Salesforce is a cloud-based software that offers Customer Relationship Management (CRM) services. This platform helps businesses to collect and organize customer data and reduce manual work. This helps businesses to better connect with existing as well as new customers and therby resulting in overall growth of businesses.
The benefits of salesforce for businesses are aplenty and some of them are as follows:
Efficient time management, better accessibility, increase in revenue, increased customer satisfaction, simple planning, accurate reporting and enhanced team collaboration.
A typical salesforce implementation process structure is as follows:
ü Clearly define stakeholders
ü Clarity on goals to be achieved
ü Gathering of clear and unambiguous requirements
ü Prioritizing the requirements
ü Building the prototype
ü Testing of prototype and implementation of gained feedback
ü Final Deployment
In order to get the best result out of the salesforce platform, the implementation of salesforce consulting plays a crucial role. If the implementation is done properly by taking into account all the factors in play, it will result in increased sales efficiency, getting more deals and increased accurate forecasting. However, if the implementation is not done properly, it may have adverse effects.
Top 3 Salesforce implementation strategies:
- Managed: The consulting partner performs all the implementation. In this strategy of implementation, the firm delegates most of the implementation project work to the consulting partner.
The pros and cons of this strategy are as follows:
Pros:
Partners complete technical work with extensive product and industry knowledge
Vast experience with various implementation processes
Focus on connecting business process and the desired outcome
Cons:
The implementation costs are on the higher side
- Self-Managed: The firm performs the implementation with slight guidance from the consulting partner. This strategy implies that the firm can implement the CRM under the partner’s guidance where the partner takes on the role of an advisor and the firm owns all the deliverables.
The pros and cons of this strategy are as follows:
Pros:
Low implementation cost
Firm becomes self-reliant
teams involved learn how business can be best supported and gains efficiency
Cons:
The project completion time gets prolonged
iii. Mixed: The salesforce implementation partner and the firm jointly perform the implementation. The model allows splitting the responsibilities between the firm and the consulting power. The pros and cons of this strategy are as follows:
Pros:
Low implementation cost
Expert design of salesforce architecture
Hands on experience for firm staff configuring and customizing the solution
Additional training for the firm team to support the solution after implementation
Cons:
Complex project management engaging both external and internal resources
Longer timelines of solution implementation
The main responsibility of salesforce implementation lies with the executive sponsor who creates a strategic vision of the business and builds the CRM implementation team.
The typical salesforce team structure is as follows:
(i) Executive Sponsor: Provides leadership in salesforce CRM adoption, allocates budget and leads the implementation to success
(ii) Project Owner: Manages the project, gets the salesforce software up and running, has the vision to map business processes to salesforce CRM
(iii) Salesforce Administrator: Maintains the salesforce CRM system support after launch, helps the organization with new functionality on the post-implementation phase.
(iv) Power users: Test and provide feedback during salesforce implementation and provide on spot trouble shooting to end users
(v) End users: Use Salesforce CRM on a daily basis
(vi) Outside experts: Serve as knowledge guides and assist with implementing more advanced features
