Sales Cloud
Enabling your sales reps and managers to have a complete view of all existing and prospective customers, deals, and opportunities and get comprehensive performance reports.
Salesforce implementation steps, approaches & tips
Salesforce implementation is the delivery of a Salesforce-based CRM solution into the designated environment together with configurations, migration, and setup activities to ensure the solution’s maximum value.
As a certified Salesforce partner, Itransition assists companies with Salesforce implementations of any scope and complexity and provides post-implementation support upon request.
Salesforce implementation roadmap
A typical Salesforce implementation process comprises the following eight steps. Following them diligently will help companies ensure the efficiency and eventual success of their Salesforce project.
1
Discovery
Outline your business objectives and analyze your workflows and software ecosystem, including the current CRM system (if any). Based on the information collected, define a suitable CRM strategy and elaborate functional and non-functional requirements for the future Salesforce solution.
2
Design
Identify suitable products from the Salesforce ecosystem and outline all necessary platform configurations, customizations and integrations to meet your requirements. If the project involves building and implementing Salesforce-based apps, design their architectures and UX/UI.
3
Planning
Define the Salesforce implementation project scope, budget, team composition, development methodology, and roadmap, including stages, iterations, and deliverables. Additionally, establish a risk management strategy to effectively address technical and operational issues that can arise during the project.
4
Customization & configuration
Tailor the Salesforce solution to your business requirements by configuring and customizing its UX/UI, objects, reports, and other aspects. When out-of-the-box settings can’t provide the desired functionality, consider adding enhancements like custom fields, modules, rules, workflows, new features, or even full-fledged apps to further expand the platform’s off-the-shelf capabilities.
5
Integration
Integrate the Salesforce CRM solution with other business applications or services in your IT ecosystem (ERP, marketing automation tools like Pardot, analytical platforms like Tableau, etc.) via custom APIs or pre-built connectors from MuleSoft. Salesforce integration will allow users to access relevant business and customer data and handle all customer relationship management operations in a unified tool.
6
Validation & roll-out
When you’ve finished modifying the Salesforce solution and preparing it for implementation, deploy metadata to a testing environment to perform user acceptance testing, load testing, and staging. If needed, make necessary changes to the solution afterward. Then, follow deployment best practices to deliver the solution to the selected production environment.
7
Data migration
Transfer your CRM data and workflows from your legacy systems to the new Salesforce solution. Ensure minimal interruptions to your operations and prevent data loss during the migration process through accurate migration planning, a solid backup strategy, and post-migration validation.
8
Support
Provide employees with end-user training and ongoing support to facilitate Salesforce adoption across your organization. You should also perform timely software maintenance and administration (troubleshooting, data management, user management, updating, on-demand optimization, etc.) to ensure seamless operation of your CRM solution or, alternatively, rely on an external managed services provider.
Hire a certified Salesforce implementation partner for your project
Key Salesforce products to implement
Sales Cloud
Service Cloud
Marketing Cloud
Experience Cloud
Commerce Cloud
Salesforce CPQ
Salesforce Einstein
Health Cloud
Nonprofit Cloud
Service Cloud
Helping support agents efficiently solve cases and incidents, access and use a knowledge base, and automate case routing.
Marketing Cloud
Helping marketing specialists personalize and partially automate customer interactions across channels, craft outstanding marketing campaigns, and gather granular customer insights for further analysis.
Experience Cloud
Allowing companies to create branded websites, portals, and digital communities to engage and serve customers, cooperate with business partners, and foster collaboration among employees.
Commerce Cloud
Enabling businesses to efficiently promote their products through marketing and merchandising campaigns, craft consistent customer experiences across in-store and ecommerce channels, and monitor essential KPIs.
Salesforce CPQ
Helping sales agents provide accurate pricing for various product configurations and quickly generate quotes to streamline the selling process.
Salesforce Einstein
Allowing employees from customer-facing departments to effectively automate routine tasks and derive actionable insights from CRM data to become more efficient and improve their decision-making.
Health Cloud
Helping healthcare organizations provide personalized care and services for each patient, streamline appointment scheduling, better coordinate care provision, and collaborate with their network of partners and contractors.
Nonprofit Cloud
Enabling non-profit organizations to track and optimize fundraising campaigns, strengthen relationships with their donor base, and provide program participants with personalized care.
Team composition for a Salesforce implementation project
You’ll need a diverse team of certified Salesforce experts and other specialists to cover every aspect of your implementation project:
Project owner
Project owner
Defines the project scope and supervises all implementation stages.
Project manager
Project manager
Oversees the implementation end-to-end, coordinates the project activities, and communicates with all teams involved.
Salesforce consultant
Salesforce consultant
Helps stakeholders select Salesforce products and determine project requirements, set up the system, and perform necessary configurations.
Salesforce developer (upon request)
Salesforce developer (upon request)
Designs and builds Salesforce customizations and integrations.
Data lead
Data lead
Takes care of data preparation for migration into Salesforce and ensures the migration goes smoothly.
System administrator
System administrator
Manages the implemented Salesforce system on a daily basis.
Power users
Power users
Customer employees from particular departments that provide feedback at each stage of the project and become the solution’s first users.
Salesforce implementation best practices
Apply these best practices to ensure that your Salesforce implementation project goes smoothly and brings the expected results.
Establish the project’s KPIs and measurable success metrics
Ensure data quality before migration to Salesforce
Draw up detailed documentation for the new system and processes
Provide employee onboarding and training
Create a change management strategy
Carry out testing throughout and post-implementation
Factor in potential contingencies into the project’s budget
Secure both stakeholders’ and users’ buy-in from the start
Successful Salesforce implementation
Salesforce implementation cost
A Salesforce implementation budget can range from $10,000 for smaller projects to $100,000+ for larger ones featuring customizations. Such a significant difference is due to a large number of cost factors that impact the final price. Here are some key variables to consider for your Salesforce investment:
Salesforce license
Salesforce Clouds and other products from the Salesforce ecosystem typically come in four editions, each with different features and capabilities, with the cheapest at $25 per month and the most expensive at $300. Additional feature licenses or managed packages will cost you extra
The number of users
Since Salesforce charges companies per user, the more users you plan to have, the more money you’ll need to spend.
Consulting
Salesforce implementation fees vary depending on whether you hire a consulting company or a freelance specialist, as well as their location and certifications.
Customization & data migration
The scope of custom development and the volume costs will depend on your data set size for migration to Salesforce and customization ambitions
User training
Salesforce user training is relatively inexpensive. However, if you plan to have Salesforce system admins or developers on board, you’ll have to invest thousands of dollars.
Support
After Salesforce implementation, you’ll need someone to supervise your Salesforce journey, delivering updates and improvements and fixing emerging errors. Whether you hire third-party support specialists or appoint someone from your IT staff will also impact the final cost.
Benefits of Salesforce implementation
Cost cutting
Salesforce digitalizes numerous paper-based processes and automates repetitive tasks, allowing companies to give up some of the business solutions and cut costs. Moreover, its effective sales and marketing functionality helps companies attract new customers faster and cheaper.
Better performance
The implementation of Salesforce gives employees access to various capabilities for sales and marketing management, collaboration, analytics, paperwork digitalization, and task automation, helping them do their work more efficiently.
Streamlined business processes
Salesforce provides many out-of-the-box features for automating repetitive sales, marketing, and customer service tasks, helping streamline many time-intensive operations. Additionally, our Salesforce developers can implement custom process automations based on your unique needs.
Accelerated decision-making
Salesforce keeps customer information complete, accurate and up-to-date for all departments to take best actions. Moreover, the system provides comprehensive dashboards and reports to aid management with operational and strategic decision-making.
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Salesforce implementation challenges & guidelines
Challenge
Solution
Poor compatibility with existing systems
Some outdated or homegrown software can prove hard to connect to Salesforce and ensure seamless real-time data exchange between them.
Companies should first validate that Salesforce integration with this software is indispensable. If it is, stakeholders should consider developing custom APIs or other integration solutions to connect Salesforce and other business software.
Low user adoption
Due to the lack of understanding of Salesforce’s value and limited digital literacy, employees can resist Salesforce adoption.
Before Salesforce implementation, stakeholders and managers should start promoting the platform’s value and employee benefits from its adoption. Companies should also conduct specialized Salesforce training programs for various departments.
Overcustomization
By adding too many customizations to Salesforce, companies risk going overboard and making the solution cumbersome and hard to use.
Companies should draw up a reasonable scope of initial Salesforce customizations and workflow automations based strictly on business needs and end-users’ expectations. After you get used to the platform, you can come up with other, more specific and meaningful improvements to cater to emerging business goals.
Lack of qualified support specialists
Ongoing Salesforce support requires specific knowledge and skills that not every company has on board.
To keep implemented Salesforce CRM running smoothly in the future, companies should take care to hire Salesforce support specialists or train in-house IT staff way in advance. Alternatively, consider outsourcing Salesforce support to certified developers from an external provider, who can also assist you throughout the implementation process.
Our Salesforce services
Salesforce consulting
As a Salesforce consulting partner, we can assist you with key aspects of your Salesforce project, from discovery and project analysis to go-live and beyond. Rely on our Salesforce consulting services to build and adopt a suitable CRM solution for your requirements and overcome any technical or business challenges.
Salesforce development
Our Salesforce professionals leverage various development tools to build custom apps, mobile apps, solutions for AppExchange, or APIs and connectors that expand Salesforce's out-of-the-box capabilities in line with the company’s needs.
Salesforce implementation
We manage your Salesforce CRM implementation project end-to-end, taking care of platform configuration and customization, deployment into your software ecosystem, and data migration from your legacy CRM and other systems to Salesforce.
Implementing Salesforce the right way
Salesforce implementation is a complex, multi-step process that requires proper investment, interdisciplinary expertise, and shared commitment across your organization. Getting it right, from accurate planning to careful execution and supervision, can prevent business and technical issues and maximize the business value of the resulting solution. With extensive experience in Salesforce implementation and cross-industry expertise, Itransition can help you build and adopt a Salesforce solution designed with your unique needs in mind to make the most of this popular platform.
FAQs about Salesforce implementation
Why is Salesforce implementation important?
Salesforce is a leading CRM platform with rich features for streamlining and improving sales, marketing, and customer support processes. Depending on the specifics of their Salesforce platform implementation, companies can considerably improve sales teams’ productivity, craft more personalized marketing campaigns, build better relationships with customers or partners, and help support agents work more efficiently.
Is Salesforce easy to implement?
Implementing Salesforce is not easy, as it involves many complicated activities like Salesforce customization or configuration, data migration, or even custom development. So, if you don’t have any experience with the platform, it would be best to enlist the implementation services of experts, at least for the most challenging parts of the project.
What does a Salesforce implementation partner do?
An implementation partner helps companies ensure the success of Salesforce digital transformation by choosing the right Salesforce products, working out an implementation strategy and roadmap, and carrying them out. A Salesforce partner can also complete other related tasks on demand, for example, migrating legacy data, integrating Salesforce with business software, or tailoring it to the company’s processes and needs.
How long does Salesforce implementation take?
The implementation timeline heavily depends on the scope of features you plan to introduce. If you need to automate some of the existing processes, it can take just several months. However, it can easily take a year to prepare extensively for Salesforce implementation and then make significant changes to the out-of-the-box solution.
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