Salesforce Implementation Consultant

To sustain in today’s dynamic business landscape, businesses require transforming themselves digitally to streamline their operations and better engage with their customers. Salesforce – one of the most widely adopted CRM systems across the globe is being utilized by businesses of different sizes and across different industries to manage their processes and make informed decisions. However, the capabilities of the platform make it complex and not so easy to implement. Apart from technical knowledge and business process expertise, implementing the platform demands change management, as well as a strategic roadmap. This is where businesses require making the right move of either employing their in-house experts or a Salesforce Certified Implementation partner. While the decision may appear to be simple yet making the wrong move could lead to delays, confusion, or a system breakdown that could lead to wasted money and time. While taking an in-house approach has its share of advantages, the reality is that certified partners often deliver smarter, and more sustainable outcome. Let’s understand why: Depth of Salesforce Expertise: With three major releases every year, policy changes, new features and automation improvements are constant. Staying updated for an in-house team can become intimidating. In-house challenge: Internal teams must manage multiple responsibilities including handling IT operations, user support, system maintenance and other platforms. Consequently, specialized expertise might lag. Partner advantage: Certified partners focus just on Salesforce. Their consultants typically hold multiple certifications spanning various cloud solutions, and industry solutions and stay ahead of every change. Accelerated Time-to-Value: Every delay in the platform's implementation leads to reduced ROI. In-house teams usually struggle to stay on track due to competing priorities, unanticipated barriers etc., that add to the timeline. Challenges with In-House Execution: In the absence of a structured approach, teams risk over-customization, ignoring key reliabilities, or reworking fallacious designs. Partner Advantage: Implementation partner Salesforce bring to the table agile methods, proven framework and ready-to-use accelerators. Their experience in dealing with common challenges and access to pre-developed assets ensure quicker, hassle-free delivery that too without much effort. Reducing the Risk of Failure: Studies conducted reveal that a large share of CRM implementations fails or underdeliver completely due to weak adoption, poor business alignment, or technical missteps. Beyond wasted investment, a failed Salesforce rollout can damage internal trust in the platform. In-House Risks: Internal teams often over-customize, creating upgrade headaches, or bypass governance processes, which results in inconsistent data and low user adoption. Partner Safeguards: Certified partners apply structured governance models, enforce data quality standards, and drive adoption strategies. They balance customization with configuration, ensuring Salesforce remains scalable, upgrade-ready, and trusted across the organization. Access to Specific Expertise: Salesforce isn’t a universal platform. It can be tailored to meet the unique needs of an organization. In-house Loopholes: While internal teams are well acquainted with your business, they often lack the vision into how peers in your industry are maximizing the platform. Partner Expertise: Certified partners frequently focus on specific industries thereby bringing with them industry accelerators, compliance expertise, and preconfigured solutions tailored to your sector. Change Management: Embracing a new technology is often more complicated than the technology itself. A Salesforce implementation delivers results only if people use it effectively. In-house challenge: IT-oriented initiatives tend to emphasize features and over adoption. Without strong communication, training, and change management, users often rely on old tools. Partner advantage: Expert partners introduce change management into their approach. They hold workshops, create dashboards, and deliver tailor-made training for all frontline users to ensure long-term success. Long-Term Cost Efficiency: While using the expertise of your in-house team might appear more cost-effective, yet, the hidden costs tell an altogether different story. In-house costs: Lengthy timelines, costly mistakes leading to rework, low rate of adoption lead to accumulated in-house costs. Apart from this, drawing and retaining skilled talent is an expensive affair with developers commanding high salaries. Partner ROI: While experienced partners might require a higher upfront investment, they help generate greater ROI, reduced errors while building scalable solutions. With their skills and expertise, they help lower the overall cost of ownership by preventing your Salesforce org from decentralizing into a complex web of custom code. Scalability: As your organization grows, your Salesforce environment must keep pace. In-house constraints: Internal teams usually struggle to manage surge in demand. Whether it’s an launching a new product, acquisition or an expansion. Partner Advantage: Reliable partners offer expertise on-demand and agile staffing. Whether you require a marketing automation specialist for data migration architect, for a focused project, partners can scale resources up or down—without the long-term costs of adding permanent headcount. Direct Access to the Salesforce Ecosystem: Certified partners go beyond implementation—they’re a part of the Salesforce network. In-house limitations: While your IT team can log support cases or learn through Trailhead, they often lack the ability to escalate issues quickly. Partner advantage: Certified partners maintain direct connections with Salesforce Partner Account Managers, early-release programs, and engineering teams. This unlocks faster issue resolution, priority support, and early access to new features.   Objective Perspective: An internal team’s close connection to your organization gives them valuable context—but it can also limit additional thinking. In-house bias: Teams often replicate current processes “as-is,” even if those workflows are outdated or inefficient. Partner objectivity: External partners bring a neutral viewpoint. They compare your operations with industry best practices and recommend automation opportunities you might overlook. Future-Proof Your Investment: A successful implementation of Salesforce isn’t all about going live, it’s about creating a platform that grows with your business. In-house Challenges: Without proper authority, Salesforce orgs become cluttered over time, with overlapping workflows, duplicate fields, and mounting technical debt that restricts performance.   Partner Provision: Certified partners build with life span in mind. They establish authority frameworks, CoE Models, clear roadmaps to ensure your business can adopt new capabilities such as Automation, AI and advanced analytics. Final Words: For businesses to understand the true value of Salesforce, careful planning, proper execution, and a focus on adoption is required. While internal teams closely understand your business, yet certified partners add the expertise, methodologies, and industry insight, which in-house teams fail to build. Working with a Salesforce partner isn’t all about deploying a software, it’s about reshaping how your organization sustains in a competitive market. For businesses determined to unlock the true ROI on their Salesforce investment, the answer is hiring the services of one of the best Salesforce consulting partners   who delivers results that in-house approaches rarely match.

In today’s era of digital transformation, traditional ways of doing business is no longer relevant. Businesses, especially forward-looking ones are leveraging robust technology solutions to stay ahead. Salesforce – a leading provider of cloud solutions has become one of the most adopted CRM platforms by organizations across different industries. Besides providing a unified view of customer data, Salesforce offers robust capabilities, which has helped organizations transform the way they manage customer relationships, automate business processes and drive growth. However, implementing this innovative platform might be tricky and might require technical acumen, strategic planning and comprehending business needs. While several organizations try implementing Salesforce seeking help from their in-house team, they usually underestimate the underlying challenges, which can lead to missed opportunities and wasted resources. Businesses should consider associating with a certified Salesforce Implementation Partner. An experienced partner besides helping businesses overcome these challenges, can help unlock the true potential of the platform. All About Salesforce Implementation Salesforce implementation involves setting up the Customer Relationship Management platform according to the unique business requirements of an organization. It’s a 360-degree strategy involving various steps: Need Assessment: You should begin with defining the goals and objectives of your business. To attain this, make sure to consult with stakeholders across various departments to gather specific needs and expectations. Strategy and Planning: Next, create a roadmap for your CRM implementation. Define the scope of project, set a clear timeline, allocate crucial resources, and establish key metrics. You must consider partnering with an implementation expert to support the setup while ensuring a smooth rollout. Customization: To meet the unique processes of your business, you must tailor the system accordingly. This includes configuring the settings, introducing custom fields, and amalgamating the CRM with other tools. Data Migration: It involves shifting data from your old and outdated system to a new one. This includes transferring all critical data such as sales data and more. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure precise and hassle-free transition without any data loss. Testing: Next, ensure thorough system testing before the final launch. Training: Ensure your team is trained to handle the new CRM system. Use training sessions and support resources. You can train your team through various methods by either partnering with an expert, providing hands-on training and more. Launching the System: Finally, your CRM system is ready to go live. A partner who is ready to fix any issue should be engaged.   Key Benefits of Implementing Salesforce Unified View of Customer Data: Many businesses struggle with fragmented data across multiple platforms. Salesforce solves this by offering an integrated view of every customer interaction thereby covering preferences, behaviors, and current needs. This all-inclusive perspective enables personalized communication, supports better decision-making, and fortifies customer loyalty. Streamline Support Process: Salesforce simplifies customer support by combining all customer interactions in a single place. Support agents can access key details such as case history, enabling faster and more effective responses. With AI-powered service tools, agents receive data-driven, step-by-step suggestions to resolve cases efficiently thereby augmenting productivity. Saves Time: Salesforce accelerates paces up development with its low-code capabilities, allowing teams to build and customize workflows using drag-and-drop tools instead of manual coding. Its AI-powered assistant helps with code completion, speeding up development. Also, Salesforce AppExchange offers thousands of ready-to-use third-party tools, reducing the need to build custom solutions from scratch. This saves developers time on tasks like workflow creation and integration of payment gateway. Enhanced Communication: While businesses rely on multiple tools for communication, Salesforce brings teams together on a single platform. Its in-built social network enables employees to stay in touch, whether in the office or on the go. With real-time access to customer data, all departments can stay associated and work more efficiently. Targeted Marketing: The platform streamlines lead management by capturing leads from various channels in a single place. With in-built sales forecasting and sentiment analytics, Salesforce augments opportunity management by enabling teams to make smart and data-driven decisions. Why Businesses Fail During Salesforce Implementation? Salesforce implementation often falls flat when businesses lack clear goals, fail to include key stakeholders, or ignore user adoption. Without a well-defined strategy, the CRM might align with the right business needs. Insufficient training and fragile change management diminishes user engagement, while poor data quality and integration challenges can sabotage trust. Over-customizing can make the system complex, while under-customizing limits its effectiveness. Choosing an unfit implementation partner or misjudging the required time and budget adds further risk. For lasting success, organizations need a strategic roadmap, user-friendly setup, clean data, and ongoing support to realize the complete potential of this outstanding platform. Best Practices for Ensuring Successful Salesforce Implementation Successfully implementing Salesforce isn't all about getting the technology right, it’s about administering the right strategies to align the platform with your business goals. Here are some proven practices to guide your implementation: Engage Key Stakeholders: Involve team members from major departments during the planning and rollout stages. Their diverse opinions help shape a solution that truly meets organizational needs and ensures higher adoption across teams. Scalability: Design your implementation keeping potential growth in mind. Anticipate how your business might evolve and ensure your setup is flexible to scale simultaneously. Security and Compliance: Salesforce gives strong security features, but how you set them up so that your data stays protected, and your business stays compliant with regulations. Testing: Make sure to test your Salesforce setup carefully before going live. Try it out with few users first. Their suggestions can help you find and fix any mistakes before launching it for everyone. To Wrap-up: Salesforce offers a wide range of benefits—from organizing customer data and boosting sales to improving collaboration, data accuracy, and scalability. But to make the most of these benefits, strategic planning is essential before starting the implementation. If you’re still on the fence about handling the process yourself or lack technical acumen, there’s no need to worry. A certified partner offers necessary expertise to help you guide through every step—from planning to execution. By partnering with one of the best Salesforce consultants will ensure that the implementation aligns with your business goals and deliver desired result.

Experiencing bottlenecks like missed business objectives, integration hiccups, and poor user adoption after Salesforce implementation? It’s disheartening to see such consequences when you put significant time, effort, and resources. But don’t worry, with the support of an experienced Salesforce implementation partner, you can turn things around. These partners collaborate easily with your organization to identify pain points and existing processes. Thus, they offer tailored solutions to maximize and optimize your Salesforce implementation. Moreover, these consultants help you recover from a failed implementation to get you back on track for success. Let's learn more about them and how they drive success in implementation with this guide. Consequences of a Failed Salesforce Implementation Implementing Salesforce successfully requires strategic planning, technical proficiency, and expertise. However, not all possess these characteristics, resulting in failed implementation and these consequences: Poor System Adoption Most employees find it unintuitive or difficult to use Salesforce. This makes them resistant in embracing the system into their current workflow. All these result in lower adoption rates and underutilization of the platform’s full capabilities. Missed Business Objectives A poorly implemented Salesforce will resist you from achieving your business goals, whether it’s streamlined customer service, improved lead conversion, and enhanced reporting. Instead of driving success, it will bring wasted resources and missed opportunities, making it difficult to align Salesforce with your business objectives. Data Integrity Issues Improper data management and incorrect data migration can lead to major data integrity issues. When compromised data is transferred between devices, it can result in distorted analytics, compliance risks, and security vulnerabilities. These issues can severely impact the health of your Salesforce database, causing long-term damage. Overcomplex Configuration When a Salesforce system is engineered and customized too heavily, it can lead to overcomplex configuration. As a result, you may struggle to get the most out of your setup and you may also experience slow load times, poor user interface, and overall inefficiency. Integration Problem Salesforce is often integrated with other systems, databases, or third-party apps for smooth data flow. However, it results in compatibility issues, differing data structures, and multiple complexities if not integrated well. This in turn leads to fragmented workflow, data silos, and disjoined user experience. How Can Salesforce Implementation Partner Help? Failed implementation can prevent you from reaching your full potential. That makes it ideal for you to outsource a Salesforce specialist who will handle every complex problem, simplify setup, and optimize configuration process. Here is what Salesforce consultants do for their clients to leverage successful Salesforce implementation.   1.Conduct a Thorough Assessment Before proceeding ahead with any other audits and changes, Salesforce consultants perform a comprehensive analysis of the existing Salesforce setup that include three steps: Business Processes Evaluation While working closely with key stakeholders, Salesforce consultants assess existing processes and business workflows. This way they identify inefficiencies and bottlenecks, thus making informed recommendations to align Salesforce with business needs. Pain Points Identification Your Salesforce implementation partner detects pain points and issues too that your organization is currently facing. Upon assessing the real issue which can be system performance and user adoption, they create a roadmap to address them effectively. Customization and Configuration Needs Review Partners providing Salesforce integration services analyze the current workflow to assess customization and configuration needs. Besides, they ensure that the platform is not over customized or poorly configured by evaluating existing workflows, custom objects, and integration.   2.Realign Salesforce with Business Objectives Strategic Salesforce implementation is a roadmap to success. However, achieving it is only possible when you align your Salesforce with your unique business objectives. Here is how your Salesforce implementation partner reviews and adjusts your CRM based on your unique goals. Business Goals Clarification First of all, they assess your business goals by collaborating with your leadership team. Upon assessing any goal like enhanced customer service, improved sales, or data-driven reports, they start configuring your Salesforce. Salesforce Customization Now, at the time of configuration or customization, they conduct all kinds of alteration. This may include adjusting the user interface, developing custom reports, and fine-tuning automation rules. With such adjustment, they ensure that the Salesforce platform meets unique business needs specifically. User Adoption Enhancement Another significant consideration ensured by Salesforce consultants is letting users learn how to run and adopt the software. Because an absence of it can lead to lower user adoption rates. And Salesforce consultants prevent it from happening with enhanced user training, workshops, and programs. All these help employees embrace the new system. 3.Fix Dat Issues and Improve Data Management Data integration issue is real and can hamper the Salesforce implementation. However, with experienced and renowned consultants, you can avoid the severe consequences of inadequate data migration. Here is how they resolve data problems and enhance data management. Data Migration Reviews The Salesforce implementation consultant examines data migration, ensuring that it has been transferred successfully from legacy system to Salesforce without any faults, corruption, and failures. This ensures smooth flow of information across all touchpoints of the organization for more enhanced workflow. Data Cleaning and Enrichment Upon analyzing data migration, the consultants move forward and conduct data cleansing. This involves purifying the existing data by correcting inaccuracies and eliminating duplicates. Thus, ensuring that the information stored is up to date, relevant, and ready to contain. Ongoing Data Practices Implementation Besides, Salesforce implementation partners implement other ongoing data practices too to avoid future obstacles. They enforce security protocols, simplify access, and encrypt data, ensuring that Salesforce instance remains clean and accurate. 4.Streamline Integrations As Salesforce does not work in isolation, you need to integrate it with various other systems such as marketing automation platforms, customer service software, and ERP. However, you may need the expertise of Salesforce implementation consultants to do it successfully. Integration Gaps Detection In high-volume environments, integration may not be aligned or updated properly. Your consulting partner reviews your existing integration in that scenario too. They detect all kinds of issues or gaps that may hinder the data flow from one system to another. Thus, ensuring faultless integration for smooth sharing of information. Integrations Optimization Salesforce consultants evaluate the connection between Salesforce and other systems like marketing platforms, customer support tools, ERP, or legacy systems. Therein, they detect issues like broken connections and optimize it by ensuring that the integration is correctly scalable, efficient, and configured. This results in accurate customer insights, reporting, and analytics. New Integrations Implementation As businesses grow, their integration needs change and expand. Salesforce consultants enable new integrations with scalability in mind. This way they handle more users, increased data volume, and the addition of new systems. Besides, they ensure that all business processes are connected well and streamlined. Provide Ongoing Support and Optimization Even after the Salesforce system is running and implemented smoothly, the Salesforce consultant partners do not simply walk away. They provide ongoing support and training that maximizes the platform’s potential and ensures long-term business success. Here is how these consultants ensure ongoing support and optimization. Continuous Monitoring Salesforce implementation partners proactively monitor system performance to identify potential issues before they escalate and impact larger areas. They track data synchronization closely, ensuring smooth operations and early detection of any discrepancies that may disrupt the Salesforce environment. User Training and Adoption Employee training is essential to maximize the full potential of the Salesforce. Without proper training and workshop, employees may not be able to run Salesforce to its full extent. That’s why Salesforce implementation consultants offer them the required training and educational resources that ensure users’ continuous engagement with the system. Performance Enhancement As your business grows, your Salesforce instance must evolve to overcome new challenges and capture dynamic opportunities. Salesforce partners play a crucial role in optimizing the platform. They infuse such capabilities, letting them accommodate changing business needs, latest features, and emerging technologies. This way, they ensure that the Salesforce remains capable, scalable, and agile. Connect with Girikon, A Leading Salesforce Implementation Consultant Now that you have learned how Salesforce implementation consultants save you from failed implementation, it is time to connect with the best ones. Girikon, a leading Salesforce consulting company, offers dynamic services, ranging from quick installation to support & maintenance. Thus, letting you fully capitalize on the system and churning out some futuristic benefits. These partners also bring a strategic approach, valuable expertise, and a tailored recovery plan that realigns Salesforce with your business objectives. Connect with the experts to turn the failed implementation into a success story and unlock Salesforce’s full potential. Whether you want to troubleshoot specific issues or implement Salesforce from scratch, these Salesforce implementation partners are your best resource for a successful CRM journey. Contact Girikon for Expert Salesforce Implementation and Support!

In the rapidly evolving business environment, it is essential for companies to utilize state-of-the-art technology to stay competitive. Nowadays, forward-thinking businesses are incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into their operations, particularly through the adoption of customer relationship management (CRM) software, to automate and enhance their CRM processes. Salesforce, a leading CRM platform, has consistently been a pioneer in innovation, especially in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI). Notably, Salesforce AI has transformed the way organizations handle their customer service processes. The integration of Salesforce and AI is more than just an augmentation. It has indeed opened new avenues in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Rather, it offers a smarter, efficient, and a highly custom-made customer interaction. To know more about Salesforce AI integration, businesses should consider partnering with a reliable Salesforce consulting partner. Salesforce and Generative AI: A Dynamic Relationship As a cloud-based platform, Salesforce is highly customizable and configurable and can be leveraged by organizations to meet their unique business needs by tailoring their services. By leveraging tools like Salesforce Flow, users can automate intricate business processes, create agile service experiences, while streamlining data management. The next phase of transformation will involve incorporating the capabilities of generative AI into Salesforce, a versatile platform using Einstein GPT. This integration holds the potential to transform the way businesses function and engage with their customers How to Leverage AI to Improve Customer Service? Listed below are ways how AI can help businesses provide better service to their customers:  Improved Customization: Utilizing AI will empower businesses to deliver personalized experiences by harnessing customer data and their preferences. This will pave way for tailored recommendations, quick support, and a deeper comprehension of customer requirements. Unified Omnichannel Support: AI-driven chatbots can integrate easily with several communication channels such social media, web chat and more. This guarantees uniform interactions across several platforms, offering customers a unified experience. Intelligent Automation: AI can be leveraged to automate repetitive and mundane tasks thereby saving a lot of time that can be used up by human agents to focus on more complex and strategic activities. This will boost productivity, quicken response times, and optimize cost for businesses. Sustained Learning and Development: AI systems will keep gathering insights from customer interactions, feedback, and real-time data, which in turn will foster continuous improvement. This continuing improvement will yield more precise responses, intelligent recommendations, and enhanced overall performance. What are the benefits of AI in customer service? AI in customer service offers several benefits that can improve the overall customer experience and streamline business operations. Some of the crucial advantages include: Increased Productivity: Leading IT players believe that AI can be adopted by organizations to serve their customers in a better way. Research conducted reveal that access to AI assistants and tools can increase productivity for support agents significantly.  Increased Efficiency: Carrying out tasks manually can be burdensome for service agents. This includes tasks such as navigating between different systems to access customer history, searching for relevant informative articles, sending field staffs to service locations, and manually inputting responses. These manual processes are usually prone to errors as they are executed by humans. The integration of AI in customer service can provide intelligent suggestions to service workers drawn from knowledge bases, and customer data. A more Personalized Interaction: When a customer interacts with a chatbot, artificial intelligence (AI) has the capability to retrieve vital details, such as the name of customer, location, account type, and language preferred. If the inquiry demands the involvement of a field service technician, AI can promptly convey all relevant information to the technician, allowing them to deliver tailored service as soon as they arrive on-site. Less Exhaustion and Enhanced Morale: AI empowers agents to do away with monotonous, time-intensive tasks, enabling them to focus on tasks that demand creative thinking, problem-solving, and intricate critical thinking. These activities significantly impact the overall customer experience. Consequently, it shouldn’t come as surprise that majority of IT leaders anticipate that generative AI will alleviate workload of teams, while reducing burnout. Scalability: AI systems can simultaneously handle a huge rush of customer queries making it simpler for businesses to scale their customer service operations without consistently increasing staffing levels. A Practical Service Experience: AI has the capability to draw information from contracts of customers, warranties, buying history, and marketing data. This ensures the identification of optimal actions for agents to pursue with customers, even post the conclusion of the service engagement. The future of AI in Customer Service: The future AI seems to be quite promising in the customer service industry. In the years to come, artificial intelligence is poised to gain prominence in workplaces given the ongoing advancements in technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing (NLP). Besides handling routine tasks, these AI programs will offer significant insights into consumer behaviors and habits through big data analysis. Organizations can utilize this valuable data to optimize their return on investment in marketing strategies and branding initiatives. As technology evolves, AI is set to play a key role in uplifting customer experiences and boosting operational efficiency. Final Words: The fusion of AI and Salesforce is reshaping the CRM terrain, presenting matchless possibilities for organizations to elevate both their customer relationships, as well as their operational efficiencies. This integration when leveraged by businesses enables them to position themselves at the frontline of technological advancement, ensuring they stay competitive and in agreement to the ever-changing needs of their customers. In doing so, organizations can provide value to customers and stakeholders while future-proofing their operations in this quickly evolving digital era. Organizations should consider availing Salesforce implementation services if they wish to make the most of the integration of Salesforce and AI. 

Customer service has become the cornerstone of every business and to ensure superior customer service, businesses should leverage the capabilities of a robust CRM platform. One such robust CRM platform is Salesforce, which is a cloud-based platform that assists businesses to streamline workflows while driving digital transformation. However, implementing Salesforce isn’t easy and requires expertise to tailor the platform as per the specific needs of an organization. That’s where the need for a certified Salesforce Consulting company comes in. These companies are not just service providers but are certified by Salesforce to manage everything from system setup and customization to long-standing training and support. In fact, these professionals have the skill to translate the goals of an organizations into tailored solutions by leveraging the robust capabilities of Salesforce. What are the Roles and Responsibilities of a Salesforce Implementation Partner? Before engaging the services of a reliable partner, it’s essential to understand their roles and responsibilities to ensure seamless implementation. A reliable partner helps organizations to create effective strategy for utilizing Salesforce besides setting short-term, as well as long implementation goals. They are also responsible for setting up the system and tailoring it as per the needs of an organization. For ensuring seamless transition and improvement in workflow, a reliable partner will help organizations to integrate Salesforce with their existing systems. They also provide consulting services and end-user training after the accomplishment of implementation. Factors to Consider Before Shortlisting a Salesforce Partner Listed below are some crucial points to consider while selecting a Salesforce implementation partner: Assess Experience and Expertise: It is crucial to look out for partners who have a proven track record of several successful implementations. It’s crucial to verify their experience, as well as expertise of working on projects like yours, their industry knowledge, and the number of certified professionals in their team. It also makes sense to look at client reviews to get insights about their prior performance. Consider Certifications and Technical Skills: It’s important to ensure that the professionals you have shortlisted to work with are certified and possess the necessary Salesforce certifications. It’s also crucial to assess the technical proficiency through diverse project case studies. This will provide a better understanding of their practical experience. Evaluate the Cultural Fit of Your Partner: Besides the technology skillset, it’s crucial to evaluate whether the partner in question has the same company vision, language and culture for communication. A partner who shares the same values, culture, vision, and communication approach will accomplish all the tasks while offering valuable insights through the implementation process. This enhances collaboration and contributes to a more successful project outcome. Scalability: Before zeroing in the right engagement model for Salesforce implementation, organizations need to identify a partner who can provide the flexibility of quickly scaling up or down as their business evolves.  Besides having adequate manpower to meet the evolving demands of an organization, they should have the technical prowess to meet those demands. Ensure Transparency in Budget: While cost is a crucial factor, it’s equally important to focus on the value that a partner delivers. A partner that delivers results and aligns with the goals of an organization is worth the investment. It’s also crucial to ask for a cost breakdown to ensure there are no hidden costs besides getting an idea of market prices by comparing the pricing with other partners. Training Capability: A good Salesforce partner will offer training and support to secure a strong adoption within your organization. Whether it’s marketing cloud creating educational videos or offering after-training support, this aspect of the Salesforce marketplace is crucial for long-term success. Benefits of Engaging the Services of a Certified Partner Listed below are some of the benefits of engaging a certified and trained implementation partner: Real World Experience: One of the compelling benefits of engaging the services of a Salesforce implementation partner is the real-world experience and in-depth knowledge, which they bring to the table. In fact, they have years of practical experience of implementing Salesforce across various industries.  Customization Abilities: Certified partners understand that one-size fit all approach doesn’t fit with respect to Salesforce implementations. They have the know-how to develop solutions that are tailored to the specific needs of a business, which in turn is crucial for maximizing the benefits of the Salesforce system. Reduces Employee Downtime: Implementing Salesforce is taxing and time-consuming, which can divert employees from performing their core responsibilities. A certified partner does all the heavy lifting by allowing teams to focus on their everyday tasks. This ensures smooth business operations for organizations. Long-term Support: Reliable partners do not discontinue their support after the initial set up. Rather they continue to offer ongoing support to help businesses scale their system as their business evolves. Such an association is crucial for maintaining a responsive and agile business model. Increased ROI: Salesforce Implementation Partners with their in-depth knowledge can restructure the deployment process thereby reducing time for implementation while increasing their return on investment (ROI). With this their chances of costly mistakes are reduced significantly. Final Words: A Salesforce implementation partner serves as a strategic resource that enables organizations to optimize the benefits of Salesforce through the successful delivery of Salesforce implementation services while making the most of the benefits that come with it. Therefore, engaging the services of an implementation partner isn’t just a wise decision but also an essential one. Their expertise and ability to tailor solutions besides overall support to minimize the possible challenges while ensuring sustained growth makes them a must have asset for every organization.

In today’s business landscape, a successful enterprise must adopt a system that seamlessly integrates all departments and their respective business processes to enable them to interact and collaborate effortlessly. This is where Salesforce has established itself as the market leader in the CRM space.  Salesforce CRM sometimes popularly referred to as the Customer 360 platform, is a user-friendly solution with virtually limitless flexibility that connects teams across departments in an organization and drives growth. As a result, companies that use Salesforce see improvements in growth and efficiency. But to get the most out of what Salesforce CRM has to you need professional expertise. While most of the Salesforce products are centred around sales and customer service, Salesforce can be used for almost anything. And while the key Salesforce functions haven’t changed much – consultant, administrator, architect and developer, the specializations required based on the unique business needs of an organization have become quite apparent. One needs to have specialization on some of the key aspects of Salesforce to make the implementation count. Consultants don’t just bring in the necessary skills and experience for implementing the CRM platform. They also add significant value in being able to understand the customer. Not only in terms of business processes within the organization but also outside of that realm, such as the people who drive those processes. And they are an intrinsic part of the customer’s growth journey onwards of implementation. While businesses can provide the Salesforce implementation team with data and insight, certain things can only be understood by a specialist. This is where the Salesforce consultant role becomes important. They are trained with skills like attention to detail, analytical thinking and problem-solving along with hands on expertise on the platform. Why Is Salesforce so Popular? Salesforce upgrades its product offering three times a year. Which means every year they add new features and functionality to help existing and new business innovate rapidly. Salesforce is founded on a Customer-360 vision and promotes a collaborative work culture that brings people together and promotes productivity. The Salesforce online community provides help and support to the entire developer community to solve any business challenge The Salesforce platform has virtually limitless flexibility and businesses can create any number and kind of custom apps and integrations to support their business Salesforce allows you to automate routine business processes which frees up employee time to focus on core tasks. Salesforce is powered by an advanced AI engine which delivers qualified analytics on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of your business. Here's where Salesforce Consultants add value across various phases As Part of an Implementation Team CRM implementation is a time-consuming effort and requires coordinated team effort. It would be a wise decision for a business to hire a specialist with extensive experience in Salesforce implementation since the Salesforce platform is complex and offers virtually limitless customization possibilities. Consequently, Salesforce consultants are in high demand across businesses that need the Salesforce CRM implementation. Here are the phases that require the services of a Salesforce Consultant: The Pre-Implementation Phase Before preparing a draft of the Salesforce implementation plan, a Salesforce consultant needs valuable insight from within the company. Information on the type and number of employees, the working structure of the company, regular business processes and workflows, are all important to understand how the organization works and what are its vital parts. The consultant needs to work closely with the business leaders within the organization to understand goals and expectations and current challenges and workflow bottlenecks During the Implementation Consultants play a vital role during the implementation phase as well. They are the link between the technical team – architects, administrators and developers who install and configure the platform and build and deploy custom apps, and the company. Their role is to maintain good communication between the two groups and ensure everything is well captured. After the Implementation The implementation is not over until the customer starts seeing results. After all, the technical implementation is just side of it. Once the technical tasks are completed, the implementation team also needs to train the users on the platform. Typically, this is another key responsibility area of a Salesforce consultant. It requires good communication skills, teamwork and leadership skills. Businesses are evolving continuously. And the software that they use needs to keep pace with it. Businesses need to add and upgrade their apps and workflows on an ongoing basis to stay ahead of the curve. If you are already using Salesforce in your organization, the presence of a Salesforce Consultant will help you to upgrade rapidly by building and deploying apps in an agile framework. And do to that you need a strong team of specialists. Moreover, just like every other complex platform, Salesforce also requires maintenance time to time. This is another key responsibility area of a consultant. As part of the organization Salesforce consultants also work in organizations that don’t do implementation for others. They just have enough in house needs. These are regular businesses that use the Salesforce platform and a small team of consultants to oversee the implementation, upgrades and maintenance activities. In this context, a Salesforce Consultant’s function is to make sure system performs perfectly and the users are able to use it easily. On top of that, they also discover methods to further enhance the customer experience through the use of the platform and make sure teams continue to communicate with each other. Shortage of Salesforce Professionals Currently, there just aren’t enough people trained in Salesforce to meet growing demands of this ecosystem. One of the key reasons is that Salesforce isn’t your run-of-the-mill software. It’s a specialised and complex product and unless you're a service provider or you are a part of an organization that uses Salesforce, it’s unlikely that you know much about it. Many of the Fortune 100 companies use Salesforce. IDC published an article in October 2017 saying that over 3 million jobs are expected to be there in the Salesforce ecosystem by end of 2022 through its network of partners. Salesforce has been growing at a brisk pace year on year, and so are their customers, consequently driving up the demand for Salesforce professionals to support that growth. And the skills one acquires as a Salesforce professional are highly transferable in case one wants to switch over to another industry. Developing Salesforce Skills Irrespective of your available budget, there are multiple options available to help one get familiar with Salesforce and develop skills in a certain are: Developer organisations— Sign up immediately for a free developer licence and start practising Trailhead, which is a Salesforce powered only community where one can get hands-on exposure to Salesforce and learn the technical and business skills one needs to succeed from anywhere for free. Girikon is a dedicated Gold Certified Salesforce Partner. Our relentless focus on understanding the unique needs of our customers combined with our rich expertise and experience on the Salesforce platform allows us to deliver value driven solutions to our clients. Contact us today to know more.

Companies of all sizes are transforming the way they do business digitally with innovation in technology, in an attempt to engage customers in a new way. Enterprises are adopting a go-digital first approach with best in class out of the box software. Salesforce CRM happens to be one of them. Educating yourself about Salesforce is one thing. Understanding which products, applications best suit your unique business needs is another matter. Which is why almost most Salesforce customers turn to Salesforce experts to seamlessly enter the Salesforce eco-system. These experts are called Salesforce Implementation Partners. Over the last decade, Salesforce has nurtured a vast network of it’s implementation partners across the globe that help businesses achieve their business goals. Here's a look at some of the typical questions early adopters have about working with a Salesforce implementation partner. What is an implementation partner? To put it simply, an implementation partner is an firm that has been vetted and approved by Salesforce to implement their solutions for businesses on their behalf. Every implementation partner specialises in certain areas of technology, industry, or application. Which means, there are Salesforce implementation partners to address every need, business, industry and product. Why engage an implementation partner? Salesforce CRM solutions cover the complete spectrum of business operations. These include but are not limited to sales, marketing, service etc. Each product can be further expanded by third party add-on applications and cross-platform integrations. To put it in a nutshell, the Salesforce ecosystem has endless capabilities. The challenge is of aplenty – to select the right product with the features and functionality that best suit your needs. A larger organization may already work with multiple technology-based solutions because of larger budgets and diversity in lines of business. They may need guidance in understanding how a particular Salesforce product, say, Sales Cloud, can seamlessly integrate with their existing systems without causing any conflict. A smaller company on the other hand may be scaling up rapidly and will quickly realise that continuing to work with spreadsheets will not support their growth objectives. They would soon realize that they would need to automate some of their processes, and/or develop more personalised and engaging customer experiences. Implementing a CRM solution for the first time can feel intimidating. It is almost impossible for your internal teams or staff with no prior experience with Salesforce to consider all the variables involved in an implementation and also be able to implement a new instance of a highly configurable CRM platform. Hiring full-time resources to embark on the implementation process can also prove be an expensive option. These are some of the operational reasons that most of the Salesforce customers depend on Salesforce Implementation experts. Bringing in a partner late in the game may prove to be detrimental to your growth plans. For you to derive maximum benefit of such a powerful and configurable platform requires close collaboration not just internally, but also with your implementation partner.  The best way to do the implementation is when the journey begins together. When is the right time to hire an implementation partner? As early as possible. As is true with any big investment, first you need to do your due diligence. Understand what needs should be met, gaps to close, or issues that need to be addressed. Establish a vision of what you want to achieve with the Salesforce implementation. Next, determine how would you execute your vision with Salesforce, which is where the partner comes in. As soon as you estabish your goals, it’s time to bring in a partner. The right Salesforce implementation partner won’t just expedite the how, but they will also help you to sharpen your vision. They’ll help you get a clearer understanding of success metrics, establish realistic goals, and provide guidance on appropriate products. Finally, they’ll chalk out a sound project timeline for your entire implementation journey. Meet with multiple prospective partners. Assess them on key parameters like industry experience, certified consultants, years in business, reviews, number of successful implementations, their post-implementation training and support strategy. Get a sense of who they are and how they work. This is a crucial relationship for your business, so don’t compromise. How do I know which is the right partner for me? Some Salesforce Implementation Partners have generalised Salesforce capabilities. And some would specialise in particular areas or functions of the Salesforce platform. Some might specialise in Sales Cloud and Financial Services Cloud. Others might have expertise in harnessing the combined powers of Marketing Cloud and Einstein. Here are some pointers to guide you on what to look for in a Salesforce Implementation Partner: Industry expertise Does the Salesforce partner have experience working in the same industry as yours for other customers? Can they offer customer testimonials or case studies from similar projects? Salesforce expertise Does the partner have enough experience with the specific Salesforce solution that you wish to implement? Technical expertise Does the partner have the necessary technical capabilities to implement your Salesforce solution through customization, third party app integration or integration with other business systems within your organization? Proven Methodology Does the partner have a proven process methodology for Salesforce implementation and training? Do they implement using an Agile framework evolving with every iteration using a collaborative approach? Ongoing support What level and type of support are they providing to their existing customers? Do they provide 24/7 support? Pricing and Budgets What is their pricing model? What is the average size of the projects they have executed? Do they fit into your long-term budget? What a Salesforce Implementation Partner Does? Here are some of the things your Salesforce Implementation Partner will do as a part of their overall implementation: Work with you closely to establish your long-term and short-term goals for your implementation Document your existing business practices and make a detailed note of your specific requirements Assess your existing systems and business operations and recommend any changes that may help you to achieve your goals and improve the efficiency of your workflows Work closely with key stakeholders, adopting a collaborative approach to integrate Salesforce with your existing systems Train your teams on the new platform Salesforce implementation partners have extensive experience on the Salesforce platform across industries solving unique challenges in varied business environments. They know what it takes to execute and deliver a successful Salesforce implementation. A qualified partner can help you to avoid common pitfalls and get you up and running quickly. What challenges might I encounter during implementation? Salesforce has been around for decades now and it’s a known fact that bringing in a partner early in the game mitigates may of the implementation risks and challenges that may emerge along the way. What is also important is to be clear on what you want to achieve over time and how you measure success over that journey. Most often, confusion or dissatisfaction arises from a lack of understanding on part of the customer on clear goals and measurable metrics. If both you and your partner are not on the same page, its opens doors for unnecessary assumptions, and confusion and misunderstandings on timelines and system features can arise. This only complicates the process of achieving objectives and reaching success benchmarks that your set out with. Salesforce implementation is an expensive roll out and it’s a two-way street. Both you and your partner need to be transparent and work in close collaboration to make it a success. Never hesitate to ask the same questions. The Salesforce implementation process can be highly technical and it is only natural to seek precise clarification. Just as you place your customers at the center of your business, partners place you at the center of theirs. They measure their success by your satisfaction levels. Customer success translates to partner success. As it true with any successful relationship in life, this implementation partnership too thrives on open, honest communication from day one. Girikon is a Gold Certified Salesforce Consulting Partner that provides expert guidance and support throughout the client’s growth journey. Get in touch with one of our experts today to know more about how we can help you. Questions? Our reps have answers. CONTACT AN EXPERT