Customer question:  I want my CRM implementation to be a success.  Are there common elements to a successful rollout? 

We thought we'd start off this week's blog by introducing the foundation of our success methodology called the "7 Domains of Success".  There is nothing fancy about them and certainly, there are no new concepts you haven't seen before.  What the 7 Domains do provide however, is a structured methodology by which we have seen companies successfully achieve their CRM strategies and goals.   

From a wide variety of customer interactions, including business and IT leaders around the world, salesforce.com has distilled best practices, lessons learned, and collective tribal wisdom into the following 7 domains:

Vision and Strategy Business Measures Adoption Sponsorship and Governance Process Roadmap Technology and Data

What makes the 7 Domains important to you as a CRM strategist or a salesforce.com administrator is the same as what sets apart the Software as a Service (SaaS) model from the traditional enterprise model. In a traditional software delivery environment, much of the budget and delivery calories are consumed setting up the infrastructure in order to support the development of the solution as well as the production environment. Delivery timeframes are lengthy and any changes to business requirements have major impacts to schedules and budgets. Often the end result is a solution not widely adopted which doesn't meet the business needs.  On the other hand, Saas (and therefore Salesforce) lends itself well to the following characteristics: 

• Iterative and rapid deployments
• Rapdily changing business requirements
• Rapidly changing business climates
• Need for predictable, scalable and reliable applications
• Need for early quick wins with easy to justify business cases 

Salesforce implementations are characterized by iterative and rapid deployments focusing on meeting business needs and delivering high business value to end-users. The ability to make rapid changes and deploy quickly has shifted focus from infrastructure to CRM strategy.  In the upcoming weeks, we will dive into each one of the 7 Domains and take a closer look at how to apply the rules of success to your specific industry and business requirements. 

Admin Tip of the Week - Apply this success tip to your Salesforce:

• White paper on the "7 Domains of CRM Implementation Success"

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