Program Management in large Salesforce implementations

In principle, when we talk about large Salesforce implementation projects, most of them fall into the category of the Transformation projects. This inherently means that client is going for large scale transformation and is sitting with legacy systems to be replaced by Salesforce deployments. This can present some unique challenges in a number of ways.

Old, traditional, large global enterprises looking for transformation projects have tons of legacy applications with disjoint and disorganized data. This data comes out from numerous siloed departments which have to be accommodated in the new world along with the localization challenges. To add to that, after years of working with on-premises back-office systems, the transition to the cloud itself is challenging. At few occasions, I personally experienced that few client departments didn’t want to let go the control they had on the local servers hosting their application and data!

To handle all this requires a very precise and neatly crafted plan backed by efficient program management. I don’t want to touch upon the basic day to day program management stuff that has to be put in place to manage and govern such a program. What I really want to put focus is on some not so obvious thoughts which if taken care will help a lot in the successful rollouts.

1.             Till few years back, process decisions were taken locally. But with cloud and multi country rollouts, these decisions have to be global in nature. This essentially means, that processes/practices have to be tweaked to bring in a more centralized approach. At times, this really becomes a challenge as users want to stick to their old processes which if accommodated will lead to further complex solutions and will achieve only proxy global rollout. This should be avoided through top-down approach from client organization and getting the right attention of the business side. SI Program management team should collaborate with business in bringing the domain expertise and help streamline the business processes.

2.            In large first time implementations, sufficient effort should be spent in ensuring customizations are avoided as it will hurt the implementations in long term as business grows and makes changes. Starting with customizations early in the game will warrant for further implementation complications, not to forget the additional cost. Go slow, stick to basics OOTB features and then build on it. SI program management needs to bring in expertise and experience to educate business on the merits of this approach.

3.            The above point leads to another interesting point of keeping Global Design intact from the beginning itself, even if it means spending more time in the design first and having a late start of the build. This is one of the most complex aspect to achieve in a large multi country rollout, but if taken care of in the beginning, can solve so many problems. Once delayed, getting back on track can become a whole project in itself adding to the heartburns and bad name as well! Again, collaboration and constant review of this orientation is a must for SI program management team.

4.            With all this happening, eye on Organization Change Management (OCM) is a must. Though in most of the cases this is handled by the client organization, but it is always in SI partner’s interest to ensure and check from time to time if onboarding of users in the new world is on track or not. Educating users on where to seek help – though onsite teams, in-house tech team or Success teams at salesforce, is also a must.

5.            Last, but definitely not the least, Data Migration as per the target data model has to be very meticulously planned. This becomes complex in large transformation programs because of multi country and siloed departments. Though this is always part of the plan in any large transformation program, but key is to ensure the right participation and having an agreed strategy in place. This activity cannot be completed without active participation of business and program management needs to ensure this for a successful release.

Essentially, Cloud based Salesforce platform in itself does away with quite a few headaches of hardware management, infra, hosting, etc. The success of Salesforce transformation program really depends on how the larger aspects of business processes are kept in control and Program Management team can play a vital role in it by being part of the program’s governance and design assurance group. So watch out for the above in the next large implementation!