Salesforce: A Catalyst to Effective Digital Transformation

Rob Whitaker, Salesforce Platform, Amp

Rob Whitaker, Salesforce Platform, Amp

Whenever you talk digital transformation the topic of Salesforce is likely to come up in some form - from assessing its alignment with your existing architecture, to how it could drive value for your business, through to how to implement it. Two years ago, AMP set a vision on leveraging Salesforce as a single platform to support its clients through:

• having a single integrated place for call centre employees to find all client information and therefore provide excellent customer service

• providing a platform to accelerate digital enablement and simplify our legacy architecture

• helping advisers with practice management solutions

To achieve this, it required implementation of multiple Salesforce Clouds such as Financial Services, Einstein Analytics, and Marketing Cloud. The rollout was to more than 6,500 users and required change management.

Insights gained from this implementation include:

Salesforce is a Platform Not Just a CRM
Adopting Salesforce as a platform derives higher value than just a CRM. A single Salesforce license includes many capabilities and by using it for not only CRM, but for other business capabilities it enables simplification in broader technology landscape resulting in reduced costs and increased agility.

Design with Clients and End Users
Involving clients and end-users in the design process is integral. This is everything from identifying required scope, prioritisation of features, design of processes and screen flows.

Don’t underestimate the power of prototyping
A benefit of Salesforce is its speed to prototype and develop capability. Traditionally many use prototyping as a way of managing technical risk. By bringing the problem to life with a prototype much more value was gained such as greater clarity of the requirement, alignment of stakeholders’ expectations, and reduced waste.

Have a Roadmap that Delivers Value Incrementally
There’s lots to consider when developing your roadmap:

• Salesforce licences cost money so you don’t want to have a long period before a first release. Identify small low risk areas and design the scope of your release around that. This you to try things out in a safer environment.

• Allow time for establishing the foundations - solid foundations enable future speed and leveraging the innovation of the platform

• Test and learn through smaller more regular releases.

Change Management is Critical
This is just as critical as any requirements or technical implementation and should get just as much attention. Start engaging your users upfront, take time to design your change and rollout approach, and don’t forget the job is not done when you go live. You need to invest in driving adoption, listen and respond to feedback.

Mobilise for Success
Salesforce is an existing platform and it is always tempting to rush in to get started, however it’s important to take time to mobilise for success:

• Get sponsorship and active involvement from the business – this can’t be a project that a team deliver in isolation from the business, the owners need to be actively involved in all aspects.

• Establish ways of working – if adopting agile you need to work through how agile will work for your organisation and get teams understanding this first

• Educate - leverage tools like ‘Trailhead’ to learn what Salesforce can do while having some fun along the way.

• Dev Ops and release automation –investing in theses ensures delivery at speed and scale.