Riding off the success of the Sales Process Map, I thought I’d try to map out the steps required for a Successful CRM Implementation. For those who have done it before you can attest to the fact that there are lots of moving parts and it can be hard to grasp the big picture.

The Successforce Implementation Map identifies who should be involved in your CRM initiative and plots their responsibilities during a typical 45 day rollout. This is a great way to get everyone on the same page and ensure you're building a strong foundation.

Riding off the success of the Sales Process Map, I thought I’d try to map out the steps required for a Successful CRM Implementation. For those who have done it before you can attest to the fact that there are lots of moving parts and it can be hard to grasp the big picture.

The Successforce Implementation Map identifies who should be involved in your CRM initiative and plots their responsibilities during a typical 45 day rollout. This is a great way to get everyone on the same page and ensure you're building a strong foundation.

As Salesforce.com comes out with new releases it’s easy to overlook valuable features which were slipped into the product years ago. One such feature is the Big Deal Alert. This tool allows you to set up a trigger based email to alert people when a deal reaches a certain stage. It's a fantastic way to increase executive visibility and improve user adoption.

To set it up, login to salesforce and go to setup > Customize > Opportunities > Big Deal Alert.

Note that when setting up a big deal alert you’re not limited to users of salesforce, so if you want to include a board member or non-salesforce user it’s easy to add them to the distribution list.

As Salesforce.com comes out with new releases it’s easy to overlook valuable features which were slipped into the product years ago. One such feature is the Big Deal Alert. This tool allows you to set up a trigger based email to alert people when a deal reaches a certain stage. It's a fantastic way to increase executive visibility and improve user adoption.

To set it up, login to salesforce and go to setup > Customize > Opportunities > Big Deal Alert.

Note that when setting up a big deal alert you’re not limited to users of salesforce, so if you want to include a board member or non-salesforce user it’s easy to add them to the distribution list.

Last week salesforce.com launched trust.salesforce.com a public website giving customers unprecedented access to service performance.

While most of the buzz has been around the new level of openness with regards to availability, it’s also been interesting to watch the number of transactions and avg. speed.

As it turns out, this weekend there was scheduled maintenance to fine tune the application. In the past the impact of this might have gone unnoticed, but if you take a look at the data it appears to have made a measurable difference. Looking at the last 14 business days filtering out weekends and holidays, you’ll find that Tuesday had the highest number of transactions, over 36 million, and the fastest average speed by 12.9 milliseconds.

Of course one day is not statistically relevant, nor is the engineering team going to rest on their laurels, but it’s exciting to see what Adam Bosworth referred to at Dreamforce as Intelligent Reaction; a new model of software where service providers are looking at operational data every day, tuning the application, and providing ever greater levels of performance.

Last week salesforce.com launched trust.salesforce.com a public website giving customers unprecedented access to service performance.

While most of the buzz has been around the new level of openness with regards to availability, it’s also been interesting to watch the number of transactions and avg. speed.

As it turns out, this weekend there was scheduled maintenance to fine tune the application. In the past the impact of this might have gone unnoticed, but if you take a look at the data it appears to have made a measurable difference. Looking at the last 14 business days filtering out weekends and holidays, you’ll find that Tuesday had the highest number of transactions, over 36 million, and the fastest average speed by 12.9 milliseconds.

Of course one day is not statistically relevant, nor is the engineering team going to rest on their laurels, but it’s exciting to see what Adam Bosworth referred to at Dreamforce as Intelligent Reaction; a new model of software where service providers are looking at operational data every day, tuning the application, and providing ever greater levels of performance.

Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with Bill Appleton, CTO of DreamFactory, the developer of some of the most successful applications on the AppExchange to date. The discussion was wide-ranging, and I’m pleased to present some of it here in condensed format.

Robert Carter [RC]: You mentioned in your presentation at AppExchange Launch Day that developing applications for the AppExchange fostered a dynamic with customers you referred to as “intelligent reaction”. Can you elaborate?

Bill Appleton [BA]:“Intelligent reaction” is the best term I’ve heard so far to describe this new process for delivering applications. It’s due to the fact that the cycle time between feedback and execution is made so much shorter in an on-demand context. You are in direct communication with the customer for bugs and feature requests. Instead of writing specs assimilating a set of features from customers for a product that will see the light of day months or years in the future, we’re responding directly to requests from customers out there actively using our product right now, and incorporating those features in revs sometimes within days...

Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with Bill Appleton, CTO of DreamFactory, the developer of some of the most successful applications on the AppExchange to date. The discussion was wide-ranging, and I’m pleased to present some of it here in condensed format.

Robert Carter [RC]: You mentioned in your presentation at AppExchange Launch Day that developing applications for the AppExchange fostered a dynamic with customers you referred to as “intelligent reaction”. Can you elaborate?

Bill Appleton [BA]:“Intelligent reaction” is the best term I’ve heard so far to describe this new process for delivering applications. It’s due to the fact that the cycle time between feedback and execution is made so much shorter in an on-demand context. You are in direct communication with the customer for bugs and feature requests. Instead of writing specs assimilating a set of features from customers for a product that will see the light of day months or years in the future, we’re responding directly to requests from customers out there actively using our product right now, and incorporating those features in revs sometimes within days...