Staff Augmentation: The Secret to Salesforce Success (Without Breaking the Bank)

With the IMF forecasting a growth slowdown for advanced economies in 2023, companies are tightening their purse strings to protect their bottom line while also focussing on revenue generation and customer retention; after all, a customer saved is a customer earned!

In such a situation, leveraging CRMs like Salesforce can be a game changer.

With an effective CRM, lead management becomes a cakewalk.

Additionally, customer retention and customer satisfaction become more deliberate with tailored communication.

Herein arises the first set of challenges. CRMs can reap tremendous benefits. Provided you know how to leverage them. Identifying suitable products, setting them up and maintaining them requires much technical knowledge. "Constant Vigilance", as Professor Moody would say.

This technical knowledge primarily comes from having a specialized set of folks in your organization. Let's take the case of Salesforce. Specialization in Salesforce comes from having Administrators, Developers, Business Analysts and Project Managers. Not all organizations will need all these specialists on their teams, but it's safe to say that you will need at least one or two from the list to keep things running smoothly.

It’s important to consider a few challenges that organizations face when trying to build specialized teams to handle Salesforce.

Staffing Challenges Faced By Companies To Manage Their Salesforce Instance

These challenges can seem pretty daunting but there’s a single solution to address all of them. Staff Augmentation.

What is Staff Augmentation?

To put things simply, staff augmentation involves hiring temporary staff to fill specific roles within a company. 

This model is ideal for businesses that need specialized skills that their current staff doesn’t possess. Constant upskilling and a broad range of knowledge on solutions available for the organization's specific industry and business processes are an absolute necessity to keep up with the ever-evolving technology.

5 Key Advantages Of  Staff Augmentation In Empowering Your Organization

1. Maximize Savings: Let's do some basic calculations. The average base salary of a Salesforce Developer in the US is around 113K1. Add to this other benefits such as cash compensation and benefits and the company’s cost goes north of 125K. 

By opting for a Staff Augmentation model from a certified Salesforce consulting partner, companies can save anywhere between 25% to 45% on a single resource!

2. Minimize Management: Hiring a full-time resource has its benefits, but there's no denying that there is a huge management process involved with a cost attached to it. 

You have to provide hardware and, often, software. You have to create a growth plan for the employees and track their progress. When they go on vacation, you have to manage their work during their absence. And, if they decide to move on from your company, you have to find a replacement and go through the entire cycle with a new resource again.

But when you engage a top-rated Salesforce partner such as CUBE84 to handle your Staff Augmentation needs, you don't have the hassle of staff management. We manage the resources for you, including upskilling them with the latest Salesforce knowledge and we also provide you with a replacement during staff vacation.

3. Knowledge x10: While most CRMs have plug-and-play models, the real magic happens when you have the expertise to customize and implement them to match your needs.

When you have an expert on your team from a certified Salesforce partner, they can offer strategic guidance and insights on leveraging Salesforce's advanced features and functionalities to drive business growth. 

And one of the most significant advantages of this model is that a wealth of specialized knowledge, be it highly experienced consultants/architects, proven industry-specific solutions, or technical and process methodologies, backs your resource from an organization.

4. Better user adoption: Even the best of CRMs can only go so far if the user adoption is low. 

To get your teams behind Salesforce, you have to ensure that it’s set up for success. And what we mean by that is, your Salesforce instance should have good interfaces, provide the right data in a visually appealing manner and should automate repetitive manual tasks.

With Salesforce experts on your team, they will be able to understand your business processes and requirements thoroughly. Once they have a pulse on what’s working for your business users, they can quickly enhance the Salesforce solutions without you having to manage all the nuances of each feature. For instance, our client NSF grew their user base from 90 to 150, in a short period with the help of our Staff Augmentation services.

They can also provide tailored training and support to ensure employees effectively use Salesforce, maximizing its benefits and productivity.

5. Knowledge Transfer and Training: Augmented staff can share their expertise and best practices with the existing team members, fostering knowledge transfer and upskilling within the organization. This enables the internal team to enhance their Salesforce proficiency and become more self-sufficient in managing Salesforce projects.

How To Choose The Right Salesforce Consulting Partner For Staff Augmentation

Here is a short checklist for evaluating potential partners.

1. Are they certified Salesforce consultants? 

For instance, CUBE84 is a Salesforce-certified Crest Partner. Since Salesforce is a complex platform in many aspects, certification and expertise are vital in setting up and running the platform smoothly.

2. Do they have prior experience providing Staff Augmentation to other companies?

A partner who has provided staff augmentation services to various clients will have a bench strength of trained resources. They can also forecast your staffing requirements and help you plan ahead. 

3. Can they give references from existing or previous clients?

References from existing or previous clients will not only help you build confidence in your Staff Augmentation partner but also help you get a deeper understanding of their capabilities and processes. 

4. Do they have a structured onboarding process in place? 

A reliable partner will have a well-structured onboarding process to ensure that the resource understands your Salesforce instance thoroughly and can start contributing to your operations quickly and effectively.

5. Do they invest in upskilling their resources with Salesforce's latest features and insights?

A good partner should have relevant and constant upskilling programs to update their resources with the latest Salesforce features and functionalities.

Conclusion

By selecting the right staff augmentation partner, you can maximize savings, minimize management, and gain access to a wealth of specialized knowledge, enabling you to get the most out of your CRM investment. So, if you're looking to take your Salesforce success to the next level, staff augmentation may just be the secret ingredient you've been missing.