T@W Ep 47: Answering The “How”: Building An Effective Salesforce Pre - Implementation Roadmap

A Salesforce implementation is a major undertaking that constitutes thousands of dollars and weeks to months of training time. Ensuring that deployment is a success — and that your investment doesn’t go to waste — is imperative. So, how do you make sure that teams stay aligned, objectives are hit, and adoption happens long-term? To find the answer, you need to go back: before the first training is held, and before a developer ever sits down with a given project. In this episode of Transformation @ Work, our experts look at the pre-deployment meetings between team leaders and their technology partners, when they work together to develop a plan that answers not only the “what” of a Salesforce implementation, but the “how” as well. Key Insights 02:35: Understanding the impact an effective implementation plan can have on an organization’s adoption rate and success with Salesforce 04:25: The “what” vs. the “how”: why organizations often fail to clearly map out their implementation journey 07:59: The first step in an effective deployment plan: defining what success looks like for your organization 11:21: Key considerations when assessing new technology, and building a plan for how to use it effectively 12:36: Visualizing what success looks like post-implementation, and identifying how your team can work towards that end-state 15:19: Key questions for team leaders to ask their technology partners to ensure a comprehensive implementation plan 18:01: The importance of regular check-ins to ensure your team is trending towards your stated implementation goals 20:23: Putting it all together: how building an effective implementation plan prepares organizations to embrace change and anticipate the unexpected Guest Bios Nicole Guerra, Sales Director, Consumer Business Services, Gerent Nicole's experience in the Salesforce ecosystem covers all aspects of the digitalization journey, from starting as a Salesforce super-user within a customer organization, to working as an account director at Salesforce, then transitioning into the world of consulting. That range of perspectives gives her keen insight into the process of implementation, and how organizations can best ready themselves for Salesforce success. Eric Saxton, Sales Director, Consumer Business Services, Gerent Eric brings a wealth of experience to his current role, having worked with manufacturers, nonprofits, educational institutions, and travel and hospitality groups, and having been on both sides of the implementation process as a customer and consultant. Having seen the ups and downs of the tech deployment process, he is able to confidently lead different kinds of organizations through their digitalization and Salesforce journey.