Challenge
Complex, code-heavy Salesforce limited scalability after a carve-out and was misaligned to business needs.
Solution
RSM re-architected Salesforce, removing custom code and enabling scalable, out-of-box functionality.
Success
A streamlined, scalable Salesforce platform now supports growth, efficiency and future innovation.
When companies are involved in a mergers and acquisitions event or carve-out transaction, their technology needs must quickly adjust to meet the demands of the new organization. Goals and needs for access and insight typically shift—sometimes dramatically. The quicker that IT systems adjust to business needs, the faster the benefits of the transaction can be realized.
RSM recently engaged with a leading commercial sourcing agency. The client delivers contract savings to top corporations in all major verticals including retail, manufacturing, hospitality and finance. The company was carved out from its parent organization and needed to optimize their Salesforce platform to meet the new company’s structure and objectives.
“We were a part of the original company since our inception, and as a part of that broader organization, we needed to make Salesforce work within that structure,” said the client’s senior manager of financial reporting and analytics, who was instrumental in this project.
Prior attempts to align Salesforce to business needs
In the past, the company sought to align Salesforce more closely with their needs and create solutions around their processes. Unfortunately, on two separate occasions, those efforts fell short.
“The previous consultants tried to tackle everything with code, and the implementation didn’t match the business requirements,” said Casey Boyd, a manager with RSM. “I don’t think they understood the specific needs, and instead of taking a step back and reorganizing things, they just kept attempting to plug the holes.”
As a part of the carve-out process, we worked with multiple consulting firms. But my favorite and best interactions are always with the RSM Salesforce team. RSM takes the time to understand why we do what we do and then builds solutions around that—that is super valuable to me.
Senior Manager, Financial Reporting and Analytics
A new opportunity to optimize the Salesforce environment
When the new company was carved out, an opportunity emerged for change. The organization engaged RSM to perform an operational assessment, and one of the findings was the need for Salesforce optimization.
“At the time of the acquisition, our entire organization was changing rapidly, and our Salesforce org just wasn’t built to scale,” said the client. “The system was an outcome of working with other teams that didn’t understand our business and really didn’t have the time or resources to sit down and develop a Salesforce solution for us.”
The RSM team unwound the code that the other providers had created and implemented functionality improvements that allowed the client to use key features aligned to best practices. This created a scalable solution for the company.
“This was a classic tale of tech debt, where a company is not using the native features of the Salesforce platform, and someone was coding away when it was not good design,” said Boyd. “But the client clearly understood the tech debt they had and worked to find a solution.”
To eliminate that tech debt, the RSM team uninstalled and removed over a dozen unmanaged packages within their Salesforce org. From there, RSM optimized sales processes within the platform by implementing a new schema that allowed the company to take advantage of more out-of-the-box functionality. For example, the changes enabled the client to use features within Salesforce Sales Cloud, increasing efficiency and introducing multiple sales processes. The resulting solution was simplified and cleaner for end users and admins.
Because of the depth of RSM’s experience and industry perspective, the team was able to design the Salesforce system with a holistic approach that created more effective outputs for the client. With a stronger understanding of how elements aligned within the system to meet the client’s goals, RSM delivered more efficiencies and benefits downstream.
Instead of the wobbly tower that we were standing on, we now have a really good Salesforce foundation that we can work with and build off.
Senior Manager, Financial Reporting and Analytics
Optimizing the environment to fit current and future needs
The client emphasized the difference between their Salesforce environment before and after RSM’s involvement.
“Our architecture was really convoluted and messy on the back end,” the client said. “Now, our current environment is an exact fit to solve our challenges. RSM really went behind the scenes and cleaned up the entire architecture. They streamlined a lot of the different flows and processes that we had built into Salesforce and set us up to scale.”
RSM held weekly meetings with the client and conducted reviews and demonstrations prior to presentations to management to achieve alignment at each step of the process. These endeavors built trust between the two companies and validated the overall build.
The client was also pleased with the increased control that the updated Salesforce solution provided.
“RSM set it up so I can make changes and add-ons that I know we will want in the future,” the client said. “I don’t think that would have been possible with the way our Salesforce was built prior to RSM’s work.”
A strong relationship for ongoing enhancements
RSM continues to work to increase the functionality of the Salesforce platform. The latest engagement leverages Experience Cloud to develop a member portal that replaces a solution the company shared with its parent organization. With RSM’s guidance, the client plans to create a close replica of the previous member portal with Experience Cloud, enabling a seamless transition for customers.
“The work that RSM did to redesign the architecture and the back end has set us up to develop a really cool Experience Cloud platform for our members to use,” said the client.
The companies have also discussed adding other features and functionality in the future, including Marketing Cloud.
The client now has a Salesforce solution that has more functionality and is better aligned to the specific needs of the company. After RSM removed several obstacles, the solution is also more scalable.
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