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As an entrepreneur, if you are looking to scale up your business, you must work on streamlining your business processes while ensuring operational efficiency. With its wide array of features and functionalities, Salesforce can be leveraged by organizations to manage their processes efficiently. However, suppose your Salesforce solution fails to address your unique business needs. You can either turn to a ready-made App from App Exchange or opt for custom Salesforce Apps to achieve the desired functionality. Although AppExchange is an easy way to get the desired functionality, a custom Salesforce app is undoubtedly a better option. It’s better to seek Salesforce support from a reliable service provider to learn more about the custom Salesforce App. Listed below are some of the compelling reasons why the Salesforce Custom App is preferred over an AppExchange App: Cost-effective: Getting a custom App developed is a more cost-effective option than buying one from AppExchange, especially with multiple users and a constrained budget. This is because AppExchange Apps require paying monthly subscription fees. On the other hand, a one-time payment for development, testing, and deployment is made irrespective of the number of users. However, before you choose, make sure you compare your subscription fees with what a developer or a test engineer would charge for one-time work. Covers Industry-specific Business Processes: If you are looking to integrate some industry-specific processes into your solution, creating a custom App with specific techniques per your unique needs is a better option. AppExchange apps, on the other hand, can help add universal functionality, for instance, one that allows clients to sign contracts sent in their inbox from Salesforce. Allows Integration of Salesforce with niche software products: To get access to certain marketing or designing materials, you may require a custom integration App for integrating your Salesforce solution to an online platform. AppExchange Apps, on the other hand, has several ready-made integration applications for connecting that can be used to integrate your Salesforce solution to a third-party system. Additional Scope for Customization: When you opt for a custom-developed App, you leave the scope for tailoring your application in the future due to a change in business process or an increasing number of App users. On the other hand, an AppExchange App offers no such guarantee or assurance for modification in the future.  How to Manage Your Customization Project? It is essential to organize the customization process to get your customized Salesforce solution aligned with your business needs. Although Salesforce customization isn't rocket science, it may require extra effort than anticipated. By following the sequence of the steps mentioned below, your chances of success will increase: Seeking Input of End-user: It is crucial to seek your employees' feedback regarding the CRM challenges they might be facing, the features they consider useful, and the ones they are missing out on to comprehend the scope of a future customization project. This helps you figure out the functionality gaps that require elimination.  Engaging a CRM Manager: Make sure you appoint an experienced and qualified CRM manager who can help define the scope of customization, plan the customization process, and provide custom features besides managing the ongoing support to a tailored solution.  Choosing the Right cooperation model: It is essential to define the scope of your project and your business requirement before selecting the right cooperation model. You have two options, i.e., an FP (Fixed Price) contract, which agrees with a one-time delivery of custom features with fixed scope, and the T&M (Time and Materials) contract. Hiring the Right Salesforce Services Provider: Choosing a Salesforce service provider with thorough consulting and development skills is essential. While the consulting skills are vital for detailing the effective ways of addressing your business challenges, good development skills are required to make Salesforce solutions work just as needed. Keeping Costs under Check: To check the cost involved in customization, you should take a reasonable approach to customization by prioritizing custom features that are sufficient to meet your business needs while doing away with the need for excessive code-based customizations. A quick wrap-up:  Salesforce customization is a practical way of making your Salesforce CRM a profitable sales and customer service tool that can curb the concerns associated with poor user adoption. To ensure your customization process is a success, make sure you note the aforementioned best practices. If you are looking for an app designed specifically to meet your business needs, investing in a cost-effective and custom-developed Salesforce App is better. Consider partnering with one of the best Salesforce App Development Companies to get the most out of your investment. By developing a custom-developed App, organizations can enjoy the business process and operational efficiency. 

When you sign up for a Salesforce license, you are given two module options to choose from – Sales Cloud or Service Cloud. With Service Cloud, the emphasis is on service and cases. Service Cloud is typically used by companies that offer services and/or products. Sales Cloud, on the other hand, lays more emphasis on leads, opportunities, and sales. And even though there is plenty of overlap between both modules, they are still quite different from each other in several aspects. Let’s look at their features individually to understand each module better. Sales Cloud Sales Cloud from Salesforce is designed to help your sales reps sell smarter and faster by centralizing customer information, logging all their interactions with your business, and automating many of the tasks sales reps perform every day. This translates to them spending less time on administrative tasks and more time closing deals. Sales Cloud gives sales managers and business leaders real-time visibility into their team’s activities, with AI-based forecasting tools that empower sales teams with confidence. Features Contact Management Manage all contact-related information on the cloud, uncover valuable insights into your customers’ issues, and collaborate with teams companywide. Salesforce’s social collaboration tools allow you to share insights, documents, and more on every business record and contact.  Access all of the account and contact data you need to keep deals moving, from anywhere, anytime. Opportunity Management View all details of your customer's activity. Know what stage your deal is in, and what you need to do to move ahead. Track all associated activities in real-time and get notifications when action is needed. Send emails simply with best-in-class templates with just a click. Streamline the sales process and quickly create up-to-the-minute quotes with built-in smart quoting capabilities. Lead Management Salesforce lets you track all the information about your leads. Access up-to-date information on leads, see where it came from, access relevant insights and act on them,  and write and track emails from within Salesforce. I have everything you need to convert leads faster. You can also set up automatic lead scoring and routing to ensure leads never fall through the cracks, and that the right sales reps follow up on leads while they’re hot. Reports and Dashboards Salesforce analytics software keeps you updated with customized sales forecasting reports that you can build effortlessly with drag and drop functionality. Track team performance with dashboards and other reporting tools.  The customer analytics software within Salesforce mobile app monitors key business metrics from anywhere. Mobile CRM View meetings, and events, and get account updates on your device. Join calls with a tap, and take notes while on the go.  Track accounts and approve deals while in motion. With dashboards and reports get real-time visibility of sales performance.  Salesforce’s in-built collaboration tools allow you to instantly connect with your team members.  Create and manage conversations from anywhere. Quickly access your files on the cloud, edit, and share with just a few taps. Activity Management Salesforce comes with connectors for Gmail and Outlook so now you can get a complete view of all your customer interactions. Integrate any business process into your preferred email app. Seamlessly sync your email, contacts, and calendars with your Salesforce data across both desktop and mobile. Pipeline and Forecast Management Get a complete view of your pipeline and business. Get real-time visibility into forecasts and make refinements on the fly. Use data insights and predictive AI to drive business decisions based on best practices. Files Sync and Share Collaborate on files across your organization, or externally with customers. Keep a track of files and be notified when a new version is uploaded. And maintain complete control over sharing settings, and segregate users with viewing, editing, and collaboration rights. Unify all your files and content in one place. Process Automation Process Builder provides a user-friendly point-and-click interface to automate business processes. You can create automated email alerts, auto-assign tasks to users as a deal moves through various stages, and more. You can also create custom workflows to guide sales agents through the sales process. Automate approval processes such as deal discounts, travel, and expenses. Salesforce Engage Send targeted messages that drive action. Engage Campaigns gives your sales reps access to a library of approved email templates and guides that they can use to interact with their prospects. You can view the detailed history of your prospects’ engagement with your brand, and track their activity to understand your unique interests. Interactive dashboards allow sales reps to monitor and control the performance of their campaigns. Sales Collaboration Stay on top of critical projects, topics, and teams in an easily accessible social feed. Collaborate on sales opportunities and drive progress from anywhere. Share on a group, view a file, and update any opportunity from your mobile. Territory Management Manage territories effortlessly with hierarchies, assignment rules, or territory assignments. Salesforce allows you to assign a single rule to multiple territories. Use territory roles to help users identify colleagues, collaborators, and other key resources to help close deals. Partner & Channel Management Manage your indirect sales channels with out-of-the-box features that drive partner engagement. Recruit, onboard, train, and support them. Empower partners with the power to be their own marketers. Co-develop effective campaigns and manage marketing budgets. Allow partners to build, track, and analyze marketing campaigns. Share reports and dashboards to help them track key metrics. Service Cloud Service Cloud is built on the Customer 360 platform, putting customers at the center of your business and empowering you to deliver smarter, faster, and personalized service. With Service Cloud, you can automate routine service processes, digitally organize workflows, and transform the agent experience. Service Cloud allows your agents to connect one-to-one with every customer, across multiple channels, and on any device. Features Lightning Service Console Turbo charge agent productivity with the best-in-class agent experience. Empower your agents Provide your agents with a 360- degree view of customers and empower them with all the information they need to serve customers better.   Case Management Resolve cases faster with easy contextual visibility of all cases and a record of every customer interaction on a single, visually rich dashboard. Workflow and Approvals Now you can customize and automate any customer service or approval process with simple drag-and-drop functionality using Workflow. Omni-channel Routing Deliver smarter service by automatically mapping cases to the best-fit agent. Telephony Integration Integrate Salesforce with the most popular CTI systems. Log notes in real time when customers call. And, manage calls from within the Service Cloud console without even needing the phone. Social Customer Service Monitor and respond with agility to customer posts on social media channels and deliver customer delight. Automation with Macros Automate common, repetitive tasks for more efficient resolution of customer issues thereby freeing up your support agents for more critical support tasks which require personal attention. Account and Contact Management Empower your agents with data about past communications with customers right at their fingertips to fast track service requests. Custom Reports and Dashboards Make informed decisions with real-time reports and stunning intuitive dashboards that deliver a 360-degree view of the customer. Asset and Order Management Get a unified view of the customers’ assets, orders, support history, and more, to get a holistic view of their activity. It can be confusing at times, if it comes to choosing between Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, to determine which is best for your organization, especially if you’re new to Salesforce. This is where Girikon, a Gold Certified Salesforce Implementation Partner can help you. Questions? We’ll guide you to the right path Know more about Salesforce products, implementation, pricing, custom apps or anything else. CONTACT AN EXPERT

Salesforce can be transformational. Provided you implement it right.  It has the power to change the way your organization functions, helping you transition to a smarter, efficient, data-driven, and impactful business.Salesforce can be transformational. Provided you implement it right.  It has the power to change the way your organization functions, helping you transition to a smarter, efficient, data-driven, and impactful business. But it‘s common that the same set of hurdles keep popping up repetitively.  Technology based perfection is relatively easier to achieve. An expert team of Salesforce Consultants may execute challenging implementations on time and within budget. But it can become transformational only if it meets the business objectives of the organization.  Assessing the success of a Salesforce powered organization necessitates a holistic approach. The implementation team needs to have a clear understanding of the various forces at play, and prepare themselves for long-term, sustainable success. Here are 6 key Salesforce implementation challenges with tips on how to resolve them for post-implementation success.  Implementation and Adoption Roadmap Lack of clarity of purpose and want of understanding of its impact can lead to a failed implementation of Salesforce. Without expectations being set, organizations tend to implement and adopt Salesforce with inadequate resources and expertise, and often without the buy-in of the right people.  The result is a half-baked system that does not compliment organizational goals and staff needs.   When stakeholders do not agree on the requirements or scope, for lack of time or prioritization, the implementation team eds up confused with a blurred vision of the organization’s goals. Frequent scope changes lead to a faulty implementation with declined productivity. Detailed and meticulous planning will drive 80% of your success. Spend time to freeze requirements before commencing implementation. Get buy in from stakeholders and management. Make a clear implementation roadmap upfront. Align it with the company’s strategic goals. Establish a clear roll-out strategy. Data Migration and Validation Data powers Salesforce. Without the right data, Salesforce cannot deliver what it is designed to. As it is, It’s a challenge for staff to learn a new system and adopt it as part of their regular work routine.  And when data is incomplete or inaccurate couple of things happen.  First, the trust is broken in the system.  Second, when you feed your systems with faulty data, it’s even more challenging to get any valuable data out of it.  And if users aren’t getting valuable information from the system, chances are slim they will be keen to enter it in the first place. A definitive approach is required to work out the data migration strategy with the Salesforce implementation team. User mapping, data security and cleaning up data is a time intensive activity and requires an experienced team. To overcome this data challenge, double-check the integrity of data that you wish to migrate. Clean it up before importing into Salesforce. Use relevant tools wherever possible. Look at data mapping closely to map relevant fields, Engage the team members who know your data well to assist with data migration validation. One of the keys to maintain healthy data is to have smart detection systems, regular clean ups and training. Customization With Salesforce’s endless capabilities, there is a tendency to overdo customization to get maximum features on board. In a manner of speaking, tendency to bite more than you can chew. This only complicates the implementation. Customization without a thorough understanding of your business needs leads to a faulty implementation. To overcome this, adopt an incremental approach. Split the features into basic, essential, and so on, in order of necessity. A phased approach saves costs and ensures the system retains its integrity after each stage of customization and mitigates implementation challenges to a large extent. Use the Lightning App Builder from Salesforce and Apps from the AppExchange to build custom applications, fast. The Salesforce1 platform and Salesforce SDKs facilitate development of mobile apps quickly. Salesforce Canvas allows easy integration of other systems with Salesforce screens. Use Lightning Process Builder to create complex business processes without any need for coding. User Acceptance Testing No implementation is perfect. And despite the best of efforts of implementation teams, errors do creep in. Gaps in communication, bugs, unsuitable tools, and other issues often result in the system not being up to expectations. Testing is the best way to ensure any IT implementation meets its pre-defined goals. Catching bugs early makes it that much easier to fix them. Empower subject matter experts with expertise in your line of business. Encourage them to take up leadership roles in the implementation, and become champions for its smooth roll-out and organization-wide adoption. Document test cases and test plans and execute. Fix the bugs, and retest as and when needed. Simulate use cases and do thorough testing to ensure the code meets the objectives. Conduct sandbox testing to work out the kinks before go-live, mitigating the deployment risks.  Adoption Most often, much of the focus and effort in a Salesforce implementation goes to the technical side of things.  While this is necessary, it might come as a surprise that even after a really good implementation, it can still be a challenge to get your staff to actually use the system!  More often than not, adoption is one of the biggest challenges across all types of businesses. Adopting a new system with the power and flexibility of Salesforce requires a significant level of organizational change.  And it requires some well thought out “change management” planning. It is crucial to have an organizational adoption plan as much as it is to have a technical one.  This includes getting staff and leadership buy-in, communicating clearly about the vision and value of the project, and having a thorough plan for training staff and supporting them as they get trained.   Training Training of staff to use Salesforce is one of the biggest challenges post implementation. What’s the point of investing time, resources and money in implementing a powerful software like Salesforce, if your staff can’t use it to its fullest potential? To master features in salesforce, users should undergo thorough training with your Salesforce Implementation Partner. Focus your training on custom built features or functionalities in your implementation. Without proper training and support even the most trivial issue can become a stumbling block in organization-wide adoption. To overcome this difficulty, the implementation team should distribute documentation about the new features developed and provide hands on classroom training, department wise. The true power of Salesforce is not just about entering or populating data into it.  Equally important is how you pull data out of it.   A Certified Salesforce Consulting Partner will approach your Salesforce implementation with 3 key elements — accurate assessment of expectations, detailed attention to data, and a thorough adoption/training plan, putting you 3 big steps ahead. Questions? Our reps have answers. CONTACT AN EXPERT

In today’s context of COVID19, institutions across the world have been compelled to rapidly adapt and innovate in order to survive. Education is going through a phase of digital transformation. Education leaders are investing in new business models and digital-first strategies to drive learner and institutional success, from anywhere. Education Cloud Education Cloud provides the digital foundation to deliver a 360-degree experience to students, faculty and staff throughout the learning lifecycle. Teams across various processes through the learning journey can use an integrated platform to drive success from prospect to alum. With Education Cloud, institutions get access to actionable insights for every student. Staff can now support students with personalized experiences and build lifelong relationships and spend less time gathering data. Additionally, with Education Cloud your institution can leverage the latest innovations across the Salesforce platform and deploy customised, scalable, purpose-built education solutions to cater to your evolving needs. Bring together recruitment & admissions teams around potential students with Education Cloud Understand and predict student needs throughout their education lifecycle. Quickly move to a digital-first strategy to accelerate transformation. Manage your data Integrate data from legacy systems and external sources into a single platform and boost the student experience. Unify experience Deliver a complete and unified student experience- from recruitment to alumni. Create an online community Respond to student needs in real-time in an agile framework with community driven architecture. Support your students Provide scalable student support with Einstein powered chatbots and recommended actions when required. Supporting the full student journey. Salesforce for Education Salesforce Education Cloud is a powerful suite of scalable, customisable solutions based on the community-driven Education Data Architecture (EDA). It has been designed with decades of experience transforming educational institutions, empowering them to quickly move to a digital-first strategy to accelerate transformation. Mulesoft and Tableau – Salesforce products that work best with the Education Industry Mulesoft allows the integration of legacy apps and data, enabling your solutions to connect on a single platform. Tableau delivers accurate, real-time visualization of student data, and Salesforce Education Cloud draws on Einstein AI to provide automated support and recommendations on next-best actions to support students. With Salesforce Education Cloud you also get access to AppExchange and online learning platform Trailhead to extend your capabilities. A look at Tableau and what you get from it. Deeper visual analytics with Tableau Tableau allows institutions to visualize their data clearly and make informed decisions to drive their business forward. Faculty and staff have access to dashboards where they can see a 360 view of their institution and detailed categorised metrics to understand the health of their day to day operations. Live institutional data is pulled from multiple sources across departments and platforms. Using auto filters, institutions can get a deeper look into their data including all the students in their pipeline from prospects to alumni. When interacting with this data institutions can see the different interests and engagements between incoming and current students. Taking a closer look into student metrics, you can view changes in engagement over time and by location. And by simply dragging and dropping the students’ assignment scores under color, institutions get deeper analytics into their performance of each program and engage with students on additional academic programs. Without any need for code, institutions can now quickly and easily get 360 degree view of the current and future needs of their organization. Gain valuable insights into data and power your institution to drive deeper conversations with your students, faculty and staff. Become a connected campus. Deliver personalized engagements, proactive advice, and connected experiences that students have come to expect — the moment they express interest in your campus. Let’s take a look at how Education Cloud empowers institutions with 360-degree views across the entire student lifecycle. Recruitment and Admissions Salesforce for Recruitment and Admissions Find and engage best-fit students, optimize processes, get insights on the enrollment funnel, and guide every student for success. Unify data, get actionable insights, and collaborate across teams with Admissions Connect, a product designed to make the entire application process smarter and provide a 360-degree view of prospective students. Image Source – salesforce.org The Student Experience Salesforce for the Student Experience Maximize student engagement, streamline services, deliver smart advisory experiences, and unlock career prospects. Promote smart engagement with Student Success Hub, a product that transforms collaboration, and enables you to understand students better, and facilitate successful outcomes for students Image Source – salesforce.org Advancement & Corporate Relations Salesforce for Advancement Foster trusted relationships with your constituents, upgrade your fundraising processes, augment personalized engagement with donors, and drive efficiency of your operations. Image Source – salesforce.org Marketing & Communications Salesforce for Marketing and Communications Unify people, processes, data, and insights that drive connected engagement at scale. Image Source – salesforce.org Faculty and Staff Experience Salesforce for Faculty and Staff Salesforce helps institutions build great employee experiences through communities and apps. Institutions can build custom marketing campaigns, manage faculty and staff wellness, facilitate volunteering, create virtual advising engagements, and engage donors with a digital experience that accelerates support across your entire campus community wherever they are. Image Source – salesforce.org Institution Operations Salesforce for Institution Operations Drive operational efficiency and streamline processes by seamlessly connecting data and legacy systems, automating workflows, personalizing engagement, monitoring and tracking success. Image Source – salesforce.org Eco System of Support Trailblazer Community Connect with a dynamic online community to get answers, share insight and expertise, and augment your skills. AppExchange Get access to salesforce vetted customizable apps to help you get the most out of your implementation and extend your Salesforce capabilities. Your institution is unique, and Education Cloud is designed to ensure that your path to success is unique too. A certified Salesforce Consulting Partner can help you achieve the goals you have set for your institution. Start on the path of Education Cloud today. Looking for Pricing? Education Cloud provides a unified platform to expand the reach and impact on your campus. Get in touch with our experts today. CONTACT US