Salesforce

Digital Transformation Playbook

Updated: Q2 2024

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Digital Transformation Overview

This Playbook is a set of discrete, concrete actions that organizations can follow to achieve short-term and long-term business goals with the use of digital technology.

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The Intent of this Overview is to highlight Digital Transformation issues and pain points and to offer some suggestions for how to use Salesforce as an agile tool to digitally transform your growing organization.

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Intended Audience

Productivity Advisors’ Salesforce consulting practice is mainly focused on growing and emerging companies with user communities between 20-250 users.

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We focus on these earlier, growing organizations because:

• We enjoy working with smaller, nimble clients who want quick results and can embrace a changing process.
• We believe that these customers are underserved in the Salesforce ecosystem because many consultants are focused on larger clients to work with.

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Digital Transformation Streams

Demand Generation

Lead Pipeline Management

Sales Acceptance

(Lead Conversion)

Opportunity �Initiation

Lead to Quote

Configure Price Quote�(CPQ)

Funnel�Management

Sales Operations

A/R

ERP Integration

Quote to Cash

Customer Onboarding

Customer Support �and Training

Account and Contract Lifecycle Management

Customer Success

Partner and Channel Management

Reporting and Dashboards

Change Management

Integrations and AppExchange

Business Operations

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Digital Transformation Roadmap Example

Phase 1a: Foundational

Phase 2: Strategic

Phase 3: Transformation

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Transformation Projects to Consider

• Lead to Quote Processes
• Customer Journey Planning
• Managing Partner Deals
• “Key” Activity Management
• Account Planning
• Exception Reporting

• Track Biz Dev Efforts Differently
• ORG Knowledge Management
• Cases for Internal Ops
• Team Alignment (V2MOMs)
• Project and Resource Management
• Send Alerts from Salesforce to Slack

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Lead to Quote Continuum

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Legal & Security Check

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Working

Discovery

Lead from

SDR/BDR

AE Qualified

Business Reqs. ID’d

Proof of

Concept

Closed

Won

Negotiation & Procurement

Proposal &

Price

Finalizing

Closure

Prospect

Lead

Opportunity

MQL

In Salesforce,

yet to engage with sales, in

target Demo

Interest in Us.

Confirm Emp. #

Title, Country &

Initial Product Interest

Identify Product Fit

BANT

Finish Notes

AE Confirms Notes

SDR Schedules Intro Call

AE identifies product fit &

clear path to implementation

Convert

Trial of Us

with clear measures of success

Pricing is clear &

in line with expectations

Verbal agreement

Signature pending

Executed Contract &

Pass to CS

Confirm criteria in Lead & Update stage

Create Opportunity

Confirm criteria in Opp

Confirm criteria in Opportunity

Update Stage

Initiate DocuSign

Attach Full Contract &

Update Stage

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Implement a Lead to Customer Journey

Marketing & Sales Development

Sales & Account Management

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Partner Management Best Practices

To manage your partners in Salesforce, try to use as much standard Salesforce functionality as possible in your approach to setting up.

• Use a different, Partner Account and Contact record type
• For Opportunities that are Partner Influenced, use a Contact lookup field
• You can then leverage related Account and Contact Partner properties
• Define Partner related validation rules
• Set up Approval flows for “Partner” attributed deals
• Enables Partner related revenue reporting and payouts
• Explore using Partner Roles on Accounts and Opportunities, too

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Partner Portal Best Practices

To manage your partners’ activities in Salesforce, the Partner Experience Cloud (or Partner Portal function) is a straightforward and cost-effective approach.

• Easy set-up of a minimum viable product (MVP) portal is days of effort
• Out-of-the-box lead registration and opportunity management
• Case support functionality is also supported
• Using Salesforce Libraries you can expose custom, partner specific content
• Partner seat cost is a fraction of standard Sales Cloud seats (⅕ the cost)
• Business users can admin the Partner Portal, once it is set up
• Pathway to add-on CPQ functionality, too

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“Key” Activity Management

To manage Key communication or interactions on your Accounts, a custom Key Interaction object, related to the Account, can be a more efficient choice than standard Salesforce Activities.

• Key Interaction records are the “cream that rises to the top” compared to the sprawl of Activities that be captured on an Account
• Capture key interactions and important meeting notes
• Becomes the “go to” related list on Account activity
• Enables key activity reporting, most attended to customers, etc…
• Consider including: Subject, Key Questions, Topics, Overview

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Manage Account Planning using a custom object

To manage QBR milestones for your Accounts, a custom Account Plan object related to the Account can be an effective, lightweight choice.

• Manage quarterly plans and activities per Account record
• Capture Account goals and how they are achieving them this period
• Chart out any risks or barriers (SWOT)
• Describe a summary of your plan
• Consider including: Short Term Plan, Long-Term Plan, KPIs

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*** Using these records is also helpful toward measuring your team’s efforts and is a good qualitative measure (in contrast to the quantitative, revenue measures) for team success

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Exception Reporting

Set up an Exception folder and put exception reports in it and subscribe users to them for monitoring of key items

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Name report

“Exception: Name” to get the two line titling

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Exception Reporting (cont.)

Exception reports can be setup for almost any purpose. The key reason is to minimize the “chatter” from emailing, Slack-ing or notifying users of alerts.

• Opportunities without recent activities
• Records missing key values
• Records within or “stuck in” an approval process
• Opportunity Trending reports
• Untouched leads or cases

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Biz Dev Deal Tracking with a custom object

Salesforce Opportunities are not the solve for all things to be “hunted”.

• Opportunities are ideal for selling discretely priced products
• Opportunities may not fit in situations where you are selling future relationships or strategic partner relationships – e.g., biz dev
• Opportunities can work but are probably not the right fit, and if you have lots of Oppty record types, they’re definitely not the right fit.
• I prefer a custom object like “Initiatives” for two reasons:
• If the “sale” is a relationship, and the sale amount is unknown (think, performance based), Opportunities are overkill
• Using a custom object, here, also has license advantages. You can utilize Salesforce Platform licenses if you no longer need Opportunities, and those licenses are less expensive (⅕ the cost).

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Capture ORG Knowledge in a custom object

Example of a Business Rules object for documenting your SFDC instance

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Using Cases to Manage Internal Ops Processes

Salesforce’s Case object is a perfect out-of-the-box solution for managing internal operations processes. With multiple record types, queues, assignment rules and easy reporting there is no end to what is possible.

• A/R and A/P Processes
• Contractor Management
• Facilities Workflows
• Legal Resource Assignments
• IT Tickets
• Rev Ops Approval
• Vendor Management

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Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, & Measures�V2MOM

The latest V2MOM app (AppExchange) enables organizations to align themselves from employees to the CEO. This helps employees to better align with the organization’s Vision and Values that would in turn help them create their KPIs and Goals Quarterly.

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A corporate V2MOM is created at the start of a year by the CEO which gets cascaded down to individuals so everyone can create their own V2MOM. This ensures that every employee has a clear understanding of the organization's priorities every year, and how their role contributes to the company's overall success.

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Project and Resource Management

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Project and Resource Management �(i.e., Milestone PM)

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The Milestone PM app (AppExchange) enables organizations to install a lightweight project and task management app in any Salesforce ORG license type.

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Send Alerts from Salesforce records to Slack

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Who We Are

Productivity Advisors is a software consultancy that advises emerging and growing enterprises on how to implement, extend and adopt Salesforce solutions.

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We have deep knowledge of how the Salesforce ecosystem works and which resources to leverage to help our clients solve their problems.

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We have provided guidance to clients on: using AppExchange apps (and how to build them), integration strategies, when to use clicks not code, technical resources, licensing and general limits of the Salesforce platform.

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Our Philosophy

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What sets us apart...

Doing the Work We believe business requirements really matter, so we ask good questions.

Iterative Approach Iteration is essential: configure, confirm, repeat…

Focus on Declarative You can build a lot of functionality with “clicks”, before having to code.

Honest We believe saying NO, is just as important as knowing when to say YES.

Flexible We can work with lots of requirements or just ideas.

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Salesforce Services We Provide

• Salesforce Customization Services
• Salesforce Roadmapping and Onboarding
• Custom configuration assignments
• Lightning Change Management
• Coaching, mentoring and advice workshops
• Expert Blocks
• Coaching or advisory help (~5 hrs per wk; 10-week minimum)
• Part-time admin/developer (10-20 hrs per wk; 4-week minimum)
• Day blocks, as needed

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Contact

Greg Robin, Founder & Principal

✉ greg@prodadv.com

☏ 415.935.1776

🌐 http://productivityadvisors.com

🏢 611 Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94118

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Thank you for your interest in

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