Salesforce Rollout Guide
May 2006
Salesforce for Managers and Executives
With
salesforce.com successfully deployed, executives have access to accurate
information allowing them to evaluate their company’s performance without
sifting through out-of-date spreadsheets. For Managers, Salesforce dramatically increases visibility into the activities of their reps
allowing them to direct their attention where it’s needed most. It’s also an
extremely valuable tool for creating structured, scaleable processes, which in
turn increase efficiency and allow you to deliver an unparalleled customer
experience.
Real-time
visibility across your organization
Salesforce empowers business users to create their own reports
and dashboards. Each dashboard
can contain up to 20 elements
providing an at-a-glance overview of your entire business.
Run your business like a well oiled
machine
Salesforce allows you to capture consistent
information and define scaleable, repeatable processes. With workflow
you can
automate things like assignment rules, approvals, alerts and escalations.
Why Reps Love Salesforce
Reps need
an application that makes work easier, not more complicated. With
Salesforce.com successfully deployed, reps should view it as an indispensable
tool which they log into daily, accessing critical information, manage their
activities, and collaborate with colleagues.
Quickly
look up an Account
and see a complete listing of contacts at that account,
activities, open tasks, sales opportunties, and cases. Whether you’re working
on a project team or taking over a new account, in an instant you can find out
just where things stand.
Reps
should have a handful of views
and reports
which they rely on to manage their
day. By sorting on key data points and building personalized dashboards they
can prioritize their day and ensure sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Pipe
in information from a variety of sources
Salesforce.com
can be set up to pipe in relevant information from a number of different
sources, including your corporate website, 3rd party data providers,
or back office systems. The greater the information flow, the more valuable Salesforce
becomes.
The more
people who use Salesforce within your organization, the greater the network
effect. When handing off a sales, support, or billing inquiry, a rep should have
confidence that the task
they assigned will be taken care of. Since all the
background history is visible on account
record, very little explanation is
needed. The use of tasks and activities also gives visibility into the current status
and how the issue was resolved.
Reps that
discover sticky tools such as email templates, mass email, and email tracking,
discover that they are much more productive using Salesforce. Populating
up-to-date marketing collateral, mail merge documents, and FAQ’s inside
Salesforce also leads to increased adoption.
Adapt
Salesforce to the way you work
Salesforce.com
offers online, offline, and wireless access so that your critical business
information is always within reach, whether you’re working from home or on the
road. Salesforce also offers seamless integration with Outlook, allowing users
to work more productively in the applications they use most.
Key Benefits For Salesforce Administrators
Our goal
is to make all Salesforce.com administrator’s heros within their
organizations. In a successful deployment, administrators work closely with
each of the business units and identify new ways to increase operational
efficiency and drive stellar user adoption.
Find
ways to be responsive and wow your users
Since Salesforce is easily customizable a good
administrator will seek out opportunities to be responsive to users, adding or removing fields
on the fly, or adjusting page layouts
to reflect the way people
work. They can also take advantage of image fields, formula fields, and free
components from the AppExchange to go beyond what users thought Salesforce was
capable of.
Track
your organization's CRM success using adoption dashboards
Adoption dashboards give you the ability to track
user logins, call activity, and data quality, providing tangible metrics to
measure the success of your deployment. This is a powerful bargaining chip when
trying to enlist the support of managers and executives.
Get inspiration
and answers to questions from the salesforce.com community
Salesforce.com has a thriving community where
you can find other customers solving similar business challenges to your own. Successful
Administrators regularly visit Successforce.com to participate on the discussion
boards, download best practice resources, and read up on advice from product
managers. They also play an active role in their local user group and attend
the annual Dreamforce User and Developer Conference in San Francisco.
How Salesforce Helps IT and Developers
Since
salesforce.com is delivered as a service, Developers and IT should feel like a
weight has been lifted from their shoulders. That’s not to say however that
they should be disengaged. Salesforce.com is much more effective when
integrated with your other business system and with AppExchange, Developers and
IT can consolidate many of the homegrown applications spread across the
enterprise. For example, project management, bug tracking, and recruiting, can
all run as AppExchange Apps. With one data model, one security model, and one
user interface, IT can reduce complexity and gain even control.
Integrate
Salesforce with your other systems
Salesforce.com’s AppExchange platform is built on
the latest standards in Web services integration and there is a thriving
community of developers sharing ideas on the AppExchange Developer Network.
Extend Salesforce
with custom applications
In under an hour you can replace the chaos of
emails, spreadsheets, and desktop databases with your own enterprise
application that has all the collaboration, reporting, and data sharing
advantages that are inherent in salesforce.com’s on-demand model. Browse
applications on the AppExchange directory or build it yourself using
AppExchange builder.
Transform
IT budgets from infrastructure to innovation
Many CIOs are trapped spending their entire budget
on keeping the lights on. Salesforce helps shift the focus to high-value IT
projects where they can impact business performance.
Building Your Project Team
Assemble a project team to ensure support and representation from each of the business units that will be affected by your implementation. The size of the team will depend on the scope of your rollout, but the basic roles are always the same.
Executive Sponsor
Every
project needs a champion to serve as
the CRM driver in your company, rallying support and resources for your
implementation.
Steering Committee
Your team should also include a representative from each of your user groups such as end users,
managers, executives, and IT. If you don’t take the time to learn what your
users want or need before your roll out salesforce.com you’ll definitely hear
about it after and jeopardize adoption.
Salesforce Administrator
Finally, identify a system administrator who will be
responsible for setting up Salesforce. Because Salesforce is so easy to
customize and administer this person does not need to be tech focused. It is
much more important that your administrator thoroughly understand your business
processes.
Salesforce Developer
If you are planning on integrating Salesforce with other systems you may need to include a web services developer from your IT organization or engage salesforce.com's professional services team. Generally speaking this is only applicable for Enterprise Edition customers with advanced requirements.
Downloads
- Preparing for Success (Breeze Presentation)
- Project Team Worksheet (Word Doc)
- Profile of an Ideal Admin (PDF)
When to Engage Professional Services
Once you’ve assembled your team you’ll need to
choose between implementing salesforce.com yourself, engaging our professional
services team, or utilizing one of our nationwide implementation partners. Your
decision should be guided by your implementation scope, taking into consideration
the complexity of your business and the skill set of your team.
We highly recommend that at least one member of the project team attend Administrator Training.
You'll gain valuable context for how all the applications work together and will be better able to estimate your project's scope and need for professional services. If you do decide to self-implement, you'll learn best practices from a Salesforce expert so the customization choices you make today will continue to serve your business as it changes.
Self-guided implementations are common in companies
with straightforward needs and less than a dozen users. These organizations can
easily map salesforce.com to the businesses with the help of the Salesforce.com Rollout Guide , online training, message boards and support in the application.
Quick Start
Implementation Services
Note that while self-guided implementations are
common amongst small businesses, engaging professional services is often a wise
investment. We offer a wide range of affordable implementation services for
companies of all sizes, and those who take part get up and running faster with
higher levels of adoption and business automation.
Enterprise Consulting Services
For
larger organizations with more complex requirements we highly recommend
engaging salesforce.com professional services or one of our local partners.
With a team of specialists and a proven methodology, you’ll ensure that your
implementation runs smoothly, and the project is ultimately a success. To learn
more please contact your account executive.
Project Team Kickoff Meeting
The first step in implementing salesforce.com is to gather your project team and conduct a kickoff meeting. This will provide you with an opportunity to make introductions, review the project scope and deliverables, discuss your objectives and critical success factors, define each member’s roles and responsibilities, and set your project timeline. It’s a good idea to prepare a PowerPoint presentation in advance to structure the conversation and set the tone for your implementation.
The outputs of this meeting should include;
- An initital project timeline with milestones identifed
- Defined project roles
- A communication/training plan that will involve and educate your end users
Downloads
- Successforce Implementation Map (PowerPoint File)
Gathering Your Requirements
If you elect to engage Professional
Services to guide you through your implementation they conduct a thorough
business process review, interviewing key stakeholders, and making
recommendations for how salesforce.com can be mapped to your business. If you
choose to go through a self-implementation it’s important that your project
team go through a similar exercise. On the Successforce.com website you’ll find
a Business Process Review Worksheet which should be completed and signed off on.
The goal of this exercise is to document all your system requirements. This list should be prioritized and grouped into phases. The initial phase should address your most urgent needs while taking into account the time line and budget constrains you've set for your project.
Downloads
- Business Process Review Worksheet (Word Document)
Modeling Salesforce to Your Business
With a completed business process review
document in hand, your administrator can begin to model salesforce.com to your
business. One challenge that customers often face is that they aren’t always
sure which information goes where.
For example, what’s the difference between
a lead, contact, and account? In Salesforce terminology, a lead is holding pen
for unqualified prospects. Leads are used by companies with two-tier sales processes,
typical of high volume, business-to-business sales organizations. As soon as
there’s enough information to qualify the opportunity it will be converted into
a contact with an associated account and opportunity.
There are a number of other business
models which would be set up a little bit differently. For example your company
might manage relationships with a handful of known accounts or you might work
with lots of resellers.
On the Successforce.com website we have a number of different process maps to get you started. If you’re unsure about how to model salesforce.com to your business, it’s important that you talk to your account executive or sales engineer to model it properly.
Downloads
- Modeling Salesforce to Your Business (Breeze Presentation)
- Sales Process Map (PowerPoint File)
Salesforce Administrator Training
Salesforce.com offers free online training
to help administrators learn how to customize the application. To find a list
of available courses, visit the course list on salesforce.com corporate website.
Learn the Basics
- Salesforce Fundamentals (ADM 100)
- Sales Representative Training (SFA 101)
- Customer Support Fundamentals (ADM 180)
Learn how to Customize the Application
- Admin Fundamentals: Setup (ADM 110)
- Admin Fundamentals: Customize (ADM 115)
- Reporting Fundamentals (ADM 120)
- Dashboard Mechanics (ADM 125)
- Advanced Importing (ADM 150)
- AppExchange Mobile
Hands-On Workshops
For those who really want a solid foundation in Salesforce skills or who are ready to implement smart features like workflow and approvals, salesforce.com offers live training in 3-5 day hands-on workshops.
- Administrator Essentials for Enterprise Edition (ADM 201)
- Administrator Essentials for Professional Edition (ADM 202)
- Force.com: Application Laboratory (FDC 320)
Outsourced Administration
Salesforce.com also offers the ability to outsource your system administraton to one of our premier support administrators. Contact your Account Executive for more details.
