Using spreadsheets to track your most important company assets is like storing your passwords on Post-It notes, outside, on a windy day…
Williams Racing, a Formula 1 team operating in one of the most technologically advanced and high-stakes sports globally, were tracking around 20,000 car parts on Excel. Some team members put their soaring production costs, stilted development, and lack of podium finishes down to the dreaded spreadsheet – the new Team Principal certainly does.
Asset management isn’t a one-size-fits-all concept; its impact and use vary depending on the sector and the nature of the business. For some, assets are a revenue driver (think loaning out equipment). For others, they’re needed for business operations (think employee laptops), while some want to ensure their excavator makes it safely back from a building site on time.
In a world where connected data drives greater efficiency, insights, and security, Salesforce is emerging as a leading platform for inventory management, ensuring all asset data is stored centrally and is accessible, configurable, and connected to customer records. So for every asset, you’ll know:
- Who is responsible for it.
- Where in the world it is.
- What lifecycle stage it’s in (e.g. wear, repair, and warranty info).
- If it’s available now.
Here we explore the value of connecting inventory and customer data in Salesforce to help you manage end-to-end equipment loans and assignments in one place – leaving sales teams, administrators, and fulfillment teams all singing from the same hymn sheet.
“Loan Equipment” Risks
If loan equipment is never returned, is it still loan equipment, or just equipment? Before we get existential about it, it’s important to know the risks associated with not knowing where your assets are or if they’re available.
1. Financial Impact of Lost or Mismanaged Assests
Loss of equipment is very common, often accidental, and almost always avoidable.
While the upfront cost of loss or theft of an asset is obvious, the hidden costs – such as time spent replacing it and managing security risks – can be even more damaging. Assets can go missing without anyone noticing, leading to unnecessary purchases, inflated budgets, and potential operational disruptions.
In addition to the direct loss, companies may miss out on the revenue potential of that asset, especially if the assets in question are critical to loan cycles.
2. Operational Inefficiencies With Disconnected Systems
A lack of visibility into asset availability and status can wreak havoc on day-to-day operations, especially if multiple systems are involved for reservations, inventory management, and distribution.
Stock control issues – such as not knowing what’s in stock, what’s been allocated, or what’s in maintenance – lead to delays in fulfilling orders, overbuying inventory, and productivity gaps.
These inefficiencies ripple across departments. Without a unified inventory management system, multiple teams might unknowingly reserve the same equipment at the same time. Duplicate bookings waste resources and impact customer outcomes.
3. Compliance and Regulatory Risks
Some industries face strict regulatory requirements that mandate the tracking of asset movement, historical workflows, and maintenance.
Without a robust system in place, maintaining accurate records of equipment usage, loans, and servicing happens inconsistently – if at all. Failure to comply can lead to fines, penalties, or the loss of certifications, creating legal and financial risks.
Linking Sales, Administration, and Fulfillment With Connected Data
There’s often a disconnect between the central administration systems and the field teams that fulfill the orders or assignments.
Usually, this is because multiple disconnected systems are used between two or three teams involved in the loan process. It often looks like this:
- Salesforce: Houses all customer data.
- Inventory database: Spreadsheet or software housing inventory information.
- Booking and payment system: For reservations and transactions.
- Scanning: Separate barcode scanning system for incoming and outgoing assets.
Whether your inventory management goals are to maximize revenue potential or protect your company’s assets, disconnected systems often cause errors and losses, additional work, missed sales opportunities, and slower cycles.
Salesforce is inherently flexible and scalable. Once configured to include your inventory information, all processes can be managed centrally on a single platform – from assigning equipment to scanning it upon return.

Automating Workflows
You will already be familiar with automating your sales and support processes using tools like Salesforce Flow. It’s easy to integrate your inventory management processes into your existing flows to reduce manual tasks and improve efficiency.
For example, generating an order to loan an asset to a prospect when a deal for that product reaches a certain stage, or automatically generating a case when an asset requires maintenance.
A Scalable, Cloud-Based System
Implementing your inventory management processes on a cloud-based tool like Salesforce brings all the benefits of the CRM that you know and love to your processes – including easy access from remote or disparate teams, regular updates, and centralized configuration and administration.
Boosting Agentforce’s IQ
By consolidating your data in Salesforce, you’re making Agentforce smarter. That means your sales and customer service teams can issue commands to the Agentforce chatbot about inventory details such as:
“Are there any MRI Machines available for a two-month loan between March and April this year?”
Agentforce will present the answer, without the user having to delve into a Salesforce page.
Using Agentforce to get answers about your inventory
Industry Spotlights
Let’s take a closer look at how centralized inventory management on Salesforce is being used across different verticals.
- Healthcare and life sciences: Gives sales representatives real-time visibility into inventory availability and allows them to reserve and assign equipment for demos, pre-sales, and loans, linking them to Salesforce Opportunities and Accounts.
- IT assets: Assign IT devices to employees, address service tickets on Salesforce, and manage requests on the go using mobile devices. Organize inventory for marketing events and trade shows while tackling the challenges of coordinating equipment availability, shipments, and returns across multiple events.
- Nonprofit organizations: A centralized inventory management solution means you can manage all your assets and donations in one place and match them against Salesforce Accounts.
- Construction: Monitor asset use and plan for upcoming maintenance needs. Know where each and every asset is in its lifecycle and access critical details like repair history, warranty information, and current depreciated value.
Assign, Reserve, Track, Scan, and Return – All On Salesforce
A single source of truth for all inventory, sales, and customer data in Salesforce, takes the ‘not knowing’ out of inventory management.
Asset reservation, loan, and scanning flow in Salesforce
That’s why many organizations – including high-precision racing teams like Williams, but also hospitals, manufacturers, construction companies, and more – are facing it head-on. Salesforce has the potential to transform inventory management from a messy guessing game into a streamlined, data-driven powerhouse for smarter processes and decision-making.
Ready to learn more about asset and inventory management in Salesforce?
Summary
Hopefully, you now understand how to manage your assets and inventory on Salesforce, so every piece of equipment is tracked in detail against your Salesforce records.
Manage end-to-end equipment loans and assignments in one place and ensure sales teams, administrators, and fulfillment teams are all singing from the same hymn sheet.