components. It will be linked to your Salesforce CRM and paired with our AC MemberSmart package.

6. Manufacturing Cloud

By using Salesforce for manufacturing, you can contribute to collaboration between your sales processes and operation teams. Besides, it can help you strengthen relationships with customers and partner, managing sales agreements with ease.

Companies in manufacturing can enjoy these main features:

• In-depth Einstein analytics;
• Account-based forecasting;
• Supply chain management.

To fuel sales processes and improve Salesforce communications, companies in the manufacturing sector can also adopt Service or Sales Cloud. This is what Advanced Communities also has to offer. As we have a wealth of experience working with large manufacturers and big players in the industry, we can foresee industry-specific fluctuations and adjust your business strategy accordingly.

Sum It Up

Salesforce Industries can get siloed data, discrepancies in your CRM system, or poor user experience sorted once and for all.

Depending on your business sector, you can implement a Salesforce Industry Cloud and orchestrate your company operations accurately. Thanks to the pre-built tune-ups, these clouds can offer you flexibility, full customization, and easier data usage. Besides, they can add to your team performance!

In case you need additional assistance and guidance, do not hesitate to reach out to Advanced Communities: we’ll put you on the right path.

Q&A

1. Is Vlocity Now Salesforce Industries?

Technically, yes. After the acquisition in 2020, Salesforce has added Vlocity’s industry-specific apps to its existing stack of services. That’s how Salesforce Industries emerged.

2. What Major Companies Use Salesforce?

Being the #1 CRM worldwide, Salesforce is widely used by the world’s largest companies. Thus, mammoths like Amazon, Walmart Inc., Toyota, Macy’s, Spotify, and American Express leverage Salesforce for most business needs. Such success is contingent on the Salesforce Industry Clouds as they are tailored to a variety of departments.

3. What Do Salesforce Industries Do?

Salesforce Industries are pre-built solutions that cater to the needs of different businesses and are ready to be adopted. There are Education, Health, Insurance, Communication, Media & Entertainment, and other clouds, that accelerate organizations’ growth and development.