How CloudArc Salesforce Customization Architects Work As Your Salesforce Developer

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Are you an existing Salesforce customer looking for a consultant or Salesforce Developer who can help you customize your Salesforce implementation?

Have you thought about licensing Salesforce as a new customer but held off because you were unclear how you would accomplish the specific configurations you need it to have for your business? These are common concerns we routinely hear from customers and prospects. At CloudArc, our approach is one of transparency to help you achieve the most you can in Salesforce using a license type optimized for you which reduces your annual cost per user. In this short article, I will explain how we at CloudArc think about identifying the best Salesforce developer to help you customize Salesforce for your business needs.

Salesforce Customization

“Salesforce customization” can be a loaded term for businesses who know they need help with their CRM but are concerned about the price tag associated with dialing in all the details in their Salesforce org. When looking for a Salesforce partner who can help you achieve your configuration and Salesforce customization objectives, there are a few practical things to keep in mind.
The first principle to apply when looking for a Salesforce developer to architect the best Salesforce implementation for your business is finding one that will help you align your People, your Processes, and your Technology. Each of these three elements is vital to your business’s success. Altering one of them without consideration for impact to the other two can have significant unintended negative consequences that harm your productivity and bottom line. At CloudArc, we take a unified approach to understanding your business through the lens of who and what your People do, how they do it via your Processes, and the Technology you use or seek to deploy to support them. Without this perspective, you can end up with a lot of expensive technology that doesn’t match your Processes and which your People won’t use.

Best (not the most expensive) Salesforce license for your business

In addition to finding a consultant who will take time to understand your People, Processes, and Technology, you also should look for a consultant who will recommend the best (not the most expensive) Salesforce license for your business. If that consultant can provision those licenses to your business without you having to work with a Salesforce account executive, that’s even better. Salesforce account executives and many of their consultants have an incentive to “up sell” you. In those arrangements, you may end up buying more Technology than you need and it doesn’t properly align with your People and your Processes. At CloudArc, we take pride in the fact that we want to get you exactly what you need and nothing more which translates to significant cost savings for you. With time, if you need more licenses or more Technology via Salesforce, we will work earnestly to help you address those Technology needs and reassess what the best license is as your business matures. But in the beginning, start with the most basic Salesforce license, limit Salesforce customization, and work with a Salesforce developer who will be honest with you about the appropriate amount of Technology best suited for your business’s needs. At CloudArc, we will start with the basics. If desired, we will work with you to develop a roadmap for you that identifies key triggers where you might need more Technology in the future.

You should select a Salesforce partner who will create specific training for your users based on your Salesforce org and YOUR data.

A third factor to keep in mind when looking for a consultant who will support your Salesforce customization goals is that firm’s approach to training. You should select a Salesforce partner who will create specific training for your users based on your Salesforce org and YOUR data. While there are a lot of Salesforce customization experts, it’s hard to find one that will create training content unique to your business needs and specific to your set up. At CloudArc, we create video content that can be used at any time by your users and train them on how to use your Salesforce instance. This is game-changing for our clients because the content is customized for their specific needs and it’s available at any time on-demand from their Training tab within their Salesforce org.

Salesforce CRM architect to help you with your specific implementation needs

When looking for a CRM architect and Salesforce consultant to help you with your specific implementation needs, you should find one that has worked in many different industry verticals. A firm with diverse industry experience will help you get the details addressed for your unique configuration needs. A common phenomenon encountered by businesses working with Salesforce direct account executives and their preferred consultants is the account executives and the consultants don’t understand or have any familiarity with their business sector. This can lead to an imperfect Technology solution that doesn’t meet the user needs. At CloudArc, we have worked with a diverse range of industries over the last 20 years that include construction and building sectors, manufacturing, real estate, venture capital, and others. This has led to us developing a robust set of expertise and knowledge to deploy Salesforce to each of these market sectors using the right amount of Technology while not overselling customers on Salesforce features that won’t have significant value but will add cost for the customer.

What to look for when seeking out an expert in Salesforce customization

Additionally, when looking for an expert in Salesforce customization, businesses should find a consulting firm that truly understands the power of reports and dashboards and how they can be used in an industry to help gauge overall performance of the business but also user adoption of your Salesforce Technology. Using these data, companies can make adjustments in their business practices as well as enhance training as needed to increase user adoption and comfort using Salesforce for work tasks. At CloudArc, we use our industry domain expertise as well as the information we gather from you through our Salesforce healthcheck and onboarding processes to identify those things most useful to measure that will show performance and user adoption. We socialize these with our clients’ management teams so there is understanding about how to best use the reports and dashboards to see data that can then influence behaviors.

When searching for a Salesforce Developer

When searching for a Salesforce developer who will consult with you to develop the right Technology suite for your business, you should also look for someone who will help you avoid customization unless you absolutely need it. Much like CloudArc’s philosophy around alignment of People, Process, Technology and getting you the right Salesforce license for your business (and not the most expensive), we advocate for right-sizing your Technology solution and starting with optimization of the basic Salesforce features such as accounts, contacts, email, reports and dashboards, collaboration features, etc. Only after your users are comfortable employing these features do we recommend clients think about more sophisticated options around design of flows or other customizations. While we have the resources in our onshore and offshore team to design and build sophisticated solutions, most customers don’t need those to maximize the impact of their Salesforce implementation. Keeping things simpler increases user adoption, keeps costs down, and enables businesses to derive a much higher return on their Technology investment with much less risk. At any point in time when you believe customizations may be necessary, our approach at CloudArc is to develop a roadmap that will show you the steps along the way to add customized enhancements. This way, you see the direction you can take with your Technology and the interim steps along the way to assess the impact of those additions. This allows for you to gauge the speed of adoption or even to rethink how Technology is optimally customized for your business because you have time to assess impact as you add features and complexity.

Ultimately, when looking for a Salesforce developer who can help you with Salesforce customization…

…it’s best to start with a consultant who will give you honest feedback and insight about the best license for your business to help you generate return on your investment while optimizing Salesforce for your specific needs, in your industry. Working with a Salesforce partner like CloudArc enables you to optimize your Salesforce solution to decrease your risk, increase impact, and optimize for you People and Process.