Category: Salesforce

Salesforce is the leading Customer Relationship Management incorporating marketing automation, customer service, analytics, and application development.

Building a Resilient Integration Architecture with MuleSoft and Salesforce

Posted on by Srinivasarao Vizinigiri

You might be wondering what exactly is a resilient integration architecture? In simple terms, it’s like the foundation of a house, but for your company’s IT system. It keeps everything connected and running smoothly, even when things get tough.

Now, think about MuleSoft and Salesforce. They’re like the architects and builders who make sure this foundation is not only strong, but also flexible enough to adapt to new changes and challenges.

MuleSoft connects different parts of your IT system, while Salesforce manages your customer relationships. Together, they ensure your IT system is not just sturdy but also ready for the future.

Understand the Need for Resilient Integration Architecture

Have you ever faced issues with old computer systems at work, those that are slow and often cause problems? These are known as legacy systems, and they can really hold back your company from growing and staying up-to-date with new technology.

So, why is it important to have a resilient system? Let’s break it down:

  • Facing IT Challenges Head-On: With resilient architecture, you can handle not just today’s tech challenges, but also those that might pop up in the future.
  • Building a Strong Yet Flexible System: This approach is about creating a system that’s both robust and adaptable. It’s ready for anything, whether it’s new tech developments or unexpected issues.

In essence, resilient integration architecture is akin to building a bridge between the present and the future of your IT landscape, ensuring continuous data flow and adaptability, even in the face of adversity.

Emphasize on Event-Driven Architecture

Let’s dive into what an event-driven architecture (EDA) really means for you.

Imagine a system where each part works independently, like a well-oiled machine, without needing constant updates about other components.

That’s EDA. It’s like having a team where everyone knows their job without being told constantly.

Benefits of EDA include:

  • Independent Functionality: Each component operates on its own, processing incoming messages and emitting outcomes without relying on others.
  • Easy to Add New Services: When you need to expand, integrating new services is as simple as connecting to the “inboxes” and “outboxes” in the system, avoiding the hassle of tracking down service endpoints.
  • Asynchronous Messaging: This is a game-changer. A service sends a message and moves on, without waiting for a reply. Other services pick up these messages at their convenience, ensuring smooth, uninterrupted operations.

With MuleSoft and Salesforce, EDA shines even brighter. MuleSoft can react to events triggered by Salesforce, creating a dynamic and responsive system. This is especially useful when dealing with new or modified data.

For example, Salesforce can send a notification to a MuleSoft API, informing it about changes in real-time. This enables quick and efficient data processing and response.

Implementing Resilient Integration with MuleSoft and Salesforce

Implementing a resilient integration architecture with MuleSoft and Salesforce isn’t just smart; it’s essential for a dynamic and responsive business environment. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

  1. Create Apex Classes in Salesforce: Start by creating two Apex classes, one for new products and another for modified products. These classes will send notifications to the MuleSoft API, ensuring real-time data updates.
  2. Develop MuleSoft’s Solution: Switch to MuleSoft’s Anypoint Platform. Here, you can develop a simple application with multiple flows, each addressing a specific part of the integration process.
  3. Integration and Testing: Combine the functionalities of Salesforce and MuleSoft. Implement the event-driven patterns you’ve set up, making sure they work seamlessly together.
  4. Ensure Clarity in Integration Requirements: Use connectors and APIs effectively. This will help in maintaining a smooth data flow between Salesforce and MuleSoft.
  5. Test and Validate: It’s crucial to test your integration for resilience and effectiveness. This ensures that your architecture can handle real-world scenarios and adapt to changes seamlessly.

By following these steps, you’ll build an integration architecture that’s not just robust but also adaptable and efficient, harnessing the strengths of both MuleSoft and Salesforce.

Remember, in the world of IT, being prepared for change isn’t just good practice; it’s a necessity.

Benefits of Event-Driven Integration

Event-driven architecture (EDA) isn’t just a technical concept; it’s a game-changer for businesses. Here are some key benefits:

  • Data Management: EDA helps in managing the ever-increasing data influx efficiently. It filters data based on business needs, reducing the load on systems.
  • Flexibility and Broadcasting: Changes in the system do not impact downstream systems, thanks to EDA’s loose coupling and broadcasting abilities. This flexibility is crucial for adapting to evolving business environments.

In sectors like finance and healthcare, EDA has streamlined processes, improving data visibility and decision-making. Businesses have seen cost efficiency by reducing dependencies and complexities in their IT architecture.

Security and Governance

When it comes to event-driven architecture (EDA), security and governance present unique challenges and solutions.

Initially, EDA lagged behind RESTful architectures in crucial areas such as API lifecycle management and governance. This gap stemmed from a lack of established specifications, limited discoverability, and hurdles in both developer experience and testability.

However, the advent of evented APIs has significantly bridged these gaps. These APIs embrace the AsyncAPI specification, enhancing discoverability and testability. This shift has effectively filled the voids in EDA, ensuring a more standardized experience for developers.

Importantly, evented APIs have revolutionized security practices. Contrary to RESTful APIs that focus on a single endpoint, evented APIs extend security policies across both the publishing and subscribing ends.

This approach fosters a unified and comprehensive management of the lifecycle for both RESTful and evented APIs.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, building a resilient, event-driven integration architecture with MuleSoft and Salesforce is a strategic move towards future-proofing your business. This approach offers improved data management, flexibility, and cost efficiency.

With advancements in security and governance, adopting event-driven strategies is not just a technological upgrade but a step towards enhanced business continuity and success.

Partner with Vertex IT for MuleSoft and Salesforce Excellence

Start building a strong, future-ready IT infrastructure with the help of Vertex-qualified guidance on how to connect MuleSoft and Salesforce. Our expert will help expertly integrate MuleSoft and Salesforce, creating a strong integration design that can handle today’s problems and easily change to those that come up in the future.

Why Choose Vertex IT?

  • Expertise in MuleSoft and Salesforce: Leverage our in-depth knowledge to create a strong foundation for your IT system.
  • Event-Driven Architecture Mastery: Explore the benefits of event-driven architecture, enhancing independence, adaptability, and efficient data processing.
  • Strategic Implementation: Follow our step-by-step guide to implement a resilient integration architecture seamlessly.
  • Testing for Excellence: Ensure your integration is not just robust but also efficient by thorough testing and validation.

Instead of simply automating tasks, why not take it a step further and innovate using MuleSoft and Salesforce with Vertex? Get in touch with Vertex now and start a journey of automation that will revolutionize your business and open up endless opportunities.

Top Salesforce integration strategies to improve your business processes

Posted on by Sudip Nandy

In today’s digital age, businesses are faced with the challenge of keeping up with rapidly changing technology and consumer expectations. As a result, companies are constantly seeking ways to innovate and transform their operations to remain competitive in the market. One way to achieve this is through digital transformation, which involves the integration of digital technologies into all aspects of a business, from customer service to supply chain management.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the top Salesforce integration strategies that can help you improve your business processes. By following these strategies, you can ensure that your Salesforce integration efforts are aligned with your business objectives and provide a seamless customer experience. So, let’s dive in and discover how integrating Salesforce can take your business processes to the next level.

Identify Your Integration Needs

Before you start integrating Salesforce with other systems, you need to identify your integration needs. This involves understanding which systems and tools your business uses, which data needs to be shared between systems, and which business processes will be improved by integration.

Some common integration scenarios include integrating Salesforce with marketing automation tools, ERP/accounting software, and customer service tools. By identifying your integration needs, you can develop a roadmap for integrating Salesforce with other systems and prioritize your integration initiatives.

Use Salesforce APIs

Salesforce provides a robust set of APIs that make it easy to integrate with other systems and applications. The Salesforce APIs allow developers to access and manipulate Salesforce data from external systems and build custom integrations that meet their specific business needs.

Using Salesforce APIs, you can integrate Salesforce with other systems in real-time, automate data transfer between systems, and improve the accuracy of your data. Additionally, Salesforce APIs provide secure access to your data, ensuring that your sensitive customer information is protected.

Leverage Integration Platforms

Integration platforms are powerful tools that can help you integrate Salesforce with other systems quickly and easily. Integration platforms like Zapier, Jitterbit, and Dell Boomi provide pre-built connectors and workflows that make it easy to integrate Salesforce with popular business tools like Slack, MailChimp, and QuickBooks.

Using an integration platform can save your business time and resources by simplifying the integration process and reducing the need for custom development. Additionally, integration platforms provide a unified view of your data, making it easier to identify trends and make informed business decisions.

Implement Single Sign-On (SSO)

Implementing single sign-on (SSO) can help improve the security of your Salesforce integration and simplify the user experience for your employees. SSO allows users to access multiple systems using a single set of login credentials, reducing the need for multiple usernames and passwords.

Implementing SSO with Salesforce can improve the security of your integration by ensuring that users are authenticated and authorized before accessing your Salesforce data. Additionally, SSO can improve the user experience by simplifying the login process and reducing the need for password resets.

Use Data Integration Tools

Data integration tools like MuleSoft and Informatica can help you integrate Salesforce with other systems while ensuring that your data is accurate and up-to-date. These tools provide a range of features, including data mapping, data cleansing, and data synchronization, that can help you improve the quality of your data and simplify your integration process.

Using data integration tools can save your business time and resources by automating data transfer between systems and reducing the need for manual data entry. Additionally, data integration tools provide a unified view of your data, making it easier to identify trends and make informed business decisions.

Establish Integration Governance

To ensure the success of your Salesforce integration, it’s essential to establish integration governance. Integration governance involves defining policies and procedures for managing your integration initiatives and ensuring that your integration efforts align with your business objectives.

Establishing integration governance can help you mitigate integration risks, ensure the security of your data, and ensure that your integration initiatives are aligned with your business strategy. Additionally, integration governance can help you measure the effectiveness of your integration initiatives and identify areas for improvement.

In conclusion, integrating Salesforce with your other business processes can greatly improve efficiency, streamline operations, and provide a more comprehensive view of your customer interactions. There are several integration strategies that you can utilize to achieve these benefits, including API integration, middleware solutions, and native Salesforce integrations.

At Vertex, we specialize in helping businesses optimize their Salesforce integrations and improve their overall business processes. Our team of experts can work with you to identify your specific needs and goals and develop customized integration solutions tailored to your unique requirements.

By leveraging Vertex’s expertise in Salesforce integration, you can benefit from improved efficiency, better visibility into your customer interactions, and a more comprehensive understanding of your business operations. Whether you’re looking to integrate your Salesforce with your marketing automation platform, financial systems, or other business applications, Vertex has the tools and expertise to help you succeed.

Don’t let siloed data and inefficient processes hold your business back. Contact Vertex today to learn more about how our Salesforce integration solutions can help you achieve greater efficiency, improve visibility, and drive growth.

Salesforce vs other CRMs: Why choose Salesforce?

Posted on by Sudip Nandy

When it comes to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, there are many options available in the market. However, for the last twelve consecutive years, Salesforce stands out as the leading ‘CRM’ solution for businesses of all sizes. In this blog post, we will explore just some of the reasons why Salesforce is the superior choice compared to other CRMs available in the market.

1. Cloud-Based, Real-Time Platform:

Salesforce is a Real-Time, cloud-based platform and not just a CRM, which means that it is accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. This makes it easy for businesses to collaborate and work together, no matter where they are located. Additionally, because Salesforce is hosted on the cloud, businesses do not have to worry about investing in expensive server hardware or database software. This makes Salesforce a cost-effective solution for businesses of all sizes.

2. Configurable Platform:

One of the key advantages of Salesforce over other CRMs is its highly configurable – and customizable — platform. With Salesforce, you can tailor your CRM to meet your specific needs, requirements, and shared data integrations. This level of customization ensures that you have a CRM that is perfectly suited to your unique needs and business processes, and, as processes change over time, Salesforce can be updated and optimized as well.

In addition to these customization options, Salesforce also offers a range of pre-built applications and tools that you can use to enhance your CRM. These applications and tools are designed to be easy to install and use, and they can help you automate key processes, streamline workflows, and improve overall efficiency.

3. Configurable Platform:

Another key advantage of Salesforce is its comprehensive set of features. Salesforce offers a wide range of features and tools that cover all aspects of your business, from sales and marketing to customer service and support.

Some of the key features that set Salesforce apart from other CRMs include:

  • Lead and opportunity management: With Salesforce, you can easily track and manage leads and opportunities throughout the sales cycle. This ensures that your sales team is always up-to-date and that they are focusing on the right opportunities at the right time.
  • Sales Forecasting: Salesforce offers a range of forecasting tools that can help you predict future sales trends, quota attainment, and make more accurate revenue projections.
  • Analytics: With Salesforce’s powerful analytics tools, you can gain deep insights into your business performance, identify trends and patterns, and make data-driven decisions.
  • Marketing Automation: Salesforce offers a range of marketing automation tools that can help you streamline your marketing processes, create personalized campaigns, and improve overall ROI.
  • Customer Service Management: Salesforce’s customer service management tools allow you to track customer issues and requests, manage cases, and provide timely and effective support to your customers leading to higher CSAT scores.
  • AppExchange: As the Industry leading Sales and Service Automation software application, Salesforce integration and support is the primary objective of most developers. By visiting the Salesforce AppExchange (https://appexchange.salesforce.com), you can typically find multiple solutions for consideration – some even offered at no cost.

These features, along with many others, make Salesforce a comprehensive and powerful CRM platform that can help you manage all aspects of your business from a single platform.

4. Device Independent:

While each Salesforce user requires a suitable license, that same, single license allows that user to access the Salesforce cloud from desktop, laptop, phone, or tablet simultaneously!

5. Scalable Solution:

As a business grows, its needs change. With Salesforce, businesses can easily scale their operations up or down to meet their changing needs. This makes Salesforce a great solution for businesses of all sizes, from start-ups to large enterprises.

In conclusion, Salesforce stands out among other CRM systems for its customizable platform, comprehensive features, cloud-based architecture, and scalability. It offers a wide range of tools and functionalities that can help businesses of all sizes improve their sales processes, enhance customer engagement, and drive growth.

However, choosing the right CRM system for your business requires careful consideration of your unique needs and goals. That’s where Vertex comes in. We have extensive experience in helping businesses identify their requirements and select the right CRM system to meet their needs.

Our team of experts can work with you to assess your business needs, evaluate the available CRM systems, and provide you with a customized solution that fits your specific requirements. We can also provide ongoing support and training to ensure that you get the most out of your CRM system.

So, if you’re considering Salesforce or any other CRM system, let Vertex help you make an informed decision. Contact us today to learn more about how our CRM solutions can help you improve your sales processes, enhance customer engagement, and drive growth.

Using Salesforce to Drive your Manufacturing Growth

Posted on by Sudip Nandy

You may already think of Salesforce as a powerful Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) application, but it can also help manufacturers to identify, prospect and track opportunities, customers, and cases to drive revenue and growth opportunities. Manufacturers who take advantage of the full breadth of Salesforce’s functionality realize improved revenues and growth margins – all while lowering their SG&A and Operations Costs.

How Can You Improve Your Revenue?

Vertex Computer Systems has helped manufacturers conduct B2B marketing campaigns that expand their ability to understand and respect their customers and ultimately contribute to the continued success of those valued partners. Similarly, Salesforce Sales Cloud can be utilized to attract and engage new customers before, during, and after the sale. If you’re serious about keeping track of your customers at every stage, Vertex has the Salesforce expertise to help you leverage customer relationships to grow sales and improve customer satisfaction.

Because Salesforce provides a true 360° view of the customer, manufacturers can get a clearer understanding of customer needs as well as their journeys through the sales process. Would you like to shorten the cycle from prospect to sale? Salesforce provides standard and custom pricing solution options to help manufacturers accelerate deals. The Partner Portal’s Community Cloud can also enhance collaboration with a manufacturer’s business partners for greater efficiency.

Key Salesforce Features That Help Manufacturers Grow Sales Revenue

  • B2B marketing campaigns
  • Lead scoring and automated assignments
  • Lead-to-Cash process optimization
  • Custom pricing solutions to accelerate deals and maximize gross margins
  • Partner Portal access via Partner Community for maximum collaboration
  • Streamlined/automated customer service experience
  • True 360° view of the customer providing revenues, returns, support costs, et al

The other side of the profitability equation involves the standardization, optimization, and automation of processes. If you’re interested in lowering your SG&A and operations costs, Salesforce can help. Did you know you can eliminate manual spreadsheets, replacing them with real-time processing, reporting, and alerts? Salesforce provides your Manufacturing team instant access to the same up-to-date detailed information. That’s just one way of many that Salesforce enhances operations.

Key Salesforce Features That lower SG&A and Operations Costs

  • Eliminating manual spreadsheets with real-time processing, reporting, and alerts
  • Demand Forecasting – both revenues and units
  • Contract management
  • Simplified order processing/ERP integration
  • MS Outlook/Gmail integration
  • Reduced customer service and support costs
  • Integrated, automated, and streamlined credit checking

If you want to leverage Salesforce to quickly move the needle for your manufacturing firm, give Vertex a call. You won’t be disappointed.

Do You Have More Salesforce Licenses and Products Than You Need? 

Posted on by Sudip Nandy

Let Our Salesforce Experts Audit Your Organization and Find Cost Savings

When Salesforce started out back in 1999, it was purely a cloud-based CRM, offering customers little more than the ability to manage their Accounts, Contacts Opportunities, and Forecasts. Today Salesforce is the biggest SAAS platform in the world, offering multiple editions and more than ten different license types and SKUs, leading to 100s of permutations and combinations.

While the basics of Sales Cloud licenses for managing your sales pipeline remain unchanged, there are more nuances when it comes to picking the right edition, license types, and mix of products that align with your company’s Salesforce vision. For instance, not all your employees may need a full Sales Cloud license, and a Service Cloud or a Lightning Platform License may be more suited for them. Similarly, choosing the right Experience Cloud License for your Customers and Partners could save you thousands of dollars, annually. These savings can be used for further accelerating your Sales and Marketing strategies by purchasing High Velocity Sales licenses for your inside Sales team, or Pardot for B2B Marketing.

Choosing the wrong licenses and products can greatly decrease the ROI on your Salesforce investment.  We often see customers come to us a few months or years into their Salesforce journey, complaining about the poor ROI from Salesforce. And often, we see the use of improper or underutilized licenses being the biggest culprit.

SMBs using Salesforce report an average of 26% more deals and 32% more leads. The journey to achieve those metrics starts by identifying the right licenses and products for your organization’s Salesforce journey. Unless you have the expertise in-house, teaming up with the right Salesforce Partner, at inception, to help define the roadmap and the right combination of licenses and products is the best way to maximize your Salesforce ROI.

Do you feel that you’re not getting the highest return on investment from your Salesforce system? If not, your organization may benefit from a License and Product audit by the team of Salesforce experts at Vertex Computer Systems. Contact us today!

An Overview of Salesforce Security & Compliance Measures

Posted on by Sudip Nandy

Salesforce has rightfully earned and held on to the title of the “World’s #1 CRM Platform” by going to great lengths to enable their customers to access to their data across all devices, all while ensuring the data is protected from unauthorized access. As the adage goes, “Security is only as strong or weak as the weakest link in the chain.” Salesforce, from its early days, recognized its part in its customers’ security chain and has taken all measures possible to protect customer data at every layer of the OSI model. They also offer powerful and flexible tools to their customers to secure their data exactly the way they want. Let’s look at the tools in each of these categories.

Infrastructure

  • Salesforce’s office sites, development centers, support, and data centers are secured by state-of-the-art technologies and are ISO 270001, ISO 27017, and ISO 27018 certified by an independent party.
  • Salesforce hosts multiple tenants on the same shared set of resources. Tenants are completely isolated from each other via an “Organization ID”.
  • In addition, the platform is HIPAA, FedRAMP, and GDPR compliant. A full list of Salesforce’s certifications may be found here.
  • These security measures are entirely under the control of Salesforce and have been made available to the general public for informational purposes alone. The ones below are more important to the Salesforce customer and require careful review, planning, and execution.

Encryption

  • All data is encrypted using TLS 1.2 the moment it leaves the user’s browser or mobile device. Data is always encrypted as it moves around within Salesforce’s own networks.
  • Salesforce offers the ability to encrypt data in sensitive fields at no extra cost, so they may only be accessed by authorized users
  • For an additional cost, customers may purchase Salesforce Shield, which encrypts all customer data, at rest.

Real-time Monitoring

  • Salesforce offers event monitoring at an additional cost for Enhanced Transaction Security and Threat Detection.
    • Enhanced Transaction Security offers customers the ability to define policies around sensitive operations such as login, API access, and reporting.
    • Threat Detection alerts customers in real-time to unauthorized access from session hijacking, credential Stuffing and other anomalies

Authorization

  • Salesforce offers a myriad of ways for customers to log in, ranging from traditional password-based logins to SAML or OAuth-based SSO.
  • In addition, users also have the option of a wide range of two-factor authentication mechanisms. The simplest one (which all users are enrolled in, by default) is through an activation code emailed to the user. Other options include text messages to the user’s registered phone, Salesforce Authenticator App, or a physical security key.

Application Security

  • The final and the most important piece of the security chain, from a customer’s perspective, are the security configuration options in the Salesforce app itself.
    • System and Object access levels
      • Profiles control Create, Read, Delete and Edit access to objects as well as access to fields. They also dictate the scope of what the user can do on the platform.
      • Permission Sets allow additional permissions to be added to the ones provided to a user by their Profile.
      • Permission Set Groups are a recent addition to the platform that allows grouping multiple Permission Sets together. They have been introduced to simplify the metadata representation of a user’s access levels and are projected to make Profiles less relevant soon.
    • Data access levels
      • For a user having at least Read access to an Object, access to individual records is controlled by a combination of Org-Wide Defaults, the User’s Role, the Object’s Sharing Rules, and Record Ownership. In addition, there are features like Sharing Sets, Queue Membership, Enterprise Territory Management, Manual Sharing, and Account/Sales and Case Teams that can provide a user access to certain records.
    • Process execution contexts
      • Custom Screens and Automations designed on the Platform using Code or Flows may be run under the System Context or User Context. It requires careful planning and execution on the part of an admin or developer to ensure these processes always run with the least privileges necessary and don’t turn into attack surfaces, or inadvertently expose sensitive customer information

The features listed above are merely an overview. There are many intricacies to configuring and fine-tuning data security in Salesforce. Although most small-to-midsize customers start out with an “open” model, where access to data is pretty much unrestricted to all users, the approach may not be suited to all customers and can quickly prove inadequate as the user list starts growing.

Careful planning and execution, driven by an experienced Salesforce Consultant or Administrator can end up saving you a lot of time and money as you start to scale usage of the Platform. At the same time, a lack of proper planning and improper implementation can end up costing you time, money, and customer goodwill.

Vertex Computer Systems is a trusted Salesforce Solutions Provider with specializations in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Business Process Automation & Transformation. If you would like to schedule a Salesforce security audit or just learn more about Salesforce security, please contact us.

Four Common Reasons for Failed Salesforce Implementations and How to Avoid Them

Posted on by Suraj Pillai

Limitless Potential or Expensive Headache? Make the Most of your Salesforce Implementation to Avoid Pitfalls.

As customer relationship management (CRM) tools go, Salesforce is the Cadillac of systems. It empowers organizations to retrieve vast and deep pools of customer information. Users can easily view and act on individual accounts, contacts, tasks, opportunities, leads, and events. With detailed customer data and robust planning and collaboration tools, you instantly gain efficiency and productivity. So, why do so many organizations often experience an enthusiastic start with Salesforce only to be disappointed after several months of use?

Here are four reasons that lead to Salesforce fatigue or outright disillusionment – along with how to avoid them.

Lack of Vision, Planning & Communication

If you purchase Salesforce only because every other successful business is using it, and roll it out to your Sales teams, you’re not going to get much value. Before you jump in, ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish.

A successful Salesforce implementation requires a clear vision, definition of goals, careful planning, road mapping, and a well-thought-out communication plan for your teams. Only then will the execution work. In fact, insufficient and incorrect communication is the number-one reason we see Salesforce implementations fail. Without a well-defined vision, it would be impossible to carve out a roadmap and without a roadmap, you’re pretty much guaranteed to fail in your Salesforce journey.

Inexperienced Admins

Often, we see customers, especially those in the nonprofit world, dive head-first into configuring their Salesforce instance after reading a few blogs or tutorials. While this may work in the short-term, and with smaller teams, it’s ultimately not scalable. As your business and team grows, Salesforce will morph into its own bottleneck. While the platform itself is built to serve businesses at scale (almost all Fortune 100 companies use Salesforce), it takes an experienced admin or solution architect to avoid common pitfalls. To avoid this problem, either invest in the necessary training for your in-house resource or work with a qualified architect who understands how to configure your instance, considering how your needs will change over time as your organization grows.

Improper Schema

One of the biggest strengths of Salesforce is the ease with which it allows you to define new objects and fields to hold your data. A few clicks makes it available to everyone on your team. However, in the wrong hands, this can be disastrous. We have seen inexperienced admins go trigger-happy, adding new fields and objects with very little thought. This results in hitting all kinds of platform limits, frustratingly long data input forms, bad and insufficient reporting, and poor user adoption and satisfaction. In worst-case scenarios, it can prevent your business from scaling altogether. As I’ve mentioned previously, clear planning and knowledgeable admins will prevent the creation of improper schema and associated problems.

Automations

Salesforce prides itself on being the market leader in Sales Automation for fourteen years in a row. It offers multiple options when it comes to automating data enrichment and processes, each with its own pros and cons. However, being a multi-tenant platform, Salesforce enforces strict governor limits regarding the utilization of resources in each transaction. Consequently, poorly designed automations can hit these governor limits once your data and/or processes reach a certain scale. In worst-case scenarios, this can happen without warning and could bring your business to a standstill.

In fact, automations hitting governor limits is the single biggest problem that growing organizations struggle with, in Vertex’s experience. Fixing the problem after it happens costs more and takes longer than setting it up correctly in the first place. In some cases, backward engineering never fully alleviates the risks and issues. Identifying the right automations and designing them the right way, technically and architecturally, right from the beginning, is the cornerstone to Salesforce success.

Questions?

With the right planning, properly trained users, and an understanding of how data will be used and configured, Salesforce can transform your organization. Vertex is a trusted Salesforce solutions provider to manufacturers, suppliers, nonprofits and other industries. If you would like to discuss how a Salesforce CRM system can propel your organization to new heights, give me a call.

Can You Afford to Not Invest in a Well-Implemented CRM?

Posted on by Rodrigo Fernandes

When business executives question Sales & Marketing professionals on investing in IT solutions for sales automation and process standardization, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. Yes, these tools provide insights into customer behavior, but that’s only the beginning.

The main point shouldn’t be on how this investment will provide the expected ROI or how long the process can take. Rather, the more comprehensive view should be on what the negative impact will be if the investment isn’t made. What will the long-term lost opportunity be?

Put your customer in the center of every decision. Creating products and services aligned with the company’s vision and values is essential to ensure excellence in customer satisfaction while building your brand recognition. Nowadays, customers are used to searching for a new provider or a unique solution and are apt to do a background check about your quality of services or deliverables. Testimonials, positive references, or referrals have never been as essential in continuing to attract new customers and keeping the ball rolling.

Salesforce CRM

You need the right tools to ensure the best future options. Your marketing and communication must be clear, direct, and transparent. Your prospects will consume content through the most convenient channels. A well-configured and well-designed CRM tool with adherent business processes can be the foundation technology to ensure the correct information flow throughout your organization.

At the same time, you’ll also be compiling your data into a single version of the truth. Why not work to remove the silos between the departments, standardize data format, and follow the steps to get internal approvals and check the business policies?

Growing businesses can’t afford not to invest in a well-implemented CRM.

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