CIO Magazine recently highlighted the growing salesforce.com partner ecosystem. This comes as no surprise given the explosion in the popularity of salesforce.com's customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. However, findings from a Forrester Article indicate that only 41% of organizations fully achieve or exceed expected business results from their CRM deployments. So the question is, with so many salesforce.com consultancies out there, why are less than half of CRM deployments meeting business objectives?  

Since 2006, I have managed an IT staffing office, consulted on complex Salesforce deployments, and, most recently, been responsible for business development for our salesforce.com consulting practice. During my tenure, I have seen a few distinct trends arise in our ecosystem:

1. An increase in the market of "skilled" Salesforce resources (emphasis on the quotation marks)
2. A huge influx of new partners in the salesforce.com space (4,000+)
3. Increasing pressure to produce cost-effective solutions for customers

Unfortunately, these trends have resulted in an abundance of low-quality services, and, ultimately, a lot of unhappy customers. 

As a former staffing professional, I can attest to the fact that skill sets in the marketplace are not mature enough to drive self-implementation. Three years ago, the prevalence of Salesforce resources was very low. Today, there is a market for specific Salesforce skill sets, but certainly not to the depth needed to roll out a deployment, or stay in front of Salesforce's innovation lifecycle. A Salesforce deployment is a complex process, requiring individuals with very specialized skills. Ask yourself if your organization has the right resources to bring clarity to your business process, as well application specialists to align the technology with the processes. Most importantly, you’ll need a proven cloud deployment methodology that is highly focused on end-user adoption, meeting ROI expectations, and positioning you for long-term success. 

From my experience as a consultant, I’ve found that non-scalable solutions often result from companies partnering with inexperienced consultants, or trying to take on new technologies by themselves. Complex business processes, a focus on end-user experience, and tight timelines can all jeopardize the integrity of Salesforce best-practices if not managed properly. These distinct challenges mandate a strong deployment process that will help develop and prioritize your solution. Newer and smaller consultancies may struggle with quality, or be deficient in experience with long-term application roadmaps. Once an employee of a small firm myself, I personally understand that quality assurance can be difficult. It takes a mature consultancy with a sizable project team to truly overcome these challenges. Ask your partners how they manage quality. Ask about their tools, oversight, and development processes. And ask how many similar solutions they have designed and implemented. 

As a business development professional, I get it - "budgets exist." However, cloud technology is constructed to adopt flexible and elastic support structures. If you focus on a cost-effective offering, over the course of your saleforce.com contract (3-5+ years), you eliminate pressure for a low cost solution that gives you everything day one. If your internal steering committees or third-party consultants tell you differently, then you may have the wrong kind of support or are having the wrong conversations. Take a minute to think how about how much change your organization can handle; do you really want to build out everything day one if it won’t be adopted?

The people business is hard—there are no guarantees when it comes to productivity or commitment. Whether you are getting your team to adopt a new CRM, or you are a consultancy trying get people to go the extra mile for their customer's success, nothing is assured. When you start your journey on Salesforce, think about your culture, the ROI Salesforce affords, and the cost of falling short. Bluewolf is laser-focused on helping our clients actualize and sustain the returns they expect. What steps are you taking to focus on your success? 

Please take a moment to share your CRM experiences. I'd love to hear from you on Twitter (@andythoe) or LinkedIn (andythoe)