In past articles here, I’ve explored a range of Salesforce® managed services benefits. Those have included getting vital help with more demanding implementations, making the most of third-party apps and ensuring post-implementation administration isn’t neglected. In all kinds of ways, Salesforce managed service providers help our clients to cost-effectively gain the skill-sets and resources they lack in-house.
There’s also another area of benefit that hasn’t been covered yet but you should definitely know about. Managed services can ensure you’re getting continuous improvements and enhancements to your solution. Let’s look at this in detail here.
Even after the most successful implementation, your Salesforce solution may need to change as time goes by. Users will identify and request improvements, and if your business processes and needs change, your solution will need to be adapted to keep up with them.
This is where one of the least-known Salesforce managed services benefits comes in. Many people think of managed services purely in terms of outsourcing a Salesforce admin to handle everyday administration. That’s a very important aspect, but perhaps equally vital can be the role of managed services in evolving your Salesforce solution on a continuous basis. That includes handling new customizations that are necessary, as well as integration of every new business-critical app or service you add to your processes.
There’s a widespread lack of awareness of managed services’ role in continuous enhancement and improvement, and it’s reflected in the way many businesses look for a partner. Looking at the most popular Google searches will show you lots of queries such as “Salesforce admin managed services” and “managed Salesforce support services” — solely focused on administration and support. Many organizations don’t even think about this valuable improvement function of managed services, or the very different skill-sets it requires to many other aspects of the practice.
If your Salesforce solution is among the least demanding, using only out-of-the box features, and with little or no need to alter it as time goes by, taking on only administrators may be enough. In this case, the features you use are maintained by Salesforce themselves, directly — so you just need help with administration, support and perhaps training your users. However, if your solution or enhancements to it require custom development, this means you will need the skills of developers, rather than only admins. And you may not have those in-house, or provided by your partner as part of a less-advanced managed services engagement.
The right Salesforce managed services partner will have the necessary developer expertise on hand, along with plenty of resources they can dedicate to admin and support. They will also be able to capably manage your backlog (or “wishlist”) of enhancements and effectively oversee its implementation, which includes testing changes’ impact as well as suggest improvements themselves.
These can include making the most of functionality available in each new Salesforce update, such as the recent Winter ‘23 Release. Our team will review the release notes, in the context of your solution and processes, to see where new functionally presents opportunities for you, as well as any instances where testing and changes may be recommended to ensure custom development in your solution doesn’t have any unintended negative impact from changes on Salesforce’s side
VRP Consulting’s Managed Services Practice also makes it as simple as possible to coordinate with clients and manage the enhancements and improvements they need. You can choose our easy-to-use Managed Services App or our Managed Services Portal to submit and track requests, and we can also accommodate your preferred issue management system — such as Trello and Jira. Together with you, we’ll identify the best method for your organization and ensure you can evolve your platform every time you need to.
If you’d like to get these lesser-considered Salesforce managed services benefits — continuous enhancement and improvement — for your own organization, VRP Consulting can help. We can enable you to gain the advantages we’ve explored here, maximize investment returns and keep your Salesforce solution delivering all it can for your business.
VRP is a Salesforce Managed Services Navigator Expert — one of only 22 in the world. We offer flexible monthly pricing, with packages starting from as low as 20 hours per month and the possibility to roll hours over if you need to. Crucially, we also have the deep and wide expertise, and the capacity necessary, to enhance your Salesforce solution so it can always be at its full potential. We’ve got a great wealth of talented experts across our global offices, and we’re proud to have won the Salesforce Partner Innovation Award in both 2022 and 2020.
So, get in touch and we can discuss how VRP Consulting will help you evolve your Salesforce solution in every way and at every time it needs to.
Bruno Pimenta
Director of Managed Services, VRP Consulting
Bruno’s background spans over 10 years managing enterprise customer support and cloud technology services. He’s currently leading the VRP Consulting Managed Services team in Krakow.
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