6 WAYS TO

MAXIMIZE YOUR
SALESFORCE
INVESTMENT

As Salesforce continues to dominate the CRM

market, and with software as a service (SaaS)
investments on the rise for most organizations,
the next step in your journey with Salesforce is to
find new ways to leverage the cloud platform as a
strategic asset for your business.1 This guide covers
six key ways to help you accelerate CRM adoption
and unlock new opportunities using Salesforce.

CLOUD
TRANSFORMATION

CONSOLIDATE
SALESFORCE ORGS

ENABLE CLOUD
INTEGRATION

FOCUS ON DATA QUALITY

AND GOVERNANCE

ENHANCE THE USER

EXPERIENCE

GET A HEALTH
CHECK

#1 CLOUD
TRANSFORMATION
BY 2018, OVER HALF OF
ENTERPRISES IT INFRASTRUCTURE
AND SOFTWARE INVESTMENTS
WILL BE CLOUD BASED2.

CLOUD TECHNOLOGY

SOCIAL

DIGITAL
EXPERIENCE

DATA

MOBILE

BUSINESS
OPTIMIZATION

IOT

INDUSTRY
SOLUTIONS

Becoming a cloud-powered business delivers numerous

enterprise-level benefits including speed-to-market,
efficiency, agility, and savings. Beyond the typical technology
benefits, we firmly believe that cloud is also the foundation
for becoming a digital business. Without a cloud-based
foundation for your business, youll be fighting an uphill battle
pursuing digital initiatives.
Innovations in mobile, Big Data, predictive analytics, and the
Internet of Things (IoT) have also prompted companies to
adopt a cloud model. The figure on the left illustrates the role
that a leading cloud-based CRM platform like Salesforce can
play in enabling digital transformation to achieve these desired
outcomes. As you look to accelerate cloud transformation,
think about how Salesforce can deliver value and competitive
advantage through new products and services, new business
models and new relationships.

#2 SALESFORCE ORG
CONSOLIDATION
The robust pace of M&A and spin-offs continues to
accelerate as businesses look to build a competitive
advantage. Business re-organizations involve not only
the merging of companies and staff but consolidating
business functions, systems and processes. When separate
business systems exist, it is nearly impossible to roll up
performance results under one management dashboard, and
thus increases the inability to effectively build a business
centered on your customer.
For these reasons, there are significant advantages to
merging Salesforce orgs, many of which are a direct result
of housing data in a single location. This ensures greater
visibility and accessibility to information across marketing,
sales, service and operations.

SALESFORCE ORG MERGE APPROACHES

Salesforce org merges typically require a more complex process of both
metadata and data mergers. Unfortunately, there currently is not a method
that automates the Salesforce org merge process from end-to-end. However,
Perficient will typically evaluate and recommend one of the below three
different approaches to assist with a Salesforce org merge:

Each approach has benefits and drawbacks, so the choice ultimately depends
on the project situation and individual client circumstances, but generally the
trade-off is between cost and operational risk or disruption.

People often confuse these terms. Metadata in Salesforce describes how the
data is structured. Items such as pick-list values, profile settings, validation
rules, workflow rules, or field types are examples of metadata. Data, on the
other hand, are the records in the system for accounts, contacts, etc.

Merge to Master: This approach designates one existing org as

the master, and merges metadata from a source org into this
designated master.

Merge to New: This approach requires provisioning a new Salesforce

instance and merging all data and metadata from one or more existing
Salesforce instances into the newly provisioned instance.

Migrate Data and Eliminate Instance: This approach extracts

data from one instance, normalizes it with data in another instance,
and imports the data alone into the target instance (works with new or
existing master).

METADATA VS. DATA

TIP FROM OUR EXPERTS:

Third-party tools can be installed in one or both Salesforce orgs to compare
and define assets between multiple orgs. Consider DreamFactory Utilities
Snapshot found on the Salesforce AppExchange.

Success Story

NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
Northeastern has about 16,000 undergraduates, 8,000
graduate students, and more than 225,000 alumni worldwide.
Northeastern University operated two instances of Salesforce
and needed to merge them into one centrally managed
Salesforce org to create a comprehensive, single view of
prospective student, applicant, enrolled student, and alumni
data for all graduate students at the university, as well as
undergraduate students in the College of Professional Studies.
Perficient was engaged to lead the universitys Single View
Solution (SVS) project and serve in a strategic cloud advisory
role. The new consolidated Salesforce environment enhances
customer service for students by allowing the institution
to tailor communications and experiences at the individual
level, improves reporting capabilities for effective enrollment
management and decision-making, and drives efficiency in
staff workload and production.

#3 CLOUD INTEGRATION

SALESFORCE CLOUD INTEGRATIONS

Lets face it we all hate moving. Packing up the house and

lugging around the boxes of stuff and old junk youre not sure
youll have use for again is not a pleasant thought. The same goes
for thinking about moving legacy or on-premises applications to
the cloud. In fact, more than 64 percent of companies struggle
connecting, synchronizing, and relating data, applications, and
processes. This leads to cloud adoption challenges.
More than 64% of companies struggle with connecting,
synchronizing, and relating data, applications and processes.
This leads to cloud adoption challenges. 3
The fact of the matter is, IT must adopt to the realities of the
new hybrid enterprise. To extract the most value from your
SaaS applications, unlocking critical information from cloud and
other on-premises systems, and making it available in real-time
is crucial. Cloud integration with other applications and data
sources allows you to harmonize business processes, increase
productivity, and complete data sets. Below are some typical use
cases for Salesforce cloud integrations.
While there are multiple integration patterns to enable Salesforce
connectivity, across the board youll want to follow an iterative
data migration approach, which includes the following steps:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

IDENTIFICATION
MAPPING
BUILD
ITERATIVE MIGRATION TESTING
DEPLOYMENT

RESOURCE
ALLOCATION

INVOICING & PAYMENT

PROCESSING

CUSTOMER
ACCOUNT BALANCE

PRODUCT
INFORMATION

ORDER STATUS &

TRACKING

ON-DEMAND WEBINAR

Extend Your Salesforce Investment

with Cloud Integration
WATCH NOW

BETTER TOGETHER
Perficient is a proven leader with deep cloud
integration expertise across a wide variety of leading
technologies from our strategic and enterprise
partners. We not only have the know-how to help you
solve your unique CRM goals using the Salesforce
platform, but we can tackle the most complex data
integration challenges by building innovative solutions,
that together, can help you meet digital experience and
business optimization goals.

Success Story

STR

CLOUD INTEGRATION ENABLES CONNECTIVITY

AND DRIVES EFFICIENCY
STR is a provider of competitive benchmarking, information
services, and research to the hotel industry. Its goals to gain
market share, drive new business, and improve employee
efficiency were not being realized using an on-premises CRM
solution. Perficient deployed Salesforce Sales Cloud using
Visualforce and the Google Translator API to accommodate
multiple languages and currencies for quoting invoices based on
product and location. We also enabled real-time data integrations
to connect Salesforce to STRs help desk, invoicing, fulfillment,
accounting and content management systems with Informatica
Cloud. Empowered sales, service, and accounting teams can now
make better business decisions and operate in a more efficient
manner. Other benefits include better data quality, improved
sales performance and case management, and reduced property
creation from two days to a matter of minutes.

#4 FOCUS ON DATA
QUALITY AND GOVERNANCE
Data quality often takes a back seat to more urgent matters, but
that doesnt mean its not important. Your data should be viewed as
a strategic asset that you have worked hard to collect. Maintaining
that asset is critical to get the most value from it. Just like your
house or your car, you need to maintain your data to get the most
benefit from it.
The cost of poorly maintained data isnt just that you cant find what
you are looking for. Poor data quality can impact your customers
perception of your business, your employees abilities to do their jobs
efficiently, and can lead to lost revenue opportunities or the inability
for executives to make important business decisions.
CUSTOMERS

BRAND REPUTATION

BUSINESS USERS

LOW ADOPTION & PRODUCTIVITY

LEADERSHIP

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
& LOST REVENUE

HAVE A STRONG FRAMEWORK

Do you struggle with prioritizing end-user requests or find it tough
to get business and IT stakeholders to articulate key business
problems in order to align Salesforce initiatives? Things like program
management, change management, release management or
alignment between the business and IT can even have an impact on
how successful you are managing Salesforce. Give your company
a competitive edge by establishing a governance framework for
managing Salesforce.

TIP FROM OUR EXPERTS:

Establish a Salesforce Center of Excellence to implement best
practices, mitigate risks and improve the performance of your CRM.

DATA QUALITY CHECKLIST FOR

SUCCESS WITH SALESFORCE

Managing data is an enterprise-wide activity. Everyone who interacts with

the data in any way needs to have a sense of ownership and responsibility
for it. It is important to have a culture that sponsors and encourages this
from the top down. Below is a high-level checklist for managing your
enterprise data in Salesforce.

PEOPLE

CLEANSING

Find or create a data quality champion. Your data champion will

provide the executive-level support you need to keep the project
going. Without a champion to advocate for data quality, the effort will
eventually be overwhelmed and fail to achieve its goals. Once you
have a champion, you also need to create a core team thats willing
to convey the goals and benefits of the program.

Since your data is probably not perfect, you will want to do some
cleansing so that the process going forward is as smooth as
possible. Bulk cleansing consists of internally reviewing your data
and making any adjustments needed so that it aligns with the rules
and processes you have defined.

DEFINITIONS
Different people and departments often see the same data in
different ways. In order to take on an enterprise-wide effort, you
need to start with a solid foundation. Create a list of terms that you
are going to define and identify what systems this data may reside in,
including the system-of-record. Capturing this data will help define
the processes to come.

PROCESS
Once youve agreed to your first set of definitions, its time to create
a business process to manage the data that matches it. The process
should start without reference to any systems, simply referring to all
of the events that could affect this data, and what steps you want to
take to make sure the results are valid.

TOOLS
Now that you have a system-agnostic business process for how
you want to manage your data, you need to add a systems layer to
the process flow. This systems layer will indicate what additional
steps need to be taken to keep the data consistent across
applications. Integration strategies will come into play as you
determine how to manage this work, and be sure to leverage tools
to keep this data in sync.

Success Story

LEADING CRUISE LINE

SETTING SAIL WITH SALESFORCE IMPROVES
CUSTOMER VIEW AND SALES OPERATIONS
To drive increased market share, new business, and process
efficiencies, an innovator in cruise travel embarked on an
enterprise CRM program to transform its direct sales and indirect
channel business. The company lacked a single platform to
manage its database of 22 million customers and prospects, as
well as the necessary business rules and workflows to effectively
run its marketing, customer loyalty, and incentives programs.
The Agency Sales group was also unable to rapidly grow the
channel business leveraging its network of 50,000 affiliated travel
agencies. Perficient replaced a legacy CRM with Salesforce Sales
Cloud and integrated more than 25 data sources using IBM Cast
Iron and Data Loader to improve the integrity of customer records
and integrated data quality. Salesforce now provides a connected
platform and mobile solution across marketing, channel and sales
operations for effective strategic planning, marketing campaign
execution, and sales operations.

#5 ENHANCE THE
USER EXPERIENCE
How many times have you heard, Our [insert team name] is not
using that system because it isnt user friendly?
User adoption of any business system or mobile app is highly
dependent upon the user experience it delivers. But why is the
user experience (UX) so critical when it comes to your CRM?
Because the UX also indirectly impacts the overall customer
experience. Whether its providing timely sales quotes or
resolving customer issues faster every interaction your
customer has with your brand leaves a lasting impression.

THE NEW SALESFORCE LIGHTNING EXPERIENCE

The new Lightning Experience is more than just an updated
desktop user interface for Sales Cloud users. Its a complete
redesign of how Salesforce is designed to support the way you
work, how you access data, and help you be more productive.
Whether youre determining whether or not to upgrade
Salesforce or how best to make the switch, there are a few key
steps we suggest you start with:

Use Trailhead to educate yourself and others about Lightning

Assess the impact on your Salesforce org
Craft a rollout strategy and execution plan
Pilot Lightning with a select group of users
Enable Lightning Experience

FROM OUR BLOG

Ready to get struck by Lightning? Consider

reading, Getting Started with the New
Salesforce Lightning Experience.
tarted with the New Salesforce Lightning Experience.
READ MORE

#6 SALESFORCE
HEALTH CHECK
By purchasing Salesforce, youve made an important investment
to enable your business. While your Salesforce implementation
may have been simple and everythings running smoothly, its
more than likely your company has evolved since the software
was installed and configured to align with your organizational
structure, corporate objectives and business processes. Or
perhaps you suffer from poor data quality issues or governance
challenges. Just like its important to keep a pulse on your
business, it is also important to keep tabs on the health of your
Salesforce environment.
A Salesforce Health Check could be just what the doctor ordered.

YOUR PRESCRIPTION FOR SUCCESS

WITH SALESFORCE
Doing a Salesforce Health Check helps you not only assess
your current state, but helps you plan for the future and the
next wave of innovation. We will work with you to identify areas
of improvement, recommend best practices, and develop a
Salesforce roadmap to communicate your vision and prioritize
platform investments, as well as establish key performance
indicators critical to achieving customer success with Salesforce.

SCHEDULE YOUR
HEALTH CHECK TODAY

MEET THE AUTHORS

DAN ANAJOVICH
Lead Business Consultant, Perficient

Dan Anajovich is a lead business

consultant with more than 20 years of IT
experience. He is currently focused on Salesforce
implementation projects, but has a passion for
data quality on any platform. He has been involved with largescale enterprise data migrations, as well as operational reporting
and data warehousing.

DAVID SCHILD
Lead Business Consultant, Perficient
David Schild is a lead business consultant and
Sales Cloud practice lead for Perficient with 20
years of experience helping companies in varying
stages of growth and complexity. He is a highly
analytical business consultant with a passion for achieving high
standards in process and productivity improvements through the
use of Salesforce for the last 10 years.

ELIZABETH DIAS
Senior Marketing Manager, Perficient
Elizabeth Dias is an experienced technology
marketing strategist focused on the
enterprise cloud space and the Salesforce
platform. With more than 12 years of experience
as a professional B2B technology marketer, Elizabeth has
expertise in customer experience, digital transformation, social
and digital marketing strategies and has extensive experience
marketing a wide range of enterprise technologies across
industries. She is also an active blogger and thought leader on
Twitter (@techmktggirl).

RESOURCES:
1

Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center, April 27, 2015, Gartner

IDC FutureScape: Worldwide IT Industry 2016 Predictions Leading Digital

Cloud Computing and the Integration Quagmire, Forbes, May 14, 2013

Transformation to Scale, Frank Gens, 2015

ABOUT PERFICIENT

Perficient is the leading digital transformation

consulting firm serving Global 2000 and
enterprise customers throughout North America.
With unparalleled information technology,
management consulting and creative capabilities,
Perficient delivers vision, execution and value
with outstanding digital experience, business
optimization and industry solutions.

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