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do so with an outdated, “install-it-and-forget-it”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