10 Tips for an Agile Salesforce CRM Implementation

The AgileEnterprise

2

The AgileEnterprise

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Many companies implement Salesforce CRM

with an enterprise software mindset, yet this

cloud solution offers so much more flexibility.

As a result, these companies neglect to put in

place the processes and resources necessary

to enable continual innovation—and they

fail to seize opportunities to enhance their

applications after the initial go-live.

An agile implementation bridges the gaping

divide between the pace of business and

the proliferation of IT innovation. With an

agile approach to your Salesforce CRM

implementation, you can roll out the solution

in small iterative steps so you don’t shock

the organization with massive change.

Relying on our experience helping thousands

of companies implement Salesforce, we’ve

compiled the following tips to help you

achieve an agile business transformation:

tip 1: establish a vision

Implementing technology without a vision

often results in a mire of change that is not

clearly understood by your organization.

Take the time to sit down and define how you

want to improve your business. Establish a

guiding principle for your initiative. Whether

it is delivering a better customer experience,

increasing close rates, or driving efficiency, a

vision is the foundation you build on as your

implementation goes through each part of

the entire company.

tip 2: gain executive support

User adoption is critical to the success of

your Salesforce implementation. Though

users know intuitively that legacy systems

are not adequate to do their jobs, even

positive change is met with resistance. To get

100% user adoption, you need the support

of your C-level executives. Your job will be

to outline the benefits to the company and

make it easy for executives to buy-in. You’ll

need to demonstrate that you’ve done your

due diligence including:

Extensive ROI analysis.

Impact to the company operationally

and financially.

Identify risks and solutions to

mitigate them.

Implementation plan—that

includes as little disruption to the

business as possible.

Articulate the executive role

throughout the implementation,

transition, and operations.

Once you have accomplished this critical

first step, you can gather a cross-section of

technology enthusiasts from each user group,

to ensure that the tool will serve their current

and future needs. Plan to perform one-day

business review sessions, webinars, and/or

interviews with each group and department

early on to facilitate implementation.

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tip 3: define your business processes

You need executable business processes that

have definition around them. For example,

a lead capture process would include how

lead information gets input or integrated

into your system. Processes need to be

iterative and under continual improvement

to take advantage of new best practices

or technology enhancements. IT projects

should adapt to business processes which

change as fast as business dictates.

Be sure to get input from the departments,

units, or groups that are directly affected

by the business processes. Ask them how

to improve the business process and what

it requires them so the solution can be

tailored to their needs. Since Salesforce

enables an entire company to access critical

information or processes, you’ll need to map

out how each process flows through to the

end. For example, a lead may come not just

from your sales team, but from customer

service as well.

tip 4: understand data migration and integration

To prepare for data migration from data

sources including Excel, Outlook and back-

end systems, it is important to evaluate

formats in advance and identify the unique

qualities and data fields specific to each

department. Begin reviewing the data from

each group to determine its cleanliness

so you will know if you need to remove

duplicates and correct other errors.

You will also want to understand reporting

needs. How do specific users want to see

and access reports? Salesforce has a number

of standard reports, but do you need any

customized reports or dashboards?

tip 5: form a governance board

The best way to manage innovation

strategically is to form a Salesforce

governance board made up of leaders

from across your business units. Make

sure your board includes executives and

key decision-makers who can properly

prioritize development and represent their

organizations. It’s best to put this board in

place before you first go live on Salesforce.

Your governance board can establish

formal guidelines and specific criteria for

prioritizing not only backlog items, but also

new features and functionalities. By setting

objective ratings systems for changes, the

governance board can help ensure that every

new development will have a positive impact

on the organization. The board can help

prevent your IT department from becoming

mere order-takers for business users

throughout your company.

tip 6: involve users in proof of concept

A proof of concept model is very effective

in involving critical users early on in the

process. This makes them feel part of the

design and partially responsible for its

success. You also ensure that you have fully

mapped the most relevant pieces of the

challenge to incorporate it into a solution

that will likely meet or exceed expectations

when it is rolled out.

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tip 7: identify your entire company’s training needs

Salesforce is easy-to-use, but don’t

overlook the importance of training. In

order to leverage the full potential of your

time and effort put into developing best

practice processes, your users need to know

their roll. Training can help you accomplish

a quick and effective implementation.

Training also helps keep your users up-to-

speed on new innovations. You can identify

the best method for rolling out training

to users—whether in a classroom setting,

individual in-person training, web-based,

or recorded sessions.

tip 8: roll out your salesforce instance incrementally

Implementation is iterative and aimed at

the most critical processes first. You can

communicate early success and build on

it while soliciting feedback from employee

testers to make adjustments that can be

incorporated immediately. The Salesforce

system can be rolled out incrementally

while retaining some legacy systems

so your company does not experience

too much disruptive change at once.

An iterative implementation facilitates

sustainable innovation to continuously add

new processes and functionality rapidly—

as often as business needs change.

tip 9: staff in ways that will enable innovation

Develop a staffing and resource plan that

enables true innovation in your ongoing

Salesforce development. Your Salesforce

team should mirror the diverse skillset

you engaged to carry out your initial

implementation. Most IT staffs are

already stretched thin.

You’ll need to hire experts to build

complicated reports, craft complex

workflows, and make Salesforce talk

to your other systems. Your ongoing

Salesforce development will consist of major

configuration that often involves writing

custom code, tailoring the user interface

to the way business works, tweaking

workflows, change management, and

project management. System administrators

typically don’t have the strategic insight to

deliver support that moves the application

forward to keep pace with your business.

tip 10: communicate regularly with business users

Establish regular communication—in the

form of emails, training sessions, and

announcements integrated into your regular

employee communication channels—that

clearly announce new features to your

user base. Also, consider marketing within

the Salesforce application itself by placing

announcements in the sidebar or among the

homepage components.

Every time you notify employees about

a new feature release, compare it to

what came before. Explain why it’s an

improvement. Estimate how much time

and money it will save them. Lean on

your governance board to interface with

users, showing them where the application

started, how it has progressed, and what

will happen in the future.

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enterprise agility. We partner with clients to

sync business and IT to create a new level of

business responsiveness. From cloud enabled

customer life cycle innovation, to IT staffing,

to agile managed services, Bluewolf knows

how to get your business to the next level of

innovation. Our clients include Time Warner

Cable, GlaxoSmithKline, ADP, Dow Jones &

Company, United Way, Chevron and more.