Salesforce

Today, Salesforce is the world's no 1 CRM platform, and for good reason too. Companies all around the globe are moving their business applications to the cloud and the world’s no1 CRM platform provides the power, flexibility, and intelligence that businesses need to drive productivity, efficiency, and growth. Salesforce not only eliminates the erstwhile need for maintaining expensive development and support teams but also the cost of outages due to failure at the hardware, software, or application level. And while there are thousands of organizations (whether for profit or not) who have benefited immensely from the deployment of Salesforce apps, the reality is that a high percentage of them are not getting the most out of the CRM platform. In fact, a substantial number of these projects fail. Having said that, there is one thing that all the successful ones did right. And that was choosing the right Salesforce Consulting Partner. And this is precisely what we are going to assist you with today. How do you get maximum value out of your investment into Salesforce? How do you choose the best Salesforce Consultant? And how good a fit is that choice of partner for your business? With hundreds of partners listed on AppExchange, how do you decide which one is perfect for you? These questions and many more are at top of the minds of all new adopters of the world’s no1 CRM platform. Our teams of experts have shortlisted top 8 qualifiers that will answer these questions for you and guide you on how to choose the right partner for your business. Identify needs and expectations – Let’s get one thing straight. Before looking for someone to solve your problem, you need to very clearly identify what that problem is. And once you have done that, you need to set your expectations. Identify very clearly the support goals you want to fulfill and what qualities you are seeking from your partner. Very clearly spell out the key variables – budget, results, scope, and timelines. Collaborate with your teams. There is no point in implementing a new solution if your teams are not inclined to use it and or they haven’t been involved in the whole decision-making process. Once you have your needs and expectations worked out, and your teams on-boarded, start looking. Experience – This is the most important criteria for shortlisting a prospective partner. After all, you are expecting them to re-invent your business, or at least a part of it. Find out if they have a great experience not only in the salesforce domain but have they worked with customers like you. From your industry. Solving problems and challenges like the ones you currently have. Are they Gold Partners? How long have they had a dedicated salesforce practice? How have they grown? What size are they today? Understand their journey as a Salesforce Consultant. Reviews and Feedback – A partner is doing great work if their customers are saying great things about them. There is no greater testament to success than genuine customer feedback. Salesforce AppExchange is a great place to find such reviews on prospective partners. Besides reviews, you will also get to know many other important aspects about the company like key people, experience, certifications, areas of expertise, awards, etc.  Implementation Methodology   Implementation Methodology – When you are looking to work with a Salesforce Consultant, it is important you understand the consultant’s implementation approach. Look up their website, go through white papers and case studies and understand how they approach the problem.  Choose a partner who adopts a collaborative approach with customers and is not afraid to get creative with them. Ask them specifics like what tools they use, their familiarity with the latest updates in the salesforce platform. What training approach do they adopt? And very important- What is their collaborative review and iterate methodology? Do they have a Customer-Centric Culture? Involve your key team members and request a demo of their experience and approach. Support – Like any other software, Salesforce implementation is not a one-time affair. Businesses evolve, and particularly in today's context, they are ever so dynamic. Software needs to keep up with these changing times. And your Salesforce Implementation Partner needs to stay on top of all updates. Before you sign on a Salesforce Consultant, discuss with them about how will they support your business post implementation? Your business needs a partner that can support you 24/7. Someone who treats your business like his/her own. Understand how they are providing post-implementation support to their existing customers. Ask them to share case studies. Make sure they don’t prioritize larger projects over yours. Work with someone who has a Salesforce Managed Support Program as part of their implementation methodology. Pricing Ensure that you have a clear understanding of their pricing structure. Ask them questions like What are the charges for understanding your needs and recommending a solution and designing an appropriate implementation strategy? Do your hourly rates include all charges or are there separate charges /extra fees on top of that? What are the itemized support fees? What is the fee structure for the different consultants deployed on the project? Or is it a blended tariff? Make sure the overall pricing fits into your budget and keep sufficient margins for spillovers. Passion This is a little hard to come by and perhaps even harder to quantify, but it’s important. You want your Salesforce Consultant to treat your business like their own. You want them to work in close collaboration with your teams to work towards achieving common goals. After all, once you sign up, you are all on the same side of the table. Make sure the partner is passionate about technology and believes strongly in its ability to drive performance, productivity, and growth. In short, they must see your success as their own. Location Borders are almost non-existent in the digital landscape today, especially so in today’s context where physical business meet-ups are the last resort. The world has moved to online collaboration across continents. However, providence may be in working with a Salesforce Consulting Partner that is geographically close to you. Not only will this eliminate the challenges of communicating across time zones, but it will give you the opportunity to work more closely with the consulting team. Once you have identified the right partner, work on developing a long-term engagement strategy. Collaborate actively involving your teams to exchange creative ideas and unique experiences you both have. Talk about what direction you want the business to take. Like in any other relationship, trust your partner to identify risks, establish possibilities, and envision potential. At Girikon, we strongly believe that technology is a very potent driver for growth. Using the tools and features available to us through the Salesforce platform, we can help your teams transform not only the way you manage your business but also the way you look at it.

The retail sector is figuring out new ways to stay at the top. Given the rise in online sales and digital buyers, retailers require introducing robust digital solutions that can help eCommerce businesses gain an edge over their competitors. One such solution that is tailored to meet the specific needs of online retailers is the Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Companies should consider leveraging Salesforce Integration services. What is Salesforce Commerce Cloud?  Salesforce Commerce Cloud, earlier known as Demandware, is an eCommerce solution that was designed to help retailers provide a unique shopping experience to users irrespective of the channel they are using. The robust solution offers rich features to help retailers better engage with shoppers and ultimately convert them.  What are the Key Solutions Offered by Salesforce Commerce Cloud? Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers numerous solutions that are customizable as businesses can pick functionalities and services to suit their specific business needs:  B2C Commerce: This solution is designed to transform the digital shopping experience for customers across different channels. Its primary purpose is to engage the brand and the shoppers irrespective of which channel they purchase from. This functionality covers everything from handling order lifecycle, creating marketing campaigns and customer-oriented promotions. These solutions help organizations improve their customer support teams, augment the rate of customer satisfaction, personalize customer experience while providing them with relevant information before and after they have made the purchase. B2C commerce cloud utilizes AI technology to predict customer behavior and provide recommendations to help clients find the products they are looking for.   B2B Commerce: Capturing the attention of business buyers might be difficult. B2B commerce is a solution to meet the complex needs of customers while entering the market spread across various industries. B2B commerce helps businesses respond to the growing competition and constantly evolving requirements while introducing innovation in their business operations. The robust solution provides buyers with a self-serving buying experience while simplifying online shopping by automating invoicing, billing, and reordering operations. Order Management: The key to online sales success is proper order management. Organizations can leverage Salesforce Order Management solutions to automate multiple operations related to the management of inventory, fulfilment of orders, payments, etc. Besides this, the solution also covers challenges related to return and refund policies allowing customers to feel more comfortable while shopping online. Benefits Offered by Salesforce Commerce Cloud:  Predict Customer Behaviour: Salesforce CRM with AI integrated within it and known as Salesforce Einstein eliminates the need to analyze data gathered manually. It does away with the need for third-party integration. The AI-powered CRM also predicts customer behavior, recommends personalized product offers, and automates repetitive tasks to save time and money. Providing customers with special offers, loyalty programs, and discounts makes it possible to enhance their overall experience. Improved Marketing Management: When combined with the marketing cloud, the Salesforce commerce cloud solution allows marketers to create promotion and marketing campaigns to create more clients. The cloud solution can manage everything from social media campaigns, paid promotions, email marketing, and reporting. Apart from this, another benefit of using this tool is the ability to run A/B tests to optimize conversions. Mobile Experience: To sustain this competitive business landscape, retailers require a mobile-friendly website with an intuitive design. With Commerce Cloud, marketers can deliver the best possible shopping experience for mobile customers irrespective of the device they use. Commerce Cloud follows a mobile-first approach to allow its users to access features anywhere and anytime.  Scalability and Customization: For businesses looking to venture into new markets or have attained a certain level of growth when they need to scale up their resources, Commerce Cloud offers customizable and scalable solutions. Businesses can start with essential features and allow more functionality on the go. It means that companies will have to pay only for answers that they need without including any useless features. Final Words:  Solutions offered by Salesforce empower businesses of all sizes to expand and meet the constantly growing customer demand. So, if you wish to remain competitive in the retail industry, driving digital transformation across the entire organization is a must. Suppose you are looking to implement Salesforce commerce within your business ecosystem. In that case, you must seek professional support from one of the most experienced and reliable Salesforce consultants who can help your business grow and thrive.

BI has been around for many years and uses techniques such as data warehousing, data mining, and predictive analytics to provide users with the insights to make informed business decisions. Business Intelligence software bridges the gap between an extensive collection of unstructured data and meaningful insights. One such popular business intelligence software is the Salesforce Analytics Cloud that can be leveraged by medium and large-scale companies to explore, analyze and manage customer data gathered from different sources quickly and efficiently. It is essential to get in touch with one of the best Salesforce consultants to implement and make the most of this software. This robust cloud-based program is powered by Einstein Analytics and Tableau. Using the Salesforce Analytics Cloud, it is possible to explore data rapidly, the outcomes of which will be displayed through several layers of dynamic visualization over underlying data sets. With Salesforce Analytics Cloud, data representations can be viewed from all devices, including smartphones, PC and tablets. Besides revealing the current trends and decline in productivity, this comprehensive tool also shows why and why they took place. Designed and developed to bring the CRM data together, the platform allows managers to alleviate issues while augmenting overall business performance.  Features of Salesforce Analytics Cloud: Some of the prominent features of Salesforce analytics cloud include the following: Mobile-Friendly: Salesforce Analytics Cloud is highly mobile-friendly as it allows users to view, screen, arrange, measure, and share data from their mobile devices. It is easy to connect, modify, and deploy data anytime and from anywhere. This feature is helpful for the field workers, such as the customer service representatives who are commonly on the field. Dynamic Visualization Engine: Designed especially for business users and data builders, Salesforce analytics cloud provides a rapid visualization engine that showcases how charts affect each other. Besides providing users with interactive visuals and quick searches, the App provides users with critical business knowledge, which helps them make informed decisions.  Multiple Dashboards: A business will have various data sources depending on its business type. Data of all forms, i.e., structured or unstructured, and sources, i.e., ERP, website, CRM, social media, RFID sensors, etc., can be gathered and explored by Salesforce Analytics Cloud. Apart from this, for different datasets, different dashboards can be created.  Native Salesforce Integration: Since the App is built natively on Salesforce, there will be no synchronization issues as the complete data is placed on Salesforce. By using pre-existing tools, workflow rules, data fields etc., the data can be customized and tailored. Data gets stored securely in the Salesforce servers, and it’s simple to roll out updates. Benefits of Salesforce Analytics Cloud: Explore data Anywhere & Anytime: Salesforce Analytics cloud provides users to view and easily access data from multiple sources by utilizing the visualization capabilities of Tableau. Users can use the pre-built apps and in-built dashboards to explore the data.  AI-powered recommendations: Users can get AI-powered suggestions and explanations with the Einstein Analytics module of the Salesforce Analytics Cloud. The App will analyze millions of data combinations to provide data-driven insights, trends, and events, which will allow users to make informed decisions.  Access Integrated Solutions: Data exploration will be simplified for users if they leverage the Salesforce Analytics cloud-integrated natively with Salesforce sales and service cloud. Besides recognizing trends, they will be able to check KPIs. The availability of Tableau and Einstein Analytics at various levels for matching different industry verticals ensures that users find the right App to make the most CRM data.   Quick Wrap-up: Salesforce analytics cloud is an excellent tool for drawing insights from business data to help organizations make informed decisions. To meet the unique needs of their business, organizations should get in touch with a reliable Salesforce consultant who can empower them to make the most of their data by leveraging Salesforce analytics solutions.

As a robust cloud-based platform, Salesforce enjoys a wide adoption rate by businesses across different industry verticals. This is primarily because of this platform’s wide array of features, functionalities, and components. Irrespective of whether you wish to implement a new system or upgrade an already existing solution, you would require the assistance of a certified Salesforce consulting partner who would help you in every step of your Salesforce journey.  The network of Salesforce consulting partners has been growing over the years and ranges from individual partners to global agencies. They offer expertise across Salesforce products, industries, clouds, and system integration capabilities. However, before shortlisting a reliable partner, make sure you avoid committing the following mistakes: Disregarding the pain points and Goals: Before going ahead with any product implementation, organizations should have a clear vision regarding the usage of this solution, the problems it would address, and the goals it would achieve. Without assessing all these aspects, organizations may waste time and money on an underutilized system that cannot be utilized to its full potential.   Lack of Salesforce Knowledge: To interact with their consulting partner, organizations should be familiar with standard Salesforce terms and technical aspects. To acclimate themselves with basic knowledge of Salesforce, users should watch explanation videos, product demo, etc., on Salesforce.org and Salesforce.com. Disregarding this aspect can prove to be is a mistake that should be avoided. Placing Price over Quality: It is easy to get tempted to engage with partners ready to offer services at a low price. However, if you prefer saving some bucks at the cost of quality, you may spend higher costs than planned initially. You may also decide to invest in Salesforce developers as it might seem to be a financially wise choice at the onset. However, you will get a well-developed solution but not evaluated holistically, which results in low adoption rates. Undervaluing the Power of Reviews: The portfolios of all the companies look great on their websites. However, this is one side of the coin. It is essential to visit independent review platforms to seek unbiased opinions. For instance, customer reviews on AppExchange enable you to measure customer satisfaction rate much better than survey responses published there. Making Hasty Choice: When selecting a Salesforce partner, making a hasty decision can make you repent later. So, make sure you take time to make an informed decision. Seek references from business networks or Salesforce platforms like AppExchange and Trailblazer community to choose from a larger pool of Salesforce consulting companies. Only after you have carefully studied their case studies and portfolios should you select a partner for your project. Overlooking their Experience: While it is vital to look for relevant technical knowledge and proper certification in your partner, you should not ignore their industry expertise. Since Salesforce doesn’t provide out-of-the-box solutions, you should look for partners to create customized solutions to meet your unique business needs. You should also look for companies with enough resources and use a similar business model to yours to handle a business of your size. Final Words:  Investing in Salesforce is a big decision requiring proper planning and implementation to leverage all the benefits. By avoiding the mistakes mentioned above, it is possible to choose the right Salesforce partner. By having the right partner by your side, you will be able to make the most of this platform and take your business to new heights by following the ideas and best practices. 

The success of a business lies in healthy revenue growth. An organization's revenue growth is affected by various aspects, including sales, finance, operations, and partnership management. It is essential to create harmony among all the departments to attain sustained growth through a unified approach. Post the 2020 global crisis and the fall-out of revenue due to the disruption of sales, B2B businesses are seeking frictionless ways to boost business growth. The sudden change in customer needs, unreliable forecasting of data, stalling of deals combined with other business challenges are pushing organizations to refurbish their revenue regulation strategy.  This calls the need for a system that offers a single point of reference that streamlines end-to-end sales, renewal, and billing, and this is what Salesforce Revenue cloud attains. To integrate the Salesforce revenue cloud with other systems, organizations must consider using Salesforce integration services. What is Salesforce Revenue Cloud? Salesforce Revenue Cloud is a suite of products that help businesses streamline the functioning of sales, finance, and operations teams together. The robust platform provides organizations with a single source of information and access to multiple channels while ensuring a smooth customer journey. With Revenue Cloud, organizations get complete control over their firm's revenue growth while ensuring interesting possibilities with AI-driven insights. Apart from this, it helps organizations reimagine their lead-to-revenue architecture and provides multiple tools, which they could use to identify and acknowledge opportunities to improve the revenue cycle. What are the Benefits of Salesforce Revenue Cloud? Single Point of Access: One of the significant benefits of the Salesforce Revenue cloud is that it conveniently enables users to access every element in a single place. With this, users do not have to delve through multiple applications to find the information they need.  Brings forth New Streams of Revenue: Revenue cloud can be leveraged by organizations with complex revenue models as their business processes are stretched unnecessarily. These redundancies can be removed with the help of the Salesforce Revenue cloud. With its in-built billing system, the platform brings together a unified product catalog while creating new revenue streams. Manual Work is Eliminated: The automated features of this cloud platform eliminate the need for performing manual work processes such as data reconciliation, transcription of orders, and more. Apart from this, the need to manually download dated order forms is eliminated as all the relevant details, including customers' purchase history, are displayed on a dashboard.  Future-ready: Organizations leveraging the features of Salesforce Revenue cloud evolve into agile entities by making informed decisions while helping them reach the next level. This helps in accelerating revenue growth and prepares them to become future-ready.  Optimizes Performance: When leveraged, the cloud-based platform ensures process efficiency besides augmenting the revenue lifecycle. The platform provides organizations with a comprehensive view of all the activities, including but not limited to creating orders, invoicing, and more. It also ensures the effective functioning of the ERP system for driving customer engagement.  Final Words: Salesforce Revenue Cloud is an all-encompassing suite of solutions that assures a huge surge in revenue growth while aiding teams to simplify business processes such as finance, sales, and partnership management. Besides being flexible and scalable, it easily adapts as per organizational requirements and offers better process visibility. Businesses should consider contacting one of the best Salesforce consulting partners to know more about this amazing platform.

In today’s digital era, businesses across different industry verticals are leveraging technology solutions to manage their business processes and streamline operations, and the financial services industry isn’t any exception. The shift towards digitization has pushed the financial services sector to accelerate its processes by leveraging robust technologies and adopting digital transformation initiatives such as cashless payments. According to a survey conducted by Gartner, around 67% of senior finance leaders advocate the need for digitalization and focus on the optimization of finance technology.  Apart from this, other disruptive technologies such as Robotic process automation; Artificial intelligence, cloud services, and other financial business models have made their way. One such technology solution is the financial services cloud by Salesforce that provides tailored services to enterprises. The Salesforce financial services cloud has helped wealth management stakeholders ensure enhanced customer satisfaction through accelerated digital transformation. It is essential to seek Salesforce support to know more about this robust platform.  What is Financial Services Cloud? The Financial service cloud is a platform provided by Salesforce and is available in the Lightning Experience. The platform is designed to create long-term customer relations while helping financial consultants offer high-end services. The cloud platform runs in a secure environment and can be leveraged by organizations to manage the assets and liabilities of their customers besides the accounts of investment and wealth management firms.  The platform is ideal for small and large enterprises as it allows financial advisors to deliver high-end solutions and technologies with tailor-made services. The platform is endowed with advanced features that enable consultants to spend less time gathering doing mundane tasks and focus on providing high-end assistance. The Financial service cloud encompasses several sub-verticals such as banking, mortgage, insurance, wealth management, and more. Features Offered by Financial Service Cloud: Enables Commercial Banking: Salesforce Financial Service Cloud facilitates commercial banking visibility in various aspects of wealth and finance, making it easy for consultants and relationship managers to make business-to-business referrals. This feature provides relationship managers with a customized layout that offers an optimum display of data and permission sets to access the Commercial Banking application. This allows relationship managers to manage their mortgage reports, referrals, treasury management, etc., more efficiently.  Helps Achieve Compliance: The Cloud infrastructure has helped organizations monitor customer relationships while following every interaction with a customer data model at the heart of the financial services cloud, which helps achieve compliance. The robust cloud solution helps the clients find new customers, grow their accounts, and close deals quicker while ensuring the security of client data and assessable client interactions across several channels. Provides Better Visibility: Companies can access client profiles to view client interactions and the information shared. With this, the wealth ecosystem of the clients and their families can be accessed, allowing financial consultants to grow their business across multiple channels. This insight provides relationship managers a better know how of the personal and financial product needs of the customers and how it can be used to achieve their goals. Enables Data Security: Before adopting new technology, organizations must fortify the security infrastructure. The Salesforce financial service cloud ensures robust security infrastructure for clients who have to undergo stringent security checks, inspections, and audits at regular intervals.  The Bottom Line: Salesforce financial cloud built on the Salesforce CRM platform has revolutionized the wealth management ecosystem. The robust cloud solution enables the wealth management team members to access information drawn from various sources, including the financial interactions of clients. This provides companies with a 360-degree view of the client. So, if you wish to deploy Salesforce financial cloud for wealth management, you must partner with a certified Salesforce consultant.

Compared to yesteryears, customers today are more aware and informed and thus expect a personalized experience besides quality services and products. Since customers are the lifeblood of every business, retaining them, especially the existing ones, is crucial as they spend 31 percent more than the new ones. This calls for a robust customer retention strategy that will not just ensure an increase in revenue but also a decrease in overall cost. It is possible to acquire a higher level of customer retention by implementing a robust CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform like Salesforce.  According to a survey conducted by Salesforce, it has been revealed that acquiring new customers or clients is more expensive than retaining the existing one.     How to Boost Customer Retention Using Salesforce? Tracking Customer Interaction: It is possible to keep track of your customers with Salesforce integration. From where your customers are, when they made the last purchase to what they are looking for on your website, Salesforce helps you know everything about your customers and prospects. This will help you understand customer behavior and preferences while helping you respond to their needs appropriately. Moreover, you will be able to engage with your customers by sending them personalized messages/emails while introducing them to your products and services. Unify the Database of Your Customers: Since Salesforce helps gather, organize, and analyze all your customer data in a single location, which helps in customer retention. Your sales team will access all the data easily while staying informed. With this, data accuracy is increased, and data duplicity is reduced. Moreover, client satisfaction is ensured as transparent communication is ensured between business and customers. By partnering with a Salesforce consulting company, you will be able to make the most of this fantastic platform.  Power of Personalization: For every business, customer data is a mine of gold. By centralizing this wealth of data to be personalized later, it is easy to resonate with your customers. By leveraging Salesforce integration services, you will be empowered to take control of your customer relationship by using tools such as Pardot dynamic content that allows you to personalize emails, subject lines, and more. By personalizing communication, you show your customers that you care for them.   Engaging Inactive Customers: Salesforce enables you to interact with inactive customers by keeping track of their customers by consolidating emails, calls, etc., by checking their purchase history and buying preferences, keeping them engaged via personalized messages, and more. This way, you will save money and acquire new customers. Integration of Customer Service Tool: Several customer service applications such as service cloud, desk.com, etc., offered by Salesforce can be leveraged to eliminate silos ensure collaboration between teams, especially the account management and customer service departments. By leveraging these tools, overall customer experience can be improved. Quick Wrap-up: Businesses should consider harnessing the power of Salesforce to grow their revenue and profit. So, make sure you get in touch with a certified and reputed Salesforce implementation partner to ensure the successful implementation of this platform, which will ultimately help you retain your customers and build a strong relationship with them.