Mine the gaps

Salesforce, often regarded as the number-one customer relationship management (CRM) company in the world, is renowned for the performance of its cloud-based software solutions for sales, marketing, commerce, analytics, digital experiences, industries, and more. Each new Salesforce solution has been embraced by a market that demands positive returns on each purchased license. But we have found that certain organizations can expect to find significant additional value in the connective tissue between Salesforce Cloud solutions—in effect, cloud integration.

Salesforce customers can look to nature for a strong example of the power of connecting multiple individual Salesforce solutions. Consider this: the largest organism on the planet is not a whale or an elephant, it is an aspen grove. An aspen grove, on the face of it, appears to contain more than 20 disparate trees. Yet in reality, an aspen grove is one organism that has grown from a single seed and shares an underground root system.

Organizations can view Salesforce integration in a similar fashion. Each individual Salesforce Cloud adds value to its users, the company, and the ecosystem. But Salesforce approaches peak power when those individual clouds are connected—sharing insights that both nourish the individual and support the collective.

Only 12% of Salesforce users report exploring Salesforce Cloud integration

Do Salesforce users embrace this concept? Is connecting Salesforce Cloud integration standard practice? How are organizations actually optimizing their Salesforce implementations? We surveyed more than 1,100 organizations across 11 countries to find out.

Two groups emerged from our respondents. Salesforce Silo Specialists are typically exploring Salesforce platform expansion across the enterprise but have implemented Salesforce in select functional areas in a siloed manner. They comprise almost half (46%) of the survey population. On average, they use 8.9 Salesforce Clouds, about the same as our Enterprise Connectors, who use 8.5 Salesforce Clouds on average.

Salesforce Enterprise Connectors, at 12% of respondents, is a fraction of our larger population. While their number of Salesforce Clouds is almost identical to Silo Specialists, Enterprise Connectors have integrated Salesforce solutions enterprise-wide and benefit from the value that comes along with more networked Salesforce capabilities. They use 8.5 Salesforce Clouds on average, slightly fewer than their Silo Specialist counterparts.

The small number of Enterprise Connectors sits in stark contrast to their large-scale results. While Silo Specialists can also achieve revenue benefits per Salesforce license, on average, Enterprise Connectors have achieved 40% higher average revenue per Salesforce license than Silo Specialists. And Enterprise Connectors say they are planning “broadly inclusive” or “fully comprehensive” enterprise transformations at almost twice the rate of Silo Specialists. In the current economic environment, these transformations position organizations to drive essential and timely cost reductions and achieve future growth.

Conversely, Silo Specialists—those users of multiple Salesforce Clouds but connectors of none—could well be missing out on revenue gains and transformational opportunities.

Configurable workflows and platform integration helps grow revenue

Let’s clarify a key point: integrating Salesforce Clouds is not customizing Salesforce Clouds. Salesforce has invested considerable time and resources in its configurable workflows, intelligence, and automation, crafting widely used “best practices” for its broad client base. To the extent possible, the Salesforce platform is intended to be used as designed, with over-customization resulting in unplanned and expensive obsolescence. But the integration of Salesforce Clouds is another matter entirely—one that intensifies both the power and value of Salesforce investments while optimizing Salesforce platform design.

The majority of Enterprise Connectors extract platform insights to forge deeper customer bonds and translate customer needs and insights into action. On the face of it, raw data is raw data. But these Connectors are empowered to use that data more creatively—spotting opportunities, uncovering insights, and identifying unmet needs (see figure).
 

Creative connections
Integrated Salesforce Clouds can reveal new insights and unmet customer needs.

And consider this: Enterprise Connectors realize 40% more revenue per Salesforce license (see figure). From a top-line perspective, it’s our most compelling finding. In an effort to establish a virtuous cycle, this enhanced return on Salesforce investments can be directed toward other transformational efforts, which can potentially increase revenue overall.
 

Compounding returns on Salesforce investments
Connecting Salesforce Clouds creates and excavates knowledge and can also generate the financial means and capabilities to transform that knowledge into action. Yet only 12% of respondents report integrating Salesforce Clouds. How can this change? What strategies can your organization undertake to explore this largely untapped opportunity?

In this report, we will explore additional potential benefits that can result from connected Salesforce Clouds, as well as concrete actions that will help Silo Specialists start becoming Enterprise Connectors.