Connecting Frontstage & Backstage with Agentforce 360 for Manufacturing Client

Introduction

By 2019, Siemens’ industrial B2B commerce ecosystem had grown into a complex network of digital touchpoints, product platforms, partner portals, MindSphere applications, and global sales and service operations. Each part delivered value on its own—but the whole system wasn’t working together.

Industrial buyers struggled to find consistent product information.
Marketplace users experienced friction navigating apps and services.
Business partners lacked visibility into order status and configuration data.
Internally, sales, service, product teams, and marketing each worked in their own systems with limited alignment.

The ambition was clear:

Create one connected Siemens experience — for customers, partners, and employees.
And build the future on Salesforce Einstein 1 Commerce and Agentforce 360.

But before Siemens could transform its future, it first needed to understand its present. And that required a new approach.

Goal

The goal of this case study is to demonstrate how a cross-functional, research-driven service blueprinting approach uncovered the root causes of Siemens’ fragmented B2B Marketplace experience and enabled the organization to align on a shared understanding, co-create a future-state vision, and define a clear 18-month roadmap for transforming the customer and internal operational experience.

Research

Why Customer Personas Were Not Enough

Before planning the workshop, I conducted a research phase drawing from Siemens’ past studies, analytics, and stakeholder interviews. My initial hypothesis was that customer personas (industrial buyers and users) would highlight the core friction.

But something critical was missing.

Customer personas explained what was happening.
They did not explain why it was happening.

Frontstage Personas

These personas represented the external experience.

Interviews

Interviews quickly revealed that the real breakdowns were internal:

• Sales had no visibility into service history or product usage.

• Service teams couldn’t access configuration or part data.

• Product teams iterated on MindSphere apps without customer context.

• Marketing operated automated journeys based on incomplete data.

• Partner managers used tools not connected to Siemens’ CRMs.

The problem wasn’t only in the frontstage.
It was systemic.

This discovery prompted me to expand the persona set to include backstage roles, capturing the full operational environment.

Backstage Personas

These personas represented internal operations powering the experience.

Together, these personas provided a complete lens for understanding misalignment across workflows, systems, and data touchpoints.

The Current-State Service Blueprint

Exposing the Hidden System

Mapping the entire Siemens industrial commerce ecosystem from awareness → consideration → purchase → onboarding → retention revealed the core gaps:

Horizontal Misalignment (Across Customer Journey)

• Every channel (portal, marketplace, sales, MindSphere apps) delivered a different experience.

• Product information lived in multiple formats with no single source of truth.

• Buyers jumped between systems to complete basic tasks.

Vertical Misalignment (Frontstage ↔ Backstage)

Customers experienced friction because internal teams were not aligned:

• Sales, service, partner management, product teams, and marketing worked in isolated tools.

• No shared customer record.

• No shared workflow or escalation structure.

• No unified product or content architecture.

The blueprint helped all workshop participants see:

Siemens offered multiple entry points—but not all of them were connected.

This insight became the foundation for transformation.

Breaking down all Stages of the Current Service Blueprint

1. Frontstage Swimmlanes

2. Backstage Swimmlanes

3. System Layer

4. Disconnections

The Workshop

To create alignment across ten roles, I designed a full-day Design Thinking workshop that combined storytelling, service blueprinting, capability mapping, and AI readiness assessment.

Activities

• Reality Check-In

• Co-creating the Problem Statement

• Capability Mapping

• Dependency Identification

Participants

• One representative from each service blueprint swimlane

Outcome

• A shared, cross-functional understanding of the problem and capabilities

  
  

The theme was intentional:

“We Tell Our Story”
Because transformation begins when every stakeholder understands where they fit in the system—and what story they want to create together.

Problem Statement Co-Creation

“How might we unify Siemens’ B2B commerce ecosystem so customer, partner, and employee experiences operate on one connected system?”

This became the anchor for capability mapping.

As part of the workshop activity, participants received a deck of Siemens Industrial B2B capability cards, enhanced with Salesforce Einstein 1 Commerce + Agentforce 360 capabilities, and collaboratively sorted them.

Outcome:
A prioritized capability map + a dependency system revealing the critical path for transformation. This is where the future-state “Agentic Enterprise” began taking shape.

Future-State AI-Enabled Narrative along the Story Arc

Outcome:
Everyone realized their pains were interconnected—each camper trapped in their own tent on the same mountain.

A story arc emerged:
From silos → to systems → to an intelligent, connected enterprise.

Workshop Outcomes

The workshop produced three tangible outcomes:

1. A validated Current-State Service Blueprint

The group confirmed and enriched the blueprint created during research. Stakeholders aligned on the exact points where the experience breaks—across the customer journey, internal processes, technology dependencies, and data gaps.

2. A Future-State Experience Vision

Cross-functional groups co-created a future experience that

• modernizes the B2B marketplace experience,

• integrates automation and recommendation systems,

• connects product development cycles with real customer insights,

• and clarifies operational ownership across teams.

Marcus (Product), Sophie (Sales), and Rajiv (Service) collaborated closely in defining new backstage workflows, while Dr. Keller, Elena Petrova, and Marco Hernández helped articulate the desired frontstage experience.

3. A Unified 18-Month Transformation Roadmap

The roadmap served as the bridge between insights and action. It established what Siemens needs to do—not just in product development, but across the entire service organization.

18-Month Roadmap

Key Outcomes of the Future State Blueprint

The Future State Blueprint outlines the redesigned end-to-end experience and identifies the most impactful opportunities for improvement. Key outcomes include:

• Clear vision of the desired customer journey, aligned with strategic business goals and team capabilities

• Identified experience gaps and friction points that can now be addressed through focused initiatives

• Improved cross-team alignment, creating a shared understanding of how people, processes, and technology must interact

• Defined service improvements that enable more consistent, efficient, and user-centric interactions

• Prioritized opportunities for delivering value through agile iterations, validated concepts, and prototype testing

• Direct linkage to the Strategic Transformation Blueprint, highlighting measurable areas for benchmark improvement and their associated KPIs

With the future-state blueprint powered by Salesforce Einstein 1 Commerce + Agentforce 360, Siemens identified clear opportunities to unify experiences, streamline operations, and introduce intelligent automation across the industrial buying journey.

Key Opportunity Themes

• Experience: unify product discovery, documentation, and post-sales support.

• Operations: align sales, service, product, and partner teams around shared workflows.

• Technology: consolidate systems, improve data quality, and activate AI for proactive decisions.

Benchmark KPI Improvements

• Faster product discovery and reduced customer friction

• Shorter internal handoffs and fewer manual processes

• Higher data accuracy and automation coverage

• Increased NPS and partner satisfaction

Strategic Blueprint Transformation

To bridge the gap between today’s fragmented Siemens B2B commerce experience and the vision of an Agentic Enterprise, the key business stakeholders evaluated the current State and the future State, to define Opportunities with the Agentic Enterprise.

This connects to the KPI Overview, where measurable shifts in customer experience, operational efficiency, and team alignment demonstrate the impact of the redesigned service journey.

Overall Benchmark Improvement – KPI Overview

This bridges the current state (pre-Agentforce 360) and the future state (Agentic Enterprise) for Siemens’ customer experience and employee enablement journey.

Expected Impact

Recommendations & Next Steps

1. Execute the 18-Month Roadmap

2. Train & Enable All Roles

3. Improve Cross-Functional Collaboration

4. Deploy Agentforce 360 for Automation

5. Unify Customer & Partner Experience

Next Step: Pilot Implementation

Deploying the mission-critical use case of predictive maintenance.

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