Two arguments for a single-org strategy and one for multi-org

It was a general catchup meeting with a stakeholder, we discussed about the health of their salesforce, about how different teams are doing and then the stakeholder mentioned something that made my ears standup, "We have audited our instances and turns out we have 5 Salesforce Org, what do you think is ideal?"

A deep breath. This question has come up more than once: the bigger the organization, the more complex the question gets; we discussed the health of their salesforce and how different teams are doing, and then the stakeholder mentioned something that made my ears stand, "We have audited our instances and it.

Many years ago, I was asked to look into an client with close to 8 Salesforce instances. One was just there to work on Ncino, and the rest were customized by different regions according to their needs. But when we analyzed the business model of all the regions, they were doing the exact same thing with different configurations.

So, that becomes the first argument for having a single organization across multiple regions and business units.

1. If your company aims to streamline processes and coordinate among different business units, consider using a single-org approach.

Each salesforce org is expensive, and the money increases exponentially as the number of users grow.

In a single-org structure, as multiple business units join a single organization, the complexity of maintaining the organization increases. In this case, there has to be a Global Center of Excellence and a governance body responsible for setting up guardrails in the organization.

However, if planned for the start, when the project is greenfield, there are guardrails set for multiple business units on how to use the objects, set up naming conventions and prepare to dedicate some time cleaning up tech debt, the org can be used for better. This approach needs additional time and effort to prepare the org to accommodate multiple business lines. This is a architecturally significant decision and the right way to do it.

2. Would it be more cost-effective to have a multi-org or put in additional effort to set up a COE for multiple business lines and regions?

Having multi-org will mean having costs multiplied across different orgs. All of them will need maintaining and teams to manage. Every enterprise company has a integration strategy, what will be the integration strategy for different salesforce data? What about master-data-management, if there are systems that manage master-data, will that data be replicated across the different orgs. Who handles conflicts in data?

You will also have to think about the different users who will need separate licensing for different orgs.

3. If you have independent business units with individual budgets that do not rely on each other, does it make sense to manage their own Salesforce instance?

Managing separate Salesforce orgs for independent business units with individual budgets can be a good idea. This approach can provide each unit with more control over their processes and data management. It can also help to prevent data overlap and confusion between different departments. However, weighing the costs of managing multiple instances against the benefits of having separate orgs is essential. Additionally, it is crucial to ensure that the data can be easily shared across instances, if necessary, to maintain a cohesive view of the customer across the organization. Ultimately, the decision to manage separate Salesforce instances should be based on each business unit's specific needs and goals.

Other factors to consider include budgets, timelines, and regulatory requirements to use multiple Salesforce orgs; however, those factors are not architecturally significant but more process-driven

We looked deep into the client org and realized that out of the 8, they could get rid of three of their salesforce instance and port their existing code and logic into one- master instance. Its been three years now and last I heard, they are down to three saving them a lot of money and not replicating their process.

What has your experience been managing multiple Salesforce instances for different business units, and how has it impacted your organization's processes and costs? Are you baffled by the expensive consultants who throw tech jargon your way? Drop me a note; maybe I can help.

TL;DR: Chat GPT generated summary:

The article discusses the pros and cons of using a single Salesforce org versus multiple orgs for different business units. The decision should be based on specific needs and goals of each business unit, budgets, timelines, and regulatory requirements. Ultimately, it is essential to weigh the costs of managing multiple instances against the benefits of having separate orgs. The article concludes by stating that deep analysis of the client org can help to reduce the number of Salesforce instances and save money while improving processes.