Organizing your Salesforce Orgs

Does this sound familiar? You’re moving from an independent instance (or org) of Salesforce CRM to the consolidated corporate org.  While there will definitely be business benefits in terms of visibility, reporting, customer/prospect communication, support, responsiveness, enablement and general leverage of corporate resources, it still represents a potential loss of autonomy. But it’s the right strategy for your business. Or is it?

Whether you ended up with multiple Salesforce orgs through mergers and acquisitions, separate brands or divisions, or through organic growth: at some point your organization is going to need to determine what is the right approach to multi-org consolidation. Here is an overview of 3 approaches to consider.

Salesforce.com Multi-Org Consolidation from Darren Cunningham

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#DF12 Presentation: Power the Connected Enterprise with Cloud MDM and Integration

The video of 3 great enterprise customers sharing their Salesforce integration and master data management stories at Dreamforce 2012 is now posted. You can read a blog post on two of the companies that presented so far:

• OppenheimerFunds Dreamforce Story: Lay a Foundation of Trusted and Complete Customer Information for Salesforce
• Interstate Batteries Dreamforce Story: How Can You Be #1 Without Trusted Customer Information?

And here’s the video (slides are here):

Related articles

• Salesforce Customers are Asking for Big Data Management #DF12 (cloudintegration.wordpress.com)
• Cloud Master Data Management from Informatica (cloudintegration.wordpress.com)
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• Informatica Positioned in Leaders Quadrant in 2012 Master Data Management of Customer Data Solutions Report (virtual-strategy.com)

Salesforce Customers are Asking for Big Data Management #DF12

Two things stuck out for me at Dreamforce 2012:

1. What an amazing ecosystem Salesforce has built. The Cloud expo was packed with high-quality booths and there were over 3000 people at the partner keynote! Congratulations to the partner success team and kudos on the newly designed Appexchange.
2. How important cloud integration / enterprise connectivity has become to Salesforce customers, partners and prospects. These two slides from that same partner keynote say it all:

When it comes to the back-office, Big Data Management apps top the list of Salesforce customer requirements. Oh, and by the way, all new cloud applications must connect across the business.

Today two post-Dreamforce 2012 articles caught my attention that address the need for cloud integration head on. In his post – Plumbing the Salesforce Clouds is Your Business, Mark Smith from Ventana Research notes:

“The challenges your organization faces with data are getting larger, and the financial benefits of data in the cloud, such as reduced TCO and reduced implementation fees, are substantive. Too much time and too many resources are wasted in manual approaches where data is transitioned inconsistently and incorrectly. Automation helps organizations rationalize their overall information management efforts.”

Joshua Greenbaum at Enterprise Applications Consulting has this to say his his article, Salesforce.com, Enterprise Platforms, and the End of the End of Software:

“And the tools are there, or on the way. Hence the refrigerator pitch, though it was interestingly devoid of details on just how easy it will be to build an integration framework that could tie together a Pandora-like pure cloud environment or a more common hybrid cloud/on-premise environment. But heck, that’s really hard. It took SAP years to get NetWeaver out of slideware mode and into simple and easy to implement mode, despite all their efforts. So I don’t expect Saleforce.com to settle this issue in just one Dreamforce. It will take a while, no doubt.”

I’ll write about the Informatica Cloud integration and MDM session later this week on the Perspective blog. In the meantime, I’ve embedded the slides below so you can see for yourself how three enterprise organizations have taken advantage of data integration, data quality and master data management technology to drive overall Salesforce adoption and success. It’s Big Cloud Data Management in action!

Power the Connected Enterprise with Cloud Integration and Master Data Management (MDM) from Darren Cunningham

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Are You Ready for #DF12?

Dreamforce is two weeks away. Are you ready?

Dennis Moore just posted this practical list of suggestions on the Enterprise Irregulars blog:

• Sit on the aisle in the general sessions – you may get in Marc @Benioff’s keynote!
• Bring your own backpack so you don’t get your bag mixed up with 50K+ others.
• Bring an extension cord with multiple outlets (and an appropriate adapter for your nation).
• Plan an extra five minutes for walking. Better make that ten. Or fifteen.
• If you’re driving in, carpool. You’ll have interesting things to talk about when stuck in traffic.
• You can watch most of the keynotes on monitors throughout Moscone, in comfort and while discussing with colleagues.
• Bring a couple of Granola bars (or your favorite alternative) for when you get stuck without a chance to get a meal.
• Comfortable shoes. Loose-fitting and dark-colored pants (for sitting on floor). Layers.
• Don’t try to follow #Dreamforce or #DF12 on Twitter. Your head might explode from the volume. Follow @mkrigsman and @rwang0 instead.

On the last point, I think Mark and Ray are great and do agree with following them (and a few others). That said, I think it’s worth checking in on the #DF12 feed periodically to get the pulse of  what’s happening at the event and get  real-time updates on keynotes and individual sessions.

I posted some resources on the Informatica Perspectives blog on what promises to be “the cloud computing event of the year” and have seen some great posts on the same topic since (see below). Salesforce has also been posting quite a few promotional videos. They’re clearly looking to set new attendance records for the conferences 10th anniversary.

Related articles

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• Salesforce.com: 5 nagging questions ahead (zdnet.com)
• Learn How to Network at Dreamforce (blogs.salesforce.com)
• Dreamforce 2012 – A List of Great Resources #DF12 (insideview.com)

Welcome to the Hypernet

Check out this panel discussion. It’s called Revolutions in Progress: The Case for Optimism
http://cdn.livestream.com/embed/techonomy?layout=4&clip=pla_c2a3f8fd-b51c-41a1-9029-af744ae6dd20&height=340&width=560&autoplay=false

techonomy on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

The Cloud Crowd Rolls in Style to Dreamforce 2011

I recently outlined some of the things the Informatica Cloud team is working on in anticipation of the cloud computing event of the year – Dreamforce 2011. (See the post Getting Ready for Dreamforce on the Perspectives blog.) Well, yesterday I had a chance to catch up with my friend Tom Wong – aka Mr. Dreamforce himself. Tom’s got a lot going on right now as his new company Eventley gets going (“if you’ve been to Dreamforce and used the Attendee Portal, you’ve used Eventforce by Eventley”), but somehow he’s found the time to connect with eight other Salesforce enthusiasts to organize “The Road2DF,” which has already become a movement leading up to the conference. Here’s they’re describing the journey:

 “9 of us are driving cross-country 3,000 miles in an RV on the Road to Dreamforce. From Chicago to San Francisco over 4 days, we’re going to chronicle our journey and hope to connect with 100s of attendees and believers both online and at meetups along the way.  JOIN THE MOVEMENT.”

The event schedule appears to be growing by the day with official stops planned for Chicago, Iowa City, Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake, Las Vegas, LA, and of course San Francisco in time for Dreamforce. According to Tom, who has a history of getting very excited about Dreamforce, the ideas are flowing for lots of interesting activities and announcements along the way.

• There’s already been a Haiku competition (the winner: Driving to the cloud | Nine chaps en route to Dreamforce | See you in San Fran)
• There’s a blog
• There are 150+ followers on Twitter,
• And it sounds like the local Salesforce user groups are jumping on to the bandwagon, er RV.

I think we’re going to hear a lot about this trip before during and after Dreamforce. It’s a great idea with some really passionate people involved. Talking to Tom I had this vision of the scene in Slapshot where the local boosters follow the team from city to city. I believe there were a few moon shots along the way – something I think this crew is going to want to avoid. Then the movie Roadtrip popped into my head. God speed!

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The Movement to the Cloud is a One-Way Street…

Image via Wikipedia

Unless of course, you’re talking about data integration. Then it’s very much a two way street. (Think both on-ramp and interstate…)

But I digress. Regardless, this is a great quote from Vivek Kundra, (now the former) Federal Chief Information Officer introducing the new The Cloud First Buyer’s Guide.

“The Movement to the Cloud is a One-Way Street.”

TechAmerica Foundation established a Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud (CLOUD2) which will “make recommendations for how government should deploy cloud technologies and address policies that might hinder U.S. leadership of the cloud in the commercial space.” The first report was issued this week: 2011 U.S. Federal Strategy for the Safe and Secure Adoption of Cloud Computing.

The best summary I’ve seen so far (not surprisingly) comes  from the Salesforce Blog: “Cloud First”: What’s Next. Peter Coffee published a Cloud First Buyer’s Guide for Government – A Simple Checklist. Worth printing for your cube…

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Salesforce Data Integration Options

Recently I presented on the topic of Salesforce data management at an Orlando user group called Dreamforce 2 You. We had a good discussion about some of the different data integration options available and I thought I would share a few of the slides. I’d be interested in your input and experiences.

Of course, I tend to be somewhat biased towards Informatica Cloud and the data integration as a service model….

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Congratulations to the AppExchange 2010 Best of Winners

Image via CrunchBase

Salesforce.com announced the 2010 AppExchange “Best of” Award winners today. They also posted a video to celebrate their 5 year anniversary.

This year’s winners are:

• Best ChatterExchange App: FedEx Shipping with Chatter
• Best Contract Management App: EchoSign E-Signature
• Best Dashboard or Report: FunnelSource
• Best Data Cleansing Tool: CountryComplete
• Best Data Integration App: Informatica Cloud
• Best Human Resources & Recruiting App: Jobscience Recruiting
• Best Marketing Automation App: Marketo Marketing Automation
• Best Mass Email App: iContact for Salesforce
• Best Productivity Tool: Email Integration for Salesforce from iHance
• Best Quoting App: BigMachines Configurator, Quotes, Pricing & Proposals
• Best Survey App: Clicktools Surveys & Scripts

This recognition is based on quality and quantity of customer reviews during the year. Congratulations to all of the winners! (Here’s more information on each vendor and their winning app.)

And here’s the video…

Oracle CRM vs. Salesforce Smackdown Poll Results

Interesting, albeit not surprising, poll results about which CRM application is the most popular: Oracle OpenWorld CRM Smackdown!

It’s Salesforce.com by a long shot, but are Oracle, Microsoft and SAP gaining? The post goes on to ask: “Does Oracle need to own Salesforce to own on-demand CRM?”

The answer digs into market share, functionality, analyst opinion, and differentiation. Definitely worth the read.

Related Articles

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