Getting to Know Salesforce
My first two months at ProQuest have been a whirlwind. I’d been a Salesforce Sales Cloud user in the past but wasn’t aware of how much the company had grown into new verticals and expanded the definition of CRM.
The Trailhead learning method has allowed me to dig into each of the clouds and discover how partners like ProQuest are helping customers use Salesforce to make rapid improvements in their business processes and customer engagements. I’m also fortunate to work alongside some truly talented Salesforce professionals who live and breathe the platform.
It’s hard not to get drawn into the Salesforce stratosphere when their products are able to be adapted for every step of the customer journey with a business. It feels like I see Salesforce everywhere I turn, including on my recent vacation to San Francisco where Salesforce Tower looms large as the tallest building in the city. I had to pop my head in for a look around.
I’ve expanded my knowledge beyond Sales Cloud into Service Cloud, CPQ, Marketing Cloud, Field Service Lightning, E-Commerce, Analytics and Community Cloud. The Salesforce platform reaches broadly across every client interaction a business can have and the learning journey has brought together my past digital knowledge and experiences, and built upon that with a visibility of the opportunities available to businesses to allow them to put their customers first.
Such a powerful business resource can sometimes be too big for a business to adopt or swallow at once, and it’s been great to see how ProQuest’s Agile Scrum methodology breaks this into bite size portions that focus on delivering quick wins for the customer.
I once had an old boss who used to say, “I can’t eat an elephant but I can eat an elephant burger a day”, and this truly reflects our process. Early wins are vital in any project, but especially in one where there is such impactful change, and an agile process allows that to be managed.
If it sounds like I’m drinking the Kool-Aid, it is because I have been blown away by the impact that a well implemented Salesforce solution can have on a business, and how it can give them a true intrinsic view of their sales and service functions. I’m looking forward to heading back to San Francisco in November to learn a whole lot more at the 2017 Dreamforce conference.
Until then, I look forward to helping more customers begin and progress their journey on Salesforce, and get a quick return from their investment.
