Tips to help SMB's improve Salesforce ROI

As Canadians we are all seeing US dollar purchases increasing by an eye-watering 30%. Now is a good time to revisit CRM’s to make sure we are recouping our investment. We can achieve this with CRM’s increasing sales reach or providing cost efficiencies. My articles cover practical and actual improvements I have made for my clients. The first one in this series covers synchronisation with existing systems. So read on to get some ideas for boosting your Salesforce return on investment (ROI)!

Background:
There is increasing demand for extending Salesforce by means of Customization and Integration with external systems both in the Cloud and On-Premise. The following scenarios are typical for SMB Clients that need to get more out of an existing Salesforce implementation as well as leveraging other systems vital to running an efficient and cost effective business.

Problem:
As data is entered or changed in Salesforce it needs to be synchronized with other existing systems or manual business processes.   

Solution:
I started by defining the exact data elements that needed to be synchronized (i.e. the API) along with the available protocols (e.g. REST, SOAP, Email). Then I determined which systems or manual business processes needed to be updated together and the required frequency. After completing these steps, I set about creating the high-level design with the developers and architects supporting the existing salesforce and external systems, and worked with other resources that handled the manual processes. Finally we proceeded towards a rapid development and testing cycle by means of the Agile methodology.

In summary the integration consisted of several RESTful API services implemented in Salesforce as well as Flows and Trigger callouts to external systems. Some data change communication out to the manual business processes was initially handled by means of triggering emails to the process owner since automation was not such a priority for these areas.

Advantage:
With the new solution in place clients were able to enter and manage their data in Salesforce and existing systems but have information seamlessly available across the organization. This increased efficiencies and reduced costs across the company.

Summary:
By customizing Salesforce and integrating with both existing systems and manual business processes vital information was available to the whole organization in a consistent and timely manner.

Business in the Cloud

About the Author: Steven Reece, PhD is the Lead Cloud Architect at Lucrodyne and has over 20 years’ experience in both Government, Large Enterprises and SME’s in Canada, US and the UK.