e Saleforce.com ROI Paradox THE CRITICAL GO-LIVE JUNCTURE: WILL YOU DEEPEN OR DESTROY YOUR ROI?
The Saleforce.com ROI Paradox The CriTiCal Go-live JunCTure: Will you Deepen or DesTroy your roi?
The salesforCe roi paraDox 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Most companies implement cloud solutions with
an enterprise software mindset, and once these
solutions are in place, they continue to manage
them with the same approach. as a result, they
often neglect to put in place the processes
and resources necessary to enable continual
innovation—and they fail to seize opportunities to
enhance their applications after their
initial go-live.
Bluewolf estimates that 80 to 90 percent of
salesforce.com customers could be achieving
significantly higher returns in their first year
after go-live by changing how they manage the
application. in addition, ten to 15 percent of those
customers are actually significantly diminishing
their original roi by failing to keep the application
at pace with business change. after working with
thousands of salesforce.com clients, Bluewolf
has identified what separates the salesforce.com
leaders from the mere players. in this white
paper, Bluewolf lays out the steps companies
can take to increase their salesforce.com
sophistication and maximize their roi.
. InTROdUCTIOn There’s no denying it: cloud solutions have
ushered in a new era for business users and iT
departments alike. These solutions deliver greater
flexibility and speed than was ever possible with
enterprise software.
The popularity of cloud solutions and the seeming
simplicity of managing them can belie the shift in
mindset that is necessary to reap their full value.
Most companies that implement cloud solutions
do so with an outdated, “install-it-and-forget-it”
mindset. as a result, they may be missing out on
the opportunity to actually improve efficacy over
time and ultimately increase financial returns.
When companies lack the culture to encourage
continual innovation, their cloud solutions slowly
but steadily fall out of sync with their business
processes. in addition, these companies generally
fail to leverage the new functionality continually
released by salesforce.com.
is your company’s salesforce.com implementation
keeping up with changes in your business? and
have you put the right processes in place to ensure
continued innovation? from extensive work with
thousands of salesforce.com customers, Bluewolf
has identified what separates the companies
that are most effective with salesforce.com
post-implementation.
. WIll YOU lOSE OR gAIn ROI POST gO-lIVE? after working with thousands of salesforce.com
clients, Bluewolf has identified three levels of
salesforce.com sophistication: player, Contender,
and leader.
a PlAYER is a company that has made the
transition from traditional enterprise software to
flexible cloud technology, but has not resourced
properly for ongoing development or mastered
the process of adapting the application to
changes in the business. players typically fail to
achieve a positive roi.
the salesforce roi paradox
When companies lack the culture to encourage continual innovation, their cloud
solutions sloWly but steadily fall out of sync With their business processes.
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a COnTEndER is a company that has the
basic resources and management processes to
drive system development, but cannot ensure
sustained innovation. in other words, they may be
doing a decent job of maintaining their solution,
but they’re not extending it to drive greater
business success.
a lEAdER is a company that has not only
lined up the resources to ensure that its cloud
technologies move in lockstep with its business
changes, but has also achieved the cultural
shift necessary to proactively deliver new
benefits to business users over time. These
high-performance organizations also typically use
salesforce.com to identify areas in which their
business processes can be fine-tuned.
. ThE COMMOn TRAITS Of SAlESfORCE.COM lEAdERS how do salesforce.com leaders separate
themselves from Contenders and players? To
answer that question, we must first examine
the traditional corporate mindset towards
implementing and maintaining enterprise software.
When enterprise software ruled the corporate
world, most companies viewed implementations
as a series of large, difficult milestones. They would
pour resources into the initial implementation,
launch the software, and then rest until technical
or business needs dictated a major upgrade or
additional implementation. at that point, they
would begin this painful cycle again.
There’s a fatal flaw in this approach: the post
go-live period can result in as much impact as
the original implementation. in other words,
change doesn’t stop once software is rolled out.
as your business ebbs and flows—as you enter
new markets and roll out new products and
services—your iT department will have to tweak
your business software in countless ways to
support these changes.
leaders are aware of this. That’s why they never
think software development is “finished”—not
even for a period of several months. They’re
constantly on the lookout for opportunities to
enhance the roi of their software.
AT A glAnCE:salesforCe.CoM leaDers have
The aBiliTy To enhanCe roi
ROI achieved ROI achieved
player
leader
method to execute & sustain
visi
on
& p
roce
ss
contender
growth business transformation
The salesforCe roi paraDox 4
. lEAdERS ShARE TWO TRAITS:
ThEY ThInk STRATEgICAllY AbOUT
hOW TO MAnAgE ThEIR ClOUd
TEChnOlOgIES AfTER gO-lIVE. after their cloud solutions go into production,
leaders don’t just wait for the next upgrade. They
seek to manage new development and the user
request backlog as strategically as possible.
rather than developing in a vacuum, leaders
involve the business in their development
strategy. They also make sure they have not
only the resources to work through the backlog
quickly, but the depth and breadth of iT skills to
enable ongoing innovation.
ThEY ShIfT ThEIR CUlTURES fROM A
TRAdITIOnAl EnTERPRISE SOfTWARE
MAnAgEMEnT MIndSET TO An AgIlE,
AdAPTIVE CUlTURE. What’s behind this culture? leaders put processes
in place that enable them to dynamically prioritize
and pace a steady stream of well-defined
innovations. feeding into these processes is user
feedback, which leaders harness to help them
build a more relevant system.
however, leaders do more than just update
and enhance salesforce.com—they also use
salesforce.com as a tool to digitize and fine-tune
their business processes, with access to various
levels of information to understand and leverage
relationships with customers over time.
. hOW TO bECOME A lEAdER Becoming a leader in salesforce.com
sophistication isn’t a sprint—it’s a marathon. you
must have the focus to transform your processes
and culture over time.
Bluewolf has helped hundreds of companies make
the transition from player to Contender to leader.
here are some of the steps we encourage:
. fORM A gOVERnAnCE bOARd The best way to manage innovation and backlog
strategically is to form a salesforce.com
governance board made up of leaders from
across your business units. it’s best to put
this board in place before you first go live on
salesforce.com—but it’s never too late.
WhO ShOUld MAkE UP ThE bOARd?
your governance board should be made up of key
business stakeholders who help prioritize which
product enhancements will deliver the greatest
benefit to your business. The specific makeup will
depend on your corporate culture. Just make sure
the list includes the executives and key decision-
makers who can properly prioritize development
and represent their organizations.
some of our clients have included their entire
C-level executive team on their governance
board. others have included only select director-
level employees. With your company’s key players
as part of your governance board, you’ll ensure
that your future salesforce.com development
directly supports business needs.
WhAT EXACTlY WIll ThE bOARd dO?
your governance board can establish formal
guidelines and specific criteria for prioritizing
not only backlog items, but also new features
trait one
trait tWo
ThE ThREE lEVElS Of SAlESfORCE.COM SOPhISTICATIOn
player•NegativeROI
•Troublekeepingpace
•Minimalmaturity
•Limitedresources
•Systemusenotstable
•Largebacklogs
•Adoptionachallenge
•Notlikelytoadoptnew
release features
contender• 100%ROI
•Becomingproactive
•Stablesystemusage
•Accesstobasicresources
•Establishedmethodto
manage backlog
•Adoptingnewfeatures
•Sometargetingofwhitespace
opportunities
leader•200-300%ROI
•Strategicapproach
•Establishedgovernance
•Collaborative,agileprocess
•Accesstomulti-disciplinary
resources
•Disciplinedapproach
to innovation
•Strictprioritizationand
roi tracking
The salesforCe roi paraDox 5
and functionalities. By setting objective ratings
systems for changes, the governance board can
help ensure that every new development will have
a positive impact on the organization.
Thus, the board can help prevent your iT
department from becoming mere order-takers
for business users throughout your company. our
more advanced clients think of the backlog not
as a to-do list, but as a wish list to be carefully
analyzed, prioritized, and even challenged.
WhAT ShOUld bE IT’S ROlE?
as your business leaders drive change via
the governance board, iT can facilitate board
meetings and set criteria for establishing
development priorities. But that should be the
limit of their role—after all, salesforce.com is
there for the business, not for iT.
During your governance board meetings, some
business leaders will be highly vocal about their
needs, while others will lack the influence to drive
the discussion. your iT department can level the
playing field by requiring all leaders to outline the
business reasons and estimated financial value of
the changes they’re proposing.
WhAT’S ThE OVERAll gOAl?
over time, your governance board can begin to
require specific business justification for each new
development, and can assign metrics to establish
the expected return that each change will deliver.
The first level of sophistication is to require
business users to define the business objective
of each proposed enhancement. next, you can
define the impact of each change against defined
criteria such as:
reducing the time it takes people
to complete a task
reducing cost
increasing output
increasing quality
When you start using salesforce.com’s rich
reports to track improvements over time, you’ll
have a powerful tool for measuring progress—and
prioritizing future changes to the application.
AT A glAnCE:leaDers MainTain reaDy aCCess
To a Diverse skillseT
ChangeManagement
Expert
BusinessAnalyst
AdvancedConfiguration
Expert
UserInterfaceExpert
Trainer
LeadGeneration
ExpertVisualForceDeveloper
SolutionExpert
ApexDeveloper
The salesforCe roi paraDox 6
. STAff In WAYS ThAT WIll EnAblE InnOVATIOn Develop a staffing and resource plan that enables
true innovation in your ongoing salesforce.com
development. your salesforce.com team should
mirror the diverse skillset you engaged to carry
out your initial implementation.
Many iT staffs do have some of the skills needed
to develop salesforce.com. however, most iT
staffs are already stretched thin in our uncertain
economy. for them, salesforce.com will never be
more than an “extra” responsibility.
it’s also true that salesforce.com premium
support offers some basic development services
for customers like you. But if you want to be
successful with salesforce.com, you’ll need speedy
access to a full range of development skills. you’ll
need to hire experts to build complicated reports,
craft complex workflows, and make salesforce.com
talk to your other systems—just as you did when
you implemented salesforce.com.
note that the skills we’re describing go far beyond
typical system administrator resources. your
ongoing salesforce.com development will consist
of major configuration that often involves writing
custom code, tailoring the user interface to the
way business works, tweaking workflows, change
management, and project management. system
administrators typically don’t have the familiarity
with your business nor the strategic insight
to deliver support that moves the application
forward and keeps it at pace with your business.
MASTER TIMIng Tackling your backlog and releasing salesforce.com
innovations on a consistent basis require more
than the right staff. you’ll also need to establish the
processes to dynamically prioritize and pace your
releases. your governance board will play a key
role by analyzing and reacting to ever-changing
business conditions.
another key to agile development is timeboxing
—a practice in which each iteration is built
within a well-defined period or “timebox.” To do
so, you’ll need to break down your post go-live
development needs into discrete segments
that can be built, tested, and delivered within a
specific short time period—typically two to six
weeks. although timebox deadlines should remain
firm, give your development team the flexibility
to alter the deliverables for any given timebox.
By sticking to your deadlines, you’ll ensure that
your end-users will regularly get access to new
features and enhancements.
how often should you release enhancements?
on one hand, you’ll want to release often enough
to avoid including an overwhelming number of
features in each release. on the other hand, you’ll
want to avoid releasing so often that you become a
nuisance to business users.
your governance board will be a big help in
determining your ideal release schedule. Whatever
they decide, tell your user base what to expect
and then keep your word. your users will see that
you mean business and will be more likely to
participate in the process.
To jump-start your development program,
consider asking each of your business units to
submit their three biggest struggles with your
current salesforce.com configuration. Then, make
a schedule for addressing these concerns, and
deliver on time. By showing your business that
you can deliver, you can increase buy in to your
process more quickly.
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. COMMUnICATE REgUlARlY WITh bUSInESS USERS one of the biggest mistakes we see iT
departments make is to forget to market their
work to the business units. establish regular
communication—in the form of emails, training
sessions, and announcements integrated
into your regular employee communication
channels—that clearly announce new features to
your user base. also, consider marketing within
the salesforce.com application itself by placing
announcements in the sidebar or among the
homepage components.
every time you notify employees about a new
feature release, compare it to what came before.
explain why it’s an improvement. estimate how
much time and money it will save them. lean on
your governance board to interface with users,
showing them where the application started,
how it has progressed, and what will happen in
the future.
This open communication should work in both
directions. establish and promote avenues
for users to give feedback. Whether you use
salesforce.com ideas or another tool, make sure
you give your users an easy, accessible way to tell
you what they like—and what they’d like next.
. fInE-TUnE PROCESSES fOR COnTInUAl IMPROVEMEnT salesforce.com makes it easy to digitize your
business processes. once you’ve digitized a
process, you can easily measure it, and once you
can measure it, you can improve it.
for example, you might want to know how long
it takes your company to deliver service and
start billing after someone places an order. once
you’ve digitized the process, you can measure
how long it takes to go through each of the
steps. you can set norms and receive alerts when
performance falls outside those norms. By using
this information to close the gap between order
and billing, you can collect revenue more quickly.
This ability to digitize processes gives sales
the same advantages for measurement and
enhancement that marketing department has
had for years. for example, marketers have long
been able to monitor how a visitor interacts
with a website, pinpointing problem areas and
developing solutions to enhance every step. now,
sales can have the same ability to identify, track
and address weaknesses.
To gain a more meaningful idea of the value you’re
getting from your salesforce.com implementation,
digitize a business process. follow it through from
end-to-end and make adjustments. The visibility
you gain into the way you work will ultimately pay
back your investment in salesforce.com.
. COnClUSIOn your salesforce.com development is too business-
critical to leave to chance. Busy iT administrators
won’t find the time to keep up with basic
development requests—and the serious development
requests typically lie far beyond their skillset.
if you want to get maximum roi from your
salesforce.com implementation, make a plan to work
through your backlog quickly, maintain a steady
stream of innovation, and transform your company
to an agile, adaptive culture, Bluewolf can help. for
more information call Bluewolf at 866-455-WOlf
or visit www.bluewolf.com/managed-services/
salesforce-outsourcing.
AbOUT blUEWOlf
Bluewolf is a global pack of experts
committed to partnering with
clients to attain agile
Business Transformation.
only Bluewolf can bring over
10 years of best practices to
every project and guarantee
its success. The company is
distinctly positioned between
classic management consultants
and breakthrough technical
designers—its world-class
portfolio proves its ability to
match its agile methodology with
unparalleled vision.
from demand generation to close,
channel strategies to customer
care, Bluewolf helps clients attain
efficient, responsible business
performance gaining the label of
tomorrow’s business standard.
Bluewolf has extensive experience
with implementing cloud
computing solutions for thousands
of enterprise clients. Bluewolf
clients include, Time Warner Cable,
aDp, Dow Jones and Company,
united Way, Chevron and more.
for more information, visit
bluewolf.com