If you ever dealt with Salesforce implementation, you must have at least considered working with a Salesforce-certified partner. But what exactly do they do and how can they be helpful to your cause?
OMI has been a Salesforce partner almost ever since the platform’s release, and we know exactly what one can bring to the table. So in this article, we’ll first delve into what distinct roles different types of partners play – and then focus on Salesforce integration partners and their benefits. You’ll discover how to leverage these partnerships to turn Salesforce investment into tangible business growth, driving your organization toward greater success.
Types of Salesforce Partners
There are three major types of Salesforce partnerships: Salesforce Consulting and Integration Partners, Salesforce Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), and Salesforce Cloud Resellers.
While our article shall focus on the first type, in this section, we’ll introduce you to all three:
Salesforce Consulting and Integration Partners
In simple terms, a Salesforce consulting partner helps businesses implement and optimize Salesforce solutions. They provide expert guidance and hands-on support to ensure that Salesforce is capable of meeting the specific needs of any given company.
Their key responsibilities include:
- Consulting and Advisory Services: They assess your business processes and recommend the most suitable Salesforce products. This involves mapping out your workflows, designing the system architecture, and creating a strategic roadmap for implementation.
- Customization and Configuration: Consulting partners create custom workflows so that your Salesforce has maximum alignment with your existing business processes.
- Integration Services: They have expertise in integrating Salesforce with other enterprise systems such as ERP, marketing automation tools, and e-commerce platforms.
- Training and Support: They also provide training sessions and ongoing support, which helps employees utilize Salesforce more effectively, improving team productivity.
- Upgrades and Maintenance: Salesforce regularly updates its platform with new features and enhancements. Consulting partners manage these upgrades and ensure the platform operates smoothly without disrupting business operations.
- Strategic Planning: They help align Salesforce with your long-term goals, ensuring that the CRM system supports your growth and adapts to your changing needs.
Salesforce Independent Software Vendors (ISVs)
Salesforce independent software vendors (ISVs) are companies that develop applications specifically for the Salesforce platform. These applications are available on the Salesforce AppExchange, allowing businesses to extend Salesforce’s functionality for specific purposes.
Key roles and responsibilities of ISVs include:
- App Development: ISVs build innovative applications that enhance Salesforce’s capabilities. These apps can address a wide range of business needs, from complex automation and document generation to specialized industry solutions.
- Support and Maintenance: ISVs provide ongoing support and updates for their applications, ensuring that they remain compatible with the latest Salesforce releases.
Salesforce Cloud Resellers
Salesforce Cloud Resellers are specialized partners that focus on selling Salesforce products and services. They play a crucial role in expanding Salesforce’s reach by offering localized expertise and support.
Key responsibilities include:
- Sales and Distribution: Cloud resellers sell Salesforce licenses and products, helping businesses choose the right solutions.
- Localized Support: They provide specialized knowledge and capabilities in local markets, ensuring that businesses receive custom support that considers regional nuances and requirements.
- Full Customer Lifecycle Support: Resellers support customers throughout the entire lifecycle, from initial consultation and sales to implementation and ongoing support.
Benefits of Salesforce Partnerships
Key benefits of a healthy Salesforce partnership include, but are not limited to access to strong expertise, assistance with implementation, guidance on best practices as well as software maintenance:
Access to Expertise and Specialized Skills
Consulting and integration partners have extensive familiarity with the Salesforce platform, gained through training, certification, and hands-on experience. They know the platform’s capabilities and limitations, allowing them to resolve even the most nuanced implementation cases.
Aside from that, different partners often specialize in different areas such as sales automation, marketing automation, customer service, or industry-specific solutions. This helps greatly when you look for a depth of expertise in a certain field – you only need to define your most critical needs and seek a consulting partner with demonstrated success in dealing with those needs.
Assistance with Implementation, Customization, and Optimization
Consulting partners guide you through every step of the implementation process, from initial planning to post-implementation support. They help you define clear project milestones, allocate resources effectively, and track progress against goals.
As for customization, partners can develop tailored applications and integrate third-party tools to maximize the value of Salesforce for your team specifically.
Guidance on Best Practices
Partners help you develop a strategic roadmap for Salesforce adoption – they assess your current processes and recommend best practices for achieving your goals. So make sure to get key stakeholders from your team involved in strategic planning sessions, as their input and buy-in are essential for meaningful change.
Consulting partners also often draw on their experience working with similar clients to recommend proven strategies. They stay informed about the latest Salesforce trends in your industry and will refine their implementation strategy accordingly.
Support and Maintenance Services
A Salesforce partner company provides ongoing support and maintenance services – that include help desk support, troubleshooting, and guidance on platform usage. Additionally, you may want to make use of their training programs and knowledge transfer sessions to help your team use Salesforce even more effectively.
Role of Salesforce Partners in Business Growth
Salesforce integration partners can positively influence your growth from multiple sides: aiding in long-term strategy development, expanding your solution, maximizing your ROI and continuously innovating:
Strategy Development and Roadmap Planning
Consulting partners will collaborate with you to make sure the Salesforce implementation addresses both your short- and long-term needs. They conduct comprehensive assessments of current processes and pain points to develop a strategic roadmap for you to collectively follow.
In this roadmap, they prioritize initiatives based on business impact, resource availability, and implementation complexity. If the partners find that your sales and marketing departments are massively misaligned, they will likely focus on fixing this issue first – sales and marketing are considered the main drivers of revenue. Partners also set clear timelines, milestones, and success criteria to track progress and measure the impact of each initiative.
Scaling and Expanding Salesforce Solutions
Partners tend to design Salesforce solutions with scalability in mind, allowing you to accommodate future growth. They architect solutions that can scale with increasing data volumes, user counts, and business complexity. On top of that, they will provide comprehensive user training and support to ensure a smooth transition.
This especially comes in handy when you decide to expand your Salesforce solutions to new departments, regions, or even use cases.
Maximizing ROI
Consulting partners are great at developing smart change management strategies to maximize your ROI. They track it at all times to ensure that you are not suffering losses – they define measurable KPIs that align with your business goals and regularly monitor the performance of their initiatives.
Collaboration in Innovation
The best consulting partners also love to use their industry expertise and Salesforce knowledge to find opportunities for innovation – something that you should relish. Together, make sure to explore emerging technologies and capitalize on rich customer insights to get ahead of your competition.
And to prevent big losses, partners can help you rapidly prototype and test new ideas. Start with small, focused projects to test hypotheses and validate your assumptions before scaling up to larger initiatives.
Criteria for Choosing a Salesforce Partner
Lastly, let’s pay attention to what exactly you should be looking for in a Salesforce consulting partner that won’t fail you. We’ve already covered the criteria in our guide, whereas in this section, we’ll provide a summary of the most important factors:
Expertise and Experience
Look for partners with a diverse team of Salesforce-certified professionals, including administrators, developers, and architects – verify their credentials to ensure they have the expertise needed.
Also, prioritize teams with experience in your industry or vertical – industry-specific knowledge can be invaluable in understanding your specific business challenges or compliance standards. Ask about relevant use cases, success stories, and specific challenges they’ve addressed to assess their industry expertise.
Track Record and References
If possible, speak with their previous clients, preferably ones with similar business objectives, project scopes, or industry backgrounds as yours. When doing so, ask about the partner’s communication style, responsiveness, and ability to meet deadlines and budgets.
And don’t hesitate to request client references or case studies from potential partners to gauge their track record of success. assess the partner’s success stories in terms of project complexity, innovation, and business impact. Look for evidence of tangible results such as increased efficiency, revenue growth, or customer satisfaction.
Range of Services
A wide range of services is another deciding factor – a partner that can support your Salesforce journey from start to finish tends to be the better choice. A standard mix of expertise areas usually consists of Salesforce consulting, implementation, customization, training, support, and ongoing optimization.
You should also assess the partner’s relationships with technology vendors, Salesforce product teams, and third-party solution providers. Their strong partnerships can provide access to additional resources and expertise, which will come in handy.
Cultural Fit
Seek partners whose values, culture, and approach align with your organization’s ethos. Cultural fit fosters effective communication, collaboration, and trust, which are essential for a successful partnership. So take your time meeting their team members, attending workshops or events, and observing their communication style and work ethic.
Prioritize candidates that place a lot of emphasis on transparency and open communication.
To get more information, evaluate the partner’s communication processes, project management methodologies, and client engagement practices.
Support and Maintenance
Ensure that the partner offers solid post-implementation support and maintenance services – ask them about their support offerings and SLAs. Also make sure to clarify expectations around response times, availability, and support channels.
It’s always a plus when partners also focus on user training, enablement, and knowledge transfer to help your team use Salesforce effectively. Discuss training options, formats, and curriculum customization with the partner to adapt training programs to your team’s skill levels.
Conclusion
Partnering with the right Salesforce team can be a game-changer for your business – these partnerships, spanning consulting, integration, and software development, offer a wealth of expertise and support. But the benefits are not limited to technical know-how. By collaborating with a Salesforce-certified partner, you can also gain access to a wealth of resources, from strategic planning to post-implementation support.
If you feel that your team may benefit from collaborating with an expert Salesforce consulting partner, don’t hesitate to reach out to OMI – our team will make your Salesforce products work better than ever.