Six Factors to Consider Before Implementing Salesforce
By Saru Seshadri, Founder & CEO, December 2022
By Saru Seshadri, Founder & CEO, December 2022
Salesforce Health Cloud is the World’s #1 CRM for Healthcare and Life Sciences. Their AppExchange program enables ISV partners like Constellation4 to create value-added applications on top of Salesforce. Salesforce Health Cloud provides additional healthcare specific features to build applications for the healthcare use cases.
There are certain things to keep in mind before implementing Salesforce to ensure that your company sees the greatest benefit. Listed below are six factors Constellation4 recommends considering in order to promote a successful implementation of Salesforce.
1. End-User Adoption
The end-user, or the individual using the Salesforce platform themselves, plays a vital role in the success of Salesforce implementation. This is because if the end-users do not use the application, there will be no return on investment.
For this reason, it is crucial to consider the end-user adoption process and what can be done to overcome potential adoption challenges.
To ensure greater end-user compliance, it helps to include them in the entire process. The end-users can help describe current problems, and with the end-users’ assistance, it becomes easier to see an ideal solution, ensuring the technology you decide upon can address these needs.
Another benefit of including end-users in the decision-making process is that it helps reduce any negative impressions when the application is rolled out because the users have been involved in each step and know what to expect, further improving usage and return on investment.
A common challenge in end-user inclusion is that they will most likely insist on the Salesforce implementation to mirror their existing (mostly manual) processes in Salesforce. They might even look for exact replica of their current screens, etc. This complicates Salesforce implementation and might not yield the right results. It is important to build consensus by educating the end user the advantages of modifying some of their current processes to get the best out of Salesforce.
Another critical component for increasing end-user adoption is ensuring that your company’s leaders can clearly articulate why the organization needs the technology and solution to be implemented.
By involving end-users in the entire process, leaders can use the struggles cited by the end-users as key points for why this technology will benefit them and the company as a whole. The executives must also be cognizant of the fact, that with Salesforce, processes that span department boundaries can be made more effective, if the end-to-end process can be optimized. Merely replicating the existing fragmented processes may not yield the expected ROI.
It is best to plan the total cost of ownership upfront, limiting surprises and hurdles throughout implementation. This includes the cost of implementation, maintenance, DevOps costs to maintain and manage the Salesforce development platform, ensure quality and integration needs. Too often, executives and vendors underestimate the total cost, and scope management challenges creep in.
The total cost of ownership should also include the commitment required by users, internal champions, and leaders to ensure that what is built and deployed is what is genuinely needed.
3. Phased Approach
Constellation4 recommends implementing the new Salesforce technology with a phased approach, as this gradually introduces the technology to end-users. When following a phased approach, the company can experience quick wins while continuously extending the platform.
This might pose some challenges for the end users, as they may want a more complete application (handling every single exception), as opposed to gradually adopting the solution. Of course, the implementation vendor and you should agree on what is the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or better put, a Minimum Lovable Solution (MLS) for the user to migrate from their existing solutions.
4. Governance / Maintenance Overhead
The larger the organization, the more overhead there will be. This is because as more applications are deployed on top of the Salesforce, addressing more than one department, the process boundaries will also expand to more than one department. Additionally, this increases the number of data integrity challenges because greater integration is needed.
It is essential to think about this ahead of time with a systems integrator or partner, such as Constellation4, to reduce any surprises later on regarding what it takes to maintain the application. This is compounded even further, the larger the enterprise is, different business units use Salesforce and more ISV packages are leveraged. These aspects are manageable, but ensuring success requires a discussion of expectations and requirements beforehand, creating a governance process and having sufficient DevOps resources.
5. Integration
Another important step is the integration of the Salesforce platform with other applications. Many companies already have a core technology that runs their business, such as a claims or utilization management system, and it is often a requirement to efficiently integrate them with Salesforce workflows.
Integration can become complex, data integrity issues may arise and certain Salseforce restrictions, such as API usage may limit integration options. So, it is important to fully understand the integration needs and plan accordingly.
Just like picking any other technology stack requires careful consideration. Salesforce as a technology stack also requires a commitment to the stack. As with any other technology stack, Salesforce provides a number of advantages and some limitations. It is an enterprise-grade platform, that is highly extensible. Some of the latest features provide rapid development and multi-modal deployment, that are highly desirable.
Salesforce is an extensible platform and with the right approach can grow with the business, allowing companies to do many things with it.
Constellation4 finds that Salesforce is an excellent choice for business that are:
We will deliver the results you need in the time you need them. Build your Salesforce Health Cloud solutions reliably and cost-effectively!
Salesforce Health Cloud is complicated. Successful implementations require healthcare domain expertise, insightful discovery from complex deployments, assets to enhance acceleration and best practices.
We have an expert team of certified Salesforce Developers and Administrators who have been in your shoes and understand Healthcare.
Our Singular Focus on Healthcare and Domain Expertise
Faster Time to Delivery and Market
Deep Understanding of Health Cloud Data Model
Pre-Built Accelerators and Licensable Apps
Flexible Engagement Model
Powered by our Pure4 Provider Data
If you have any questions regarding how Constellation4 can assist your company, please email us at info@constellation4.com or contact us on our online form.
