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Project Planning and Design

Salesforce drives more success than any other CRM solution in history. But success on salesforce starts with a good design and a good plan.

Our consultants will help your team to define an optimal business process, focused on customer success and speed to solution. In essence, our design sessions will align business activities with key performance measures and software functionality.

We will help you to define an overall model for the system. This model typically includes a thorough features list, and process design.

Finally, when the design has been complete, we will develop a Configuration & Project plan that will guide us through the project.

System Configuration & Iteration

BlackIron’s 16 years of success is built on solid delivery of tailored salesforce solutions. Following the design sessions, we will configure salesforce to meet your exacting business requirements. The beauty of salesforce is that is almost infinitely flexible, but salesforce success comes from knowing how to configure the tool to your specific processes.

Our team of professionals will ensure that the software is configured to your needs and we will assist you in driving your project to meet your defined business and project objectives.

Our methodology has shifted over the years from a traditional 4 block, design, build, test, deploy model to a more streamlined Agile-“ish” approach. Since we are working with a fixed budget, the standard rules of Agile methodology cannot totally apply, but we have built a hybrid approach that allows us to iterate through the process configuration up to 3 times in order to get the configuration right – and build a system responsive to the needs of the business and the requirements of the users

Data Migration Services

Data.  That’s what your enterprise depends on for operational effectiveness and Customer Relationship Management. With very few exceptions, a successful migration from your legacy systems is the critical path to CRM success.

Most people find the topic of data migration boring and not especially meaningful. Not us. We have moved clients from all of the major CRM applications to salesforce. From Microsoft CRM, to Sugar, to Zoho, Zendesk, ACT!, Goldmine and so so so many others.

As you move to salesforce, it’s essential to have a structured data migration strategy—and a time-tested migration process to guide your company through this critical task. 

So we’ll work closely with your organization to migrate your data from your existing environment to salesforce.  Our trained associates have the experience of thousands of migrations to make sure your migration task is completed successfully and in the shortest amount of time by following our proven best practices.

System Integration

Product, Sales, Inventory, and other data is one of the most valuable and significant assets of your company. You depend on that data for their day-to-day operations and to help set their future strategic directions.  

But Enterprise Systems are BUILT to manage and protect that transnational business data. These systems are not designed to share that data, and, for the most part, that data is still “On Premise”

And that’s where BlackIron – and Salesforce’s world class API can help. If your Enterprise system has an API, we can harness that to bring that critical data into salesforce, and share it with your users.

But even if your Enterprise system DOESN’T have an API, we are confident that we can get the data and deliver it to your users when and wherever they need it – seamlessly and elegantly – designed from the ground up to make the information your reps need available to them

Training and Support

A well thought out, streamlined, integrated and tested system is the ultimate goal for the project. But it is still only half the battle. The single biggest risk is lack of user understanding and adoption, and if the users don’t embrace the system, it will ultimately fail. As a result, we focus and incredible amount of time and effort on the training of your team.

Our approach to training is at least 3-fold:

• We start by requesting that your team take the pre-built salesforce training provided on the world class training portal, Trailhead. Trailhead is an outstanding resource for your user base – fun, interactive, self paced and engaging. We will ask that your team become familiar with salesforce, by learning from salesforce.
• After the system design has been approved, and the data has been migrated, we will conduct on site training sessions. Your team wil be trained on the customized system we’ve built for them. Over the years, we’ve learned that the longest we can make those initial sessions is 2 to 3 hours. Our experience suggests after that, users are worried about their “real” jobs and are not in a position to absorb anymore from us. But, we also understand, however, that this is not enough training.
• This is why we also schedule several half hour webinars in the weeks following the go live.  These short informal sessions give users the ability to ask questions, make complaints and learn tricks and tips of the salesforce.com tool – in a quick web based session

Ongoing Support

Wouldn’t it be great to have an extra set of hands to keep up with the constant changes and new applications available to you through Salesforce and the AppExchange?

Someone to call when issues arise, reports need to be defined, applications need to be extended or people need to be trained?

Your BlackIron Project Manager, the person responsible for your project, who configured Salesforce, did the data migration and helped you to create and refine your reporting strategy is now available to you – each and every month – to help you make the most of salesforce and help you and your company be more productive and efficient.

BlackIron’s job is to stay abreast of changes to salesforce, and understand how those changes can best be used to improve your business. Our “Extension on Demand” services we can bring that easy, consistent support to your company, long after the initial project is complete.

And, with over 2,000 implementations and counting, we bring a wide variety of experiences and solutions to the table each time we work for you.

Salesforce Refinement

Salesforce’s multi-tenant structure delivers constant innovation. With 3 upgrades a year, you can expect as a salesforce customer to receive hundreds of functional improvements, added features and continuous excellence.

As an existing customer, you get the New Release notifications from Salesforce, and you are pretty sure there are new features you could use, but you don’t have the time for research and study, so, if you’re like a lot of customers, you simply ignore these useful features and continue down the same old path. You have the sneaking suspicion that you are falling behind but don’t really have a way to catch up.

Optimizing your existing salesforce deployment is a clear cut – cost effective solution to increased efficiency and profits. BlackIron Group is here to help – with a suite of refinement services – custom targeted to your salesforce clouds, we can help you achieve success and increase ROI – with software you already own and trust.
Our “Re-Fine” System Refinement services can identify new functions within your salesforce solution that you already own but are not taking advantage of. Our certified consultants will work with you to map solutions that address your problems and accelerate your success.