This is the third and penultimate article in a series exploring Salesforce® delivery strategy. It’s been launched to help you understand how VRP’s services, and the strategies used to deliver them, can best fit your needs, resources and end goals. In this article, we’ll be looking at the differences between delivery strategies and Salesforce Partner service models.
You may have a good understanding of VRP’s delivery strategies (if not, check out the first and second articles in this series!) but you may still be unsure how they relate to our service models. Don’t worry — that’s perfectly understandable!
In this article, I’ll break it all down for you clearly, so you know the difference between delivery strategies and service models, and also how they relate to each other.
Firstly, let’s start off with a very common misconception. Instead of thinking in terms of “delivery strategies versus service models”, it’s more like “delivery strategies and services models.”
You’ll see why later — but let’s back up for now. What is a “service model”? Well, VRP has three core service models, and you may already be somewhat familiar with them:
If you’re wondering, “Wait, aren’t Outsourcing and Managed Services delivery strategies?” Congratulations – you are correct! Outsourcing is both a delivery strategy and a service model. Managed Services are, too.
And now you may be wondering, “OK, but why should I care?” Well, if VRP only offered Outsourcing and Managed Services, the distinction between a delivery strategy and a service model wouldn’t really matter. But since we offer Consulting, it’s important to understand that “Consulting” is an umbrella service model that contains most of the delivery strategies.
If you’re a little confused, don’t worry – I’ll make it much easier for you to understand.
We’ve created this diagram to help you grasp where each delivery strategy fits into VRP’s three core service models:
Each service model – Outsourcing, Managed Services, and Consulting – will determine how responsible your Salesforce Partner, VRP, is for client outcomes. Responsibility is a key concept here, and I’ll explain why now.
Looking back at the diagram above, you may have noticed that Product Development Outsourcing can be both Outsourcing and Consulting. Hold on – how can this be?
The simple distinction is determined by how responsible VRP or the client is for the scope, deliverables and outcomes. For example, if an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) has a strong product manager/owner and/or project manager with their own solution architecture and design team and only want a team of VRP developers and QAs to help build the product, this would be on the Outsourcing side of the spectrum.
Whereas, if the ISV had no architectural or design capability and only supplied VRP requirements, this would be on the Consulting side of the spectrum. In this case we would need to validate requirements, design and deliver the solution. In short, VRP would be responsible for the outcome.
Here’s a great way to think of our core service areas: outsourcing provides staff, managed services supports operations, and consulting seeks to deliver value.
We’ve devised the following diagram as a handy summary of the relationship between our services and VRP/client responsibility for outcomes. The first, inverted pyramid indicates where responsibility is in corresponding sections of the second pyramid, which in turn shows our three core service models.
Hopefully this makes the concepts I’ve been describing here much easier to understand. You can see how resources (Outsourcing), value (Consulting) and support (Managed Services) translate in terms of who is responsible for outcomes.
If this article has helped you to gain a better grasp of VRP’s delivery strategies and service models, that’s great — it’s exactly what we want. However, it’s a tricky topic, and if you still need a little more guidance and explanation, that’s fine, too. It’s what we’re here for.
Our team will be happy to help you identify exactly the right service and delivery strategy for your needs — so don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
Look out for the next article in our series, and in the meantime, if you’d like to discuss how VRP Consulting can ensure you get the right service and delivery method for your needs, or discuss any aspect of how we can help your business, just contact us.
Debbie Leppard
Principal Delivery Manager, VRP Consulting
Debbie is one of the leaders of VRP’s Delivery team. Her responsibilities include overseeing one of our biggest and most demanding accounts, a multi-year engagement centered on a global digital platform created for the aviation industry by one of the world’s most prestigious brands.
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