Case Study: Public Research University

Solution: Salesforce App Cloud

A public institution operating with the mission to change lives through research, education, and outreach.

Need: This “Public Research University” has an extensive history with Salesforce, with multiple orgs providing functionality for various groups. To support the natural cycles of change at the institution, it needed a new org strategy to increase visibility of strategic roadmap initiative alignment with tactical execution planning and prioritization. As part of the growth plan identified by program leadership, a comprehensive strategy was required to execute, train, and support future groups entering on to the Salesforce platform. While the technical execution team had a robust and well-defined development and deployment methodology, they required help to educate on platform best practices, centralize solutions to maximize feature reuse, and reduce perceptions of platform complexity.

Approach: Demand Chain devised a multistep solution to ensure the University was optimizing their Salesforce value despite personnel changes. The first step was to leverage the refined technical execution process. Platform specific knowledge was broadened through a team approach that included bringing strategic, analytical, and tactical capability in a holistic manner to the organization. Second, best practice review sessions helped team members adhere to an accepted theory of “keep it simple” whenever possible. Third, the delivery team and business teams were augmented to accelerate deployment and fuel adoption management practices. A sustainable structure was built to support business and technology needs. Finally, Demand Chain helped the University implement a repeatable and scalable platform onboarding process with specific avenues for better understanding the critical business needs and challenges of disparate groups deploying the platform.

Result: With the help of Demand Chain, the University experienced an enlightenment of strategic possibilities and the nature of the platform. Management was given the tools to drive toward identified metrics meaningful to their specific business pursuits. Also, organized teams were established with enhanced effectiveness to deliver value on the platform, including the realization of greater bandwidth to execute on focused initiatives. The technical team has been given a robust and repeatable process of being able to deliver a high value solution to their customers, while keeping resource levels and related ROI metrics within target. The business customers and technical team are now capable of leveraging the platform in positive new ways, using guiding principles, repeatable technical integration solutions (i.e., API for established business practice), and a fundamental capability of staffing to focus on direction, not just execution.