- Views: 7
- Report Article
- Articles
- Computers
- Software
Getting The Most Out of Salesforce Applications
by Michael Wade
Posted: Nov 28, 2017
Posted: Nov 28, 2017
Building a business on cloud power is more than just accessing new systems. In order to derive the maximum out of Salesforce, it is important to understand how the workforce and the business can benefit together. According to experts, deploying CRM strategies results in 25% higher ROI. In order to harness the full potential of Salesforce, there are some best practices that can be followed as per experts.
- Making the Homepage a one stop shop: It is better to keep the Homepage simple and easy to use. Important links, commonly used information and dashboard links can be put on the initial screen in order to help the user.
- Use the Salesforce.com social tools to foster collaboration: Use Chatter to crowd source ideas and solutions. Its feeds are searchable, which provides valuable knowledge. Make sure C-level executives are on Chatter, where everyone likes to listen to everyone. Chatter also helps to eliminate the endless email chains, which are generally very hard to follow.
- Support a multi-device mobile strategy: Productivity can be improved by making the required information available to the client when they need it. Mobile is the most critical device in this aspect. It ensures that people are getting the key information in their hands. Salesforce Mobile gives users the access to the SFDC information, irrespective of the availability of the wireless coverage. Here, opportunities can be updated, activities can be checked and calls via mobile can be made.
- Implement a user training strategy: Regularly training the users promotes standardized processes, which ensures that everyone is using the tool the same way. This helps to increase the ROI with productive new hires.
- Strive for Continuous Improvement: Business evolves every day. So should the way Salesforce is used. Setting up periodic assessments help to re-examine and realign the application with the business strategy. This also helps to keep the application fresh and reduces the maintenance costs.
- Review your Salesforce.com organization against new functionality: As new releases occur, new functionalities help to reduce the need for customizations and accelerates potential improvements. This also helps to keep the application up-to-date and reduce maintenance costs.
- Reduce manual efforts through automation efforts: Allowing user to focus on activities that matter the most helps to save significant amount of time. Automating the workflows and frequently used tasks allows to establish a consistent process. This alternatively helps to reduce costs by eliminating manual data entry.
- Bring in other functional groups onto the platform: Collaboration between related groups can be improved by sharing the same data. Elimination of redundant data and software systems also helps to reduce maintenance costs and various other data and system integrity related issues.
- Enrich and improve the data: Failing to remove duplicate data can lead to forecasting errors which could lead to manufacturing products more or less than actually required. Augmenting data can help in identifying new opportunities. Removing duplicate data and reducing reporting issues can increase user confidence in the system.
- Integrate the key systems with Salesforce.com: Tying systems together can extend the value of data. Providing users with key organizational data can help reduce errors by eliminating manual data sharing.
Conclusion
Implementing Salesforce.com is only the beginning. The users in the organization need to believe in the system and take the ownership of the company values.Michael works for Cigniti Technologies, which is the world's first Independent Software Testing Company to be appraised at CMMI-SVC Level 5, and an ISO 9001:2008 & ISO 27001:2013 certified organization.