Salesforce Consulting

To sustain in today’s competitive business landscape, businesses require maintaining amiable relationships with their customers. Today, as customers grow more informed, they expect prompt and personalized responses to their queries. To keep up with customer expectations, organizations require adopting robust software like Salesforce. As one of the world's leading CRM platforms and a market share of approximately 20 percent, Salesforce is being utilized by enterprises of varying scales and across diverse sectors for streamlining business processes and smooth management of operations. However, to draw maximum value out of this platform, businesses must ensure its successful implementation. This is easier said than done and requires the expertise of one the most proficient Salesforce Consulting Partners. However, failing to choose the right partner for guiding an implementation can have a negative impact. Mentioned below are some fatal mistakes that organizations usually make when selecting a partner: Failure to Consider Business Goals: When selecting a partner, an organization must have a clear vision of their business goals, as well as their pain points. It’s very important to understand the requirement of implementing Salesforce for operational efficiency and the problems it could address. If they fail to evaluate all these, they are perhaps wasting their time and money upon engaging the services of a consultant. Engaging the Wrong Partner: Rushing into selecting a partner without thorough research isn't prudent. Rather than taking chances with an unfamiliar entity, organizations must invest their time in examining potential partners, comprehending their expertise, scrutinizing their previous projects, and gathering testimonials from former clients. The decision to appoint a certified and experienced Salesforce consulting partner can significantly impact the implementation process as engaging an inexperienced partner will result in wasting time, money, and effort, as they will be unable to offer optimal utilization of the Salesforce solution. Consequently, giving due diligence is crucial to selecting the right partner. No Support from the Internal Team: To fully harness the capabilities of Salesforce CRM, the internal team of an organization needs to collaborate closely with consultants. When enlisting Salesforce development services and consultants, organizations should ensure that their executive team is informed and actively participating. This involvement is crucial as the time, effort, and engagement of the operational team are crucial for successful implementation. This collaborative approach enables a comprehensive understanding of the implementation process, facilitating smooth integration of the Salesforce solution. Organizations should encourage their entire team to align with the Salesforce consultants and actively engage in utilizing their expertise. Once they grasp the workings of the Salesforce consulting partners, they can effectively maintain the momentum of the process. Partnering with Consultants for a Short-term: A common mistake frequently made by organizations is assuming that the role of Salesforce consultants concludes immediately after the deployment of the CRM solution. This assumption is wrong. Rather, after the deployment of the solution, the project transitions into a post-implementation analysis phase. During this phase, expert support is crucial for conducting a thorough analysis. This process ensures the seamless adaptation of the Salesforce solution and verifies that the platform has been appropriately configured. It's imperative to update the configuration after each Salesforce release to address any identified issues within the company's operational system. Engaging Salesforce consultants shouldn't be viewed as a short-term partnership, as their expertise will be indispensable for future customizations and enhancements within their CRM tool. Prioritizing Cost Over Quality: Organizations desire a reputed and experienced Salesforce consulting firm that fits within their budget and offers services at low costs. The temptation often lies in opting for cheaper alternatives. However, selecting a low-cost option can result in unexpected expenses, project delays, or even failure due to potential cost overruns. Hence, it is recommended to collaborate with certified developers to mitigate future complications. While this option may come at a higher cost compared to other alternatives, it significantly enhances the likelihood of achieving success. Ignoring the Marketing Expertise of Salesforce Consultants: When seeking top Salesforce consultants, organizations should focus on finding individuals capable of adeptly managing customer relationships within their organization. This approach not only empowers marketers to analyze campaigns, gauge ROI, and monitor leads for revenue generation but also ensures comprehensive proficiency in digital marketing—an aspect not mandatory for Salesforce consultants. To optimize their investment in CRM solutions, choosing consultants with digital marketing acumen is crucial. Besides facilitating CRM implementation, deployment, and customization, these consultants can effectively align CRM strategies with the digital marketing objectives of an organization. Thus, engaging an informed and skilled Salesforce consultant ensures efficient execution of tasks. Unwillingness to Invest in a Salesforce Admin: Salesforce consulting partners often recommend assigning a Salesforce Admin to oversee the utilization, upkeep, and enhancements of the Salesforce solution within companies. However, many companies aim to minimize investment costs and ignore the idea of hiring a Salesforce Admin. Consequently, consultants deploy the CRM solution and depart from the company. Effective utilization of Salesforce CRM demands knowledgeable oversight to unlock its full potential. Additionally, these solutions perform optimally with regular maintenance and functionality checks. Organizations and their team may lack the time to address CRM maintenance or functionality requirements. Ignoring AppExchange Reviews: Failure to explore the AppExchange during the research phase for potential partners indicates a lack of due diligence. AppExchange customer reviews serve as an excellent method to assess customer satisfaction levels. Reading reviews is crucial for understanding both the strengths and weaknesses of a product or software. Moreover, independent websites also provide evaluations of businesses and their products, offering valuable insights. The Bottom Line: Investing in Salesforce marks a significant step, requiring meticulous planning to fully leverage its suite of services. Engaging the services of one of the best Salesforce consultants, free from misconceptions and with a clear understanding, is crucial for maximizing the CRM solution's potential.

Most business leaders across the world recognize the value of Salesforce. They are aware of how the world's leading cloud-based CRM platform can help them cultivate rewarding customer relationships, address gaps in customer service, and enable them to adopt a more holistic approach to managing day-to-day operations. What many of them are not aware of, however, is the role of a Salesforce consultant to help them navigate the challenges involved in transitioning to Salesforce. And that's not the full picture. Salesforce consultants can also help to optimize and automate business processes to enable a seamless transition. What is a Salesforce Consultant? Salesforce consultants help customers achieve their long-term business goals by ensuring the smooth implementation of Salesforce tailored to their unique business needs.  They also assess the dynamic market landscape and adapt the customer's operations to be future-ready. Salesforce consultants also manage customer relationships, and project plans, do market research, understand user needs and sentiment, gather requirements, research organizational data, and train employees to get the most out of Salesforce. The best Salesforce consultants have deep knowledge of Salesforce technology, rich experience in similar prior implementations, and awareness of the best business practices. Challenges that Salesforce Consultants face and how they can solve them As a business leader, if you really want to unlock the true power of Salesforce, we recommend that you choose the best Salesforce Implementation Partner. Apart from implementing the CRM, they can also help you solve various key business challenges. Here’s a look at some of them. 1)   Handling sensitive information One of the key challenges organizations must deal with while transitioning to Salesforce is ensuring their customer data is safe. Any data breach can result in drastic consequences for the business. A Salesforce consultant will follow industry best practices to ensure that there are adequate safeguards in place to secure the data exchange between your existing systems and Salesforce. Additionally, they also ensure that once your data is in Salesforce, it can be accessed easily by users. This allows them to get a comprehensive view of their customers including contact details and interaction history in the least number of clicks. This helps them to make data-driven decisions leading to greater customer satisfaction. 2)   Providing personalized assistance All businesses are unique. This is true even for businesses offering similar products or services with a similar customer base. Each business has its unique vision, goals, and strategies that set them apart from each other. Consequently, they may have completely different reasons to implement Salesforce and completely different expectations from the implementation based on their unique business objectives.  A vastly experienced Salesforce is well aware of the nuances of customer goals and expectations and works closely with customer and implementation teams to ensure the CRM implementation is fully tailored to the customer’s unique needs. 3)   Offering valuable insights Salesforce has been purpose-built to provide a 360-degree view of your customers. It includes everything from your contact information, purchase history, service interactions, interests and preferences, and social media interactions. As a business owner, you want to have deeper insights into customer behavior along with intelligent recommendations in a single place. A good Salesforce consultant makes that possible. They can help aggregate siloed data and give you a unified, single-window view to help you better understand customer preferences and behavior patterns, regardless of which channel they interact with you on.  This enables you to provide seamless interaction experiences to your customers across sales, marketing, and customer service across multiple channels. 4)   Providing instant support When customers interact with a business's customer support, they want instant resolution to their problem. And businesses are no different. When you invest in a platform like Salesforce, which includes licensing and implementation costs, you want your users to be up and running quickly so that they can close deals faster and resolve customers' concerns quickly. While a library of documents, manuals, and videos may be helpful for your users, they may not be able to help in resolving a critical issue that may be disrupting operations. What businesses need is the support of an expert who has been there and done that.  That expert is your Salesforce consultant. A Salesforce consultant understands the nuances of the platform and knows where to make tweaks to resolve common issues. 5)   Configuring user permissions Would you allow complete access to your financial data to all your employees? Would you allow access to customer information to your HR department? Sounds absurd, right? Assigning the right access privileges to users is a critical part of any Salesforce implementation. Creating the right user-profiles and customizing permissions in Salesforce requires a certain level of expertise that your existing IT team may not be equipped to handle.  This is where the roles of Salesforce consultants become important.  They can ensure that your users have access to only that functionality of Salesforce that allows them to do their job effectively.  Not less and certainly not more. A Salesforce consultant can help you navigate the complex domain of user management to get the most out of your users. 6)   Discovering business-specific solutions The goals and needs of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are different from their larger counterparts. Consequently, their CRM platform needs are also different. How do you go about designing a solution that is tailored to your unique requirements? Purchasing a Salesforce license is just the starting step. Salesforce has virtually limitless capabilities and you may not have the requisite expertise in-house to choose the best-fit features of the platform to achieve your vision. A good Salesforce consultant leverages their prior experience and deep knowledge of the domain to establish clear goals and business requirements. They then use this information to recommend solutions that are aligned with your goals and needs. 7)   Boosting user adoption Poor user adoption is one of the primary reasons why many Salesforce implementations fail to achieve their true potential. In fact, industry research indicates that the problem is so acute that in the absence of adequate guidance and training, teams are likely to stop using the platform altogether. And this should be a matter of concern for you. When users don't use the platform, each of them relies on personal, non-standardized methods to manage customers and their data. Without a unified view of customers based on gold-standard industry practices, your executives are unable to make critical strategic decisions. Which is why you need a Salesforce consultant. With adequate guidance and training programs tailored to each user group based on their job functions, they can ensure that your employees feel empowered when they look at customer data, giving their productivity a shot in the arm. 8)   Other challenges Quick setup Setting up and managing Salesforce can be complex unless done by an expert. A Salesforce consultant knows the nitty-gritty of configuration, where to tweak the platform and configure the right security settings to ensure a robust and secure CRM that works for your business. Enhance customer experience Organizations that have achieved success with Salesforce will be able to tell you the value a Salesforce consultant brings to the table to improve productivity and provide enhanced customer experiences. With deep insights on customer behavior, and automation of customer service, they can help you close service cases faster translating to greater customer satisfaction. Easier and faster Salesforce adoption A good Salesforce consultant can help you go live quickly with minimal disruption in your day-to-day operations. They draw upon their extensive experience and deep business domain knowledge to come up with a comprehensive roadmap that includes implementation, training, and strategy to drive user adoption. Risk reduction A certified Salesforce consultant has the right experience and technical know-how to help organizations manage uncertainties associated with Salesforce implementation such as data migration and security, process automation, and migration to ensure a seamless holistic transition. Salesforce Consulting Services from Girikon, a Gold Salesforce Partner, can help you unlock the true power of Salesforce. With customized solutions aligned with your unique business needs, we have helped many businesses improve productivity, boost efficiency, and increase revenues. Get in touch with an expert to learn more.

Salesforce, the world’s leading CRM platform empowers businesses with tools and services to manage customer data, automate processes, streamline operations, and drive customer satisfaction. Salesforce consultants aren’t just experts at handling the software; they recognize that Salesforce is a great tool to improve business productivity and align themselves with customer goals, wants, and needs to unlock the true power of the platform.  In short, they empower teams to do what was earlier not thought to be possible. As a Salesforce Consulting Partner for over a decade, our experts have compiled a list of tips to guide the next crop of Salesforce consultants on their path to success. These tips are a result of over a 100-man years of Salesforce experience, countless hours spent with customer teams, and millions of lines of coding. Let’s dive right in. 1. Understand the ‘Why’ While there are certain skills that can be acquired such as data management, data analytics, and process automation, critical thinking is one area that can only be awakened from within. Critical thinking entails having a larger-than-life view of the business while having an in-depth view of the everyday activities of the organization. Many Salesforce consultants have a great technical background and are adept at turning requirements into recommendations and ideas. But what is truly required to be understood is the "Why". Why do they need it? What are their business goals and what is stopping them from achieving them? What are their people like? What are their pain points? What do they want in terms of work satisfaction? Finding answers to these fundamental questions will go a long way to advance your career in Salesforce consulting. You need to evolve from being a manager or business analyst to being a problem solver, and for that, you need to identify and understand the problem and all its constituents and dependencies to the last detail. 2. Adapt your communication strategy Salesforce consultants have to work closely with engineering teams, customer user groups, and senior leadership which may sometimes be spread across the globe. For you to be successful as a global Salesforce consultant, you need to adapt your communication depending on who you are interacting with. Understanding the audience, their vision, and the way they see the business and its horizon (both short-term and long-term) plays a vital role in the success of the projects you are working on. As an example, if you are interacting with engineering teams, you may want to interact in a way that they understand via a common language. As a representative of your organization (like a front office), you need to be aware of your unique communication style and how your interactions are received by others. As a thumb rule, communication strategy varies from who you are interacting with to the size of the group you are addressing. 3. Know Your Audience Whether you are presenting to a CXO at a Fortune 500 company or interacting with individual project members, knowing your audience is one of the key skills all Salesforce consultants need to have. When you are involved in multiple projects and have to interact with different audiences, whether it is for project updates or course corrections, an instinct is to use the same template for interaction. This approach rarely works as each individual user group has its own perspective and level of understanding. Recognize the value each stakeholder is seeking and develop a mindset to tailor your presentations to align with the audience. 4. Develop a self-help attitude One of the job responsibilities of a successful Salesforce consultant is to hire new consultants. And you can only attract talent as good as yourself. When recruiting new consultants, veterans of the game often look for leadership traits such as taking self-motivated initiatives. What homework did they do before they sought help from seniors? Demonstrating a self-help attitude would go a long way in cultivating strong leadership and problem-solving skills. 5. Always be willing to learn   Salesforce consultants, especially ones who are still young in their consulting journey, need to constantly upgrade themselves on products, processes, and frameworks, but more often than not they get no guidance or direction. Well, if you want to grow, you are on your own. It’s your mindset to self-direct your learning and find solutions to challenges that will take you on the path to growth. Having a keen learner’s mindset goes a long way in building a keenness to take on new challenges and learn to grow. 6. Pick an Area of Expertise While it’s great to be a jack of multiple trades (skills), it’s important to be very good at something. Whether it’s a certification in Sales Cloud or your early experience as a Salesforce administrator, it's important that you pick one area in which you are an expert. Expertise in a certain area builds client trust and establishes credibility. And once you pick an area you want to build further on, make sure you are up to date with the latest product innovations in that area and establish how you can help businesses leverage your expertise in these new innovations. 7. Know When to Say No Customers want the moon. Literally. If it was left to them, they would want to implement their entire roadmap for the next 10 years as of yesterday. Many times, consultants agree to customer requests while working on a project even when they know it is not in their best long-term interest, or it just cannot be done at this stage. While customer satisfaction is extremely important in your line of work, you also need aware of what is in the best interest of the customer and the project. Make your point politely yet firmly, with an irrefutable basis. You were hired because you are an expert in your field, and this is time to say it emphatically. While it's always tempting to say yes to every customer request, learn to say no when you have a reasonable basis for it. Draw on your past experience working with multiple customers on a variety of Salesforce projects. Offer alternative suggestions and help the customer see the larger picture. Your job as a Salesforce consultant is to be a partner with your customer, working towards a common goal and that job includes knowing when to say no. Conclusion Hiring a Salesforce consultant is an investment you make to achieve the heights that you envision for your business. Ready to unlock the true power of Salesforce? Team up with a Salesforce Implementation Partner who can guide you on the right path. 

Some Salesforce Consultants are successful in building a stable client base that they nurture and grow over time while others find it a rocky road and eventually hit a wall. Have you ever wondered what the difference is? Client relationships. Strong client relationships are the foundation for a successful Salesforce Consulting practice. Loyal customers are not only a joy to work with, but they also stay longer with you and are happy to refer new clients. How to build lasting client relationships? Below we have compiled a list of actionable ways to nurture and grow client relationships that will not only improve client satisfaction but also grow your business. Pay attention to detail and gather all information The foundation of a strong consultant-client relationship is laid before the client even signs up. Good consultants are aware they need as much information as possible about the prospect to come up with a proposal that stands out from the competition. And the key component of that proposal is how it aligns with the business’s goals and values and the personalities of the people you’ll be working with. This means collecting “objective” information like: Their products and services. The end-users and their profile. Top 3-4 competitors. Prioritized goals and associated challenges. Strategies that have not yielded desired results in the past. Tools, apps, and systems currently being used. Budget – long term and short term. Expectations from a new consultant It also includes “subjective” information such as: What is their definition of success? Future business plans such as new products or services. Mission and values they stand for. What is unique about them and how are they different from their competitors? Skills, experience, interests, and preferences of the team you’ll be working with. What are their pain points and wants from a new consultant? Absorb the information The intel you collected will be utilized not only in your bid document but will also be leveraged throughout the entire project execution lifecycle. Take the time to absorb and understand every point in depth so that it is made evident in everything you do. Go above and beyond with your proposal From the point of view of a project, your bid illustrates how you will go about achieving your client’s goals. From the point of view of a relationship, it’s an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you have a deep understanding of your client’s business and its people. To be successful, you need to seamlessly link what and why. What refers to activities included as a part of the project and why should link one of the "whats" to one of the business goals? Once you identify the why, establish the expected measurable outcome once the why is addressed. Include in your proposal how you will measure this outcome. This approach demonstrates your commitment to the client’s business and its people and shows that you care about the people impacted by your proposed offering. Have an onboarding process Once the client has signed up with you, there are bound to be regular interactions across the user group. A smooth onboarding process sets the benchmark for free and open communication and ensures smooth execution which is necessary for a long-term client relationship. Start with a kick-off meeting to ensure everyone is on the same page and well-versed with the goals and expectations of the project. Treat clients as partners Treating your clients as partners in success lays the foundation for a purposeful and fruitful engagement, where both your and your client’s points of view are respected, and each does their best to ensure success. At the end of the day, it’s a transactional relationship and a well-defined partnership ensures that each party delivers its end of the bargain. ​Be proactive Share fresh ideas and propose new strategies. Inform the concerned teams in advance about any disruptions that may be caused due to system changes or changes in requirements. Educate the teams and empower them to be proactive. A proactive approach based on transparent communication lays the foundation for a seamless execution and ensures success for all concerned. Be a good listener Clients can at times get reactive about results. While you may be doing a great job with your project, the results are not going through the roof. Instead of stone-walling the client’s perspective, use a more empathetic approach such as: “I see what you’re talking about. It’s a valid point. “ “We’re glad you brought this up.  Let us review this and allow us a week to report back to you.” Position yourself as a partner in the journey. Value everyone's point of view, evaluate objectively, and present your findings to build a long, trusting relationship. Establish a framework for communication Conduct scheduled meetings with relevant stakeholders and end them with clearly defined action items Set up weekly or fortnightly meetings to review progress and answer questions. Make the meetings more about listening than talking. This illustrates your intent to be accountable and helps build trust with the client. Leverage text messaging to build rapport and personal connections with team members and foster a more informal way of working. Share your concerns early This is particularly relevant when the business landscape is changing rapidly. Avoid saying yes to everything they want. Clients may have big plans and as a consultant, it's your job to double-check on everything they want for its viability, its efficacy, and impact on the overall project. Understand the challenges – both short-term and long-term, and communicate your concerns clearly. Establish quarterly business reviews Quarterly reviews with the senior leadership are a great way to build on relationships. Make these reviews focussed on high-level strategy, allowing the client to reflect on long-term goals. Review past strategies, what's worked and what hasn't, and pivot if need be. Quarterly reviews are also the apt time for a client to provide insight into the changing business landscape, and the shift in goals (if any), and to establish how these changes impact the scope and budget of the ongoing project. Strong client relationships are the backbone of a successful Salesforce Consulting practice. It lays the foundation for increased loyalty and referrals and makes the journey a joyful one.

The latest Summer '23 features have been released by Salesforce.  If you are looking to upgrade your Salesforce instance, the right Salesforce Implementation Partner can help you with the implementation of these new features and training of your Salesforce admins to make your operations more efficient and productive.  Here’s a look at the top 10 features from the Latest Salesforce Summer ’23 Release 1. Integrated Analytics Services The summer ’23 release comes with a consolidated interface for Analytics and Slack. Which means you can now enjoy a seamless engagement with all your CRM Analytics, Lightning reports and dashboards, and Einstein Discovery models and forecasts. The Analytics tab now comes with powerful search capabilities and recommendations, giving you access to organized statistics that you can turn to for all your Lightning dashboards and CRM Analytics. Using the Post to Slack feature on Lightning dashboards, you can share information such as dashboards and CRM data with colleagues throughout Slack workspaces easily. 2. Unified Analytics With the new release of Analytics Home, you no longer need to deal with analytics spread over different products. This new feature unifies all your CRM analytics data in a single place, allowing you easy access to information. Now you can get access to a consolidated view of all your CRM reports and dashboards in a structured and organised way, so you can easily access all the information you need to take quick decisions. 3. Customer Data Platform reimagined as Data Cloud In the new release, Salesforce has transformed the erstwhile Customer Data Platform into Salesforce Data Cloud with all the necessary documentation and additional features. 4. Barring Unverified Emails Sent by Guest Users This feature update disallows companies from sending emails from unverified email addresses of guest users. However, Salesforce customers that have a validated company-wide email address will not be impacted by this update. In such cases, the sender’s email address always updates to the authenticated email address. With the Latest Summer ’23 release, this enforced change effectively disallows shadowy emails from being sent by a guest user using an unverified email address. 5. Upgrade to Hyperforce Using Hyperforce Assistant The latest Summer ’23 release comes with Hyperforce Assistant which streamlines the upgrade to Hyperforce. The new Hyperforce Assistant comes with the latest Hyperforce messaging authorization feature that has better in-built reference checks to support Salesforce organizations that have a large number of Apex classes. Hyperforce Assistant is available in all editions of Salesforce Lightning as well as Classic. Once admins schedule the upgrade, they will be asked to initiate the assistant. Admins can activate the assistant manually in case you are scheduled for a major migration. During Setup, you can enter “Hyperforce Assistant” in the Quick Find Box and select the appropriate option. 6. Accelerated Quote Template Creation With OmniStudio Document Generation Quote generation is now much simpler with this latest add on. With Salesforce CPQ Plus, your reps can easily create templates to generate quotes for your customers. You can generate a Microsoft Word file in the format and language of your preference, insert tokens and upload the document. Then associate the inserted tokens with relevant Salesforce fields. Your sales reps can then start utilizing the template once it is active. They can also easily convert their documents to PDFs. This Salesforce CPQ plus update is available in both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience. 7. Real-Time Collaboration with Partner Relationship Management for Slack App This feature improves communication and collaboration across internal teams and external partners by bringing them together in a single channel using Slack. With Slack you can automate key business processes, and update and share records easily across collaborators. Partner Relationship Management for Slack connects your Salesforce CRM with partners seamlessly, with easy access to important information through partner portals, thereby boosting productivity, and fostering better communication. This upgrade impacts the Enterprise and Unlimited editions of Salesforce. The mandatory requirement to access this feature upgrade is to be a Slack Enterprise Grid user. 8. Codeless flow of External Data into Flow Builder This new feature allows admins to use Flow Builder to automate processes that involve external data without the need for coding by developing an HTTP callout action through a web service API. Once you enter the API details, Flow Builder automatically generates a reusable callout action which admins can immediately deploy in Flow Builder and across Salesforce. This commonly used feature has witnessed several enhancements since the last update. Now it is easier to configure and edit the API responses to HTTP callouts. This allows the use of external data inflows to be simpler and more declarative. This upgrade is available across all editions of the Lightning Experience – Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer. The reason why this feature has been introduced is that APIs often go through modifications, such as the addition of a new field or updation in an existing field in an external system. Admins with the relevant permissions in Manage Flow and Customize Applications can create an HTTP callout action. Previously, admins had to modify the auto-generated API definition in JSON to modify the HTTP callout action. With the latest update, this action can be modified with just a few clicks. Instead of editing and configuring JSON to parse the API response, admins can easily select data types for fields. With this new feature, admins will also receive more lucid error messages, simplifying the troubleshooting process and prevent runtime issues. 9. Quick Create Sandbox to Enhance Productivity Quick Create Full Sandbox is another new upcoming feature of the Salesforce’s Summer 23 Release. This feature accelerates sandbox creation and refreshing. This update means no additional actions will be required from Salesforce admins as it is the default setting. This feature will be available on eligible Hyperforce instances. Salesforce will initiate a staggered release after June 10, 2023, and users with the Manage Sandbox permission can use this feature. 10. Process Builder is on its way out. Rules have changed. Process Builder does not have the capability of adding new processes anymore. However, you can still activate/deactivate existing processes or edit them. Having said that, it is recommended that for most use cases, you migrate to Flow Builder.  The upgraded flow builder can take automation of business processes to a whole new level. Summing Up With the Summer ’23 release, Salesforce endeavours to make your daily tasks simpler, more efficient, and productive. The Summer ’23 release is designed to empower organizations to improve their engagement with customers, automate businesses processes, and drive growth. At Girikon, a Gold Salesforce Consulting Partner, we recognize that staying up-to-date with these new changes in the Salesforce platform and leveraging the new capabilities are key to maximizing your Salesforce RoI.  Contact one of our experts today to know more about how you can make the most of these exciting new features of the Summer ’23 Release.

Digital transformation is not a goal post. It’s a continuous journey involving the evolution of people and processes. Here are some of the steps you could take to transform your business digitally and advance your business growth. How can you advance transformation in an hour? Do your homework. Education is the first step to empowerment. Study about organizations that have had a successful digital transformation. There are many great case studies to explore. Comb your network and identify someone that you might know at a senior level who was part of the digital transformation at one of these companies. Schedule a time for a discussion to pick their brain. In fact, do one better. Become a customer of these businesses if you are not one already. Use their app, social media pages or other digital touchpoints to get a first-hand experience of what they have created and how they deliver the customer experience. Get conversational. For most people, the phrase digital transformation can seem ambiguous. It’s a broad term and a discussion on it may revolve around technology, business models, and emerging trends. Businesses are embracing new technologies to reinvent how they work, to connect with customers, and to innovate. It would be prudent to invest an hour in reading the latest about how business leaders see the future of work, navigating through change, and the impact of technology on the economy from renowned publications and organizations such as the World Economic Forum. Identify a champion. Even before COVID19, many digital transformation initiatives did not work out. In fact, some of them failed miserably. And this evidence became immediately tied to digitization without clearly defined purpose, outcomes, or ROI. Avoid these pitfalls by identifying a champion for your digital transformation, be it the CTO or someone else, who can own and drive the change from the very start. They should have clear and to the point discussions with all business units about what digital transformation implies and what they will get out of it. And while you identify that champion, also come up with a responsibility matrix for cross-functional overlap and ownership. How can you advance transformation in one quarter? Run an innovation pilot. Choose a customer journey that you recognize must be digitized. Put together a small cross-functional team (take the help of an external consultant if required) and throw them the gauntlet. Ask them to build a digital journey prototype in three or four iterations. Hand over this pilot to real customers to do a test drive to demonstrate what’s possible. Automate a single business process. A simpler way to imagine digital transformation is through automation of a business process. Put together a cross functional team to use collaboration and workflow tools, for instance Salesforce Slack, to streamline or redesign a business process that is manual, repetitive and causes pain for your team today. For instance, scheduling meetings with team members spread across multiple time zones can be a difficult task. If a technology tool can help teams collaborate asynchronously, it may free up meetings stacked up in your calendar and free up staff inboxes. This improves work efficiency, augments capacity, and enables better coordination between your teams. Identify the gaps. More often than not, business leaders don’t know what data they have access to, or where it lies. Spend time to get a complete view of data across the entire organization. Don’t just ask the senior management. Ask your peers and subordinates. The further down you go in hierarchy, the more likelihood of finding honest answers. To measure the digital transformation you seek to bring to the organization, you need to understand the true picture of all data. How can you advance transformation in a year? Renovate one business function. Whether it’s making your supply chain more visible by integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology or if it’s renovating your data systems to support better production planning and analysis. Choose one key business function and rebuild it digitally from ground up. Set challenging goals, timelines and identify measurable criteria, and use objectives and key metrics to drive effort and outcomes. Create a roadmap. Do achieve the desired outcome from your digital transformation, your vision and plan require critical inputs from customers and employees, to establish how technology innovation can help you meet their expectations. Eventually, driving innovation requires a great deal of perseverance built on a powerful foundation of data, tools, and skills. And digital transformation is not just the implementation of technology. It also necessitates changes in user behavior, and for that a fresh perspective may be necessary. So, don’t attempt this digital journey alone. Collaborate with technology agencies, systems integrators, consultants, and independent software vendors that can help you throughout your digital transformation journey with strategic planning, change management support, implementation best practices, training and upgrades. Reimagine your relationships. On the other side of digital transformation lies relationship transformation. Define how you want an ideal customer and employee relationship to be, and then guide the transformation. The following questions would guide you along the journey: How have the operational and technology changes impacted your relationships with your customers? How can you improve staff efficiency? How can you ensure staff wellness? What are the areas of improvement? What are the areas of friction? What are the new ways to add value to customers and employees? Study other companies. Not just the ones in your industry, but across the business landscape. Everyone has customers, identify who is delivering the best customer experiences. Learn from them and bring those learnings on board. Re-imagine the way you use data. Static dashboards are a thing of the past. Instead, explore using real time data in meetings, driving the discussion with dynamic data. Augment your internal communications with data-driven insights and be transparent. Include the uncertainties these data reveal. Ensure all employees have comprehensive training on data fluency and measure the training objectives at the end of the training as a key business objective. Promote a culture of making data driven decisions. Be aware of when your employees can’t make decisions because data isn’t available, and work diligently to fill those gaps quickly. Girikon is a Gold Salesforce Consulting Partner. We have worked with businesses across the globe and delivered success for over a decade. To know more about how Digital Transformation can benefit your business, contact an expert today.

Global Digital Skills Index from Salesforce research conducted in 2022 indicates a growing digital skills crisis. The in-depth research about digital skills is based on a survey with 23,000+ respondents (existing and prospective workers) across 19 countries. It includes areas such as their impact on the future of work, their job readiness concerns, and the importance of continuous up-skilling.