The business world has shifted from production-focus to customer-focus. As Kate Leggett writes, “Competitive differentiation achieved through brand, manufacturing, distribution, and technology management is now only table stakes. A major source of competitive advantage is the one that can survive technology-fueled disruption — an obsession with understanding, delighting, connecting with, and serving customers.” This of course, means competitive organizations need a CRM system that can support a great Customer Experience. The good news is that if you choose Salesforce as your CRM, you’re already halfway there. Salesforce consistently ranks as the best CRM on the market.
But Salesforce is not meant to be a set-it-and-forget-it system. Its greatest strength is its flexibility — to grow and change as your business grows and changes. The competitive advantage companies get from their CRM system, then, is in their ability to maintain their CRM system to world-class standards. If you aren’t maintaining and enhancing your Salesforce org on a consistent basis, you are not only wasting your licensing money; you are harming a competitive advantage for your organization.
Complexity: the enemy of flexibility
There are many questions to ask when looking to better maintain your Salesforce org: Are your users actually getting value out of using it? Are they even logging in? How clean is the data? How much has your org been customized and configured? To answer these questions, Appirio has an AppExchange service called Appirio Cloud Metrics. This tool gives a free snapshot of configuration, code, administration, and adoption in your Salesforce.com org. The resulting Salesforce health check report will help you to understand complexity in your instance. Once you understand your complexity, you can begin to optimize your application for peak performance.
Appirio’s Cloud Management can help
Of course, life (and business) is complex. Some of it cannot be avoided, but not regularly maintaining and sensibly enhancing your Salesforce org can drain the value it provides. Ultimately, your customers and your bottom line will suffer.
Appirio’s Cloud Management is a managed service built for the cloud. We simplify everything. From pricing (we use a subscription model) to how we deliver enhancements (our Cloud Management Center is built on Salesforce and gives you complete visibility into the value you get), our goal is to lower your risk and help you maximize the value you get from Salesforce.
