Tips for a successful Salesforce.com implementation

Tips for a successful Salesforce.com implementation

Managing change

Leadership Planning Communication

Leadership

"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where

they have not been."Henry Kissinger

Salesforce is a multi-faceted automation solution

• CRM solution.– Sales and marketing automation.– Service and support management (customer

portal, call center, knowledge base).– Project management.– Contract management.– Content management.

• Force.com (custom applications)– Finance and admin.– Financial services.– HR.– Office productivity.– Partner Relationship Management.

Leadership

• Create cohesive vision for automation. • Passionate about need for change.• Promote value of change.• Lead by example.

Define your business imperative

…then you’re ready to consider which Salesforce.com solution(s)

will best meet your needs.

Once you understand your business strategy, imperative,

and goals…

Define your business strategy

• Customer lifecycle strategy.

• Partner strategy.• Product/services

development strategy.

• Other major business areas of focus.

Define metrics

• Understand how you will measure success and failure.

• What analytics do you need to engage in forward thinking and planning?

Build Salesforce Team

• Leaders: Management members who will define processes and requirements.– From every impacted functional area.

• Users: Members who will take point on championing their business use needs.

• Tactical: Business analysts and IT pros who will define and customize the solution.

• Trainers: Folks accelerating user adoption.

Planning“Organizing is what

you do before you do something, so that

when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” A. A. Milne

“Good fortune is what happens when

opportunity meets with planning.”

Thomas Alva Edison

Your Salesforce.com solution will only be as good as your defined business processes.

If your processes are ill-defined, then all Salesforce will do for you is help you do the wrong thing faster.

Define your business processes

Planning arenas

1. Business process definition.

2. Requirements definition and documentation.

3. Plan for organizational change.

Phased implementation

Consider big picture vision for solution….

…but plan for phased implementation.

Build strong User Experience documentation

• Partner with IT.– Departmental leaders “own” using

Salesforce.– IT “owns” implementation.

• Write detailed business requirments documentation– If prepared by consultant or internal IT, be sure that

business leader provides sufficient detail for a rich understanding of what the user experience needs to be.

• Write in plain English – Let IT translate into Requirements technospeak.

User Experience elements

– Business imperative and solution definition.

– Process definition (flow charts or other visuals are helpful).

– Licensing.– Data fields and

tabs.– User experience.

– Workflows (validations and triggers).

– Reports.– Expected

deliverables.– Milestones.– Metrics to be used

to evaluate project.

• Contents should include:

Communication

"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers,

who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution

everybody can understand."

— General Colin Powell

All change is stressful –

even positive change.

Promote Salesforce benefits

Make benefits personal…

…even if the change is global.

Third-party solution

providers

What to look for in a Salesforce consultant

Business strategy/process knowledge – domain expertise in your functional area of interest.

Technical expertise. Defined design and implementation

process.– Requirements gathering and

definition.– Deliverables.– Communication process during

design/implementation.

Summary

Success factors

• Vision.• Commitment.• Planning.• Solution provider collaboration.• Communication.

– Between leadership and IT.– Between leadership and

employees.• Celebration!

About

24

I help companies ignite positive change by holistically fusing people,

process, and technology.

My diverse experience helps companies optimize customer relationships and marketing strategies, grounded in the ways real people relate and do

business with each other.

Kathy Herrmann

25

Centers of Excellence• Change management:

• Strategy design.• Process design & definition.• Business requirements definition and documentation.• Project management.• Social business adoption.

• Business intelligence:• Insightful meaning driven by data • analysis.• Data mining.• Business case development.

• Economic valuation (ROI):• Including social media ROI.

571-236-7929info@kathyherrmann.comwww.kathyherrmann.com

Kathy Herrmann