Salesforce Implementation Resources Comparison Matrix

Want to implement Salesforce, but don't know where to find resources who can help you? The goal of this article is to analyse the various Salesforce resources available in the Australia market, and to help you identify and select what resources are the best to suit your business needs. This guide is created based on 10+ years of Salesforce implementation experiences with common sense, it does not cover 100% real-world cases. I hope you find it is interesting to read.

There are normally 7 types of resources you can find in the Australia market. For local resources, we have internal employee, contractor/freelancer, consulting partner, managed service provider, recruiter; For offshore resources, we have individuals and business. Each type has its own strength and weakness which will be weighted into the following 6 areas:

1. Cost: how much you need to pay. Let’s say hourly or daily.
2. Engagement Flexibility: being able to accept short engagement; ready to work with very short notice; take various types of work: development, BA, PM, training...
3. Service Guarantee: guarantee the scope and quality of service (exclude employees, most of contractor/freelancer does not provide a guarantee as well)
4. Communication: how easy to communicate. Local and onsite are always better than remote.
5. Stability: how easy it is for the resource to withdraw or stop the engagement unexpectedly. Business is better than individual on this one.
6. Scalability: how easy it is to increase or decrease the number of resources needed. This one does not apply to the individuals.

Based on your specific circumstance, you can decide which resources is the best suit your needs based on the points they have in each area. For examples:

1. If you have a very limited budget, then consider offshore resources. Offshore individual resources have the highest point 5 in the Cost area, but some people may struggle to communicate with them remotely (Communication is 1)
2. If your implementation is complex and needs long term support, then engage a partner or managed service provider, as they have the highest point in Engagement Flexibility and Stability
3. If your Salesforce is a mission-critical system for your business, hiring only one employee or contractor looks after the Salesforce can be risky when he/she is not available or leaves as individuals’ Stability has the lowest point 1. Furthermore, the off-shore individual tends to stay longer with the customer compare with local individual resources (Stability 2 V.S 1), this is caused by high demand in Australia local market, therefore local individuals tend to change jobs more often than offer-shore individuals.
4. If you do not have constant needs for having a long term full-time resource, and only want to engage someone when a problem comes out, then Managed Service Provider can be a good choice as they can provide on-demand & short engagement (Engagement Flexibility is 5)