How about properly and efficiently implementing Salesforce CRM, Salesforce PRM, or Salesforce Service and Support across your entire business?

Apprivo Quick Starts let you do just that, getting your business up and running in less than 30 days.

But we don’t just turn it on and leave you hanging. We handle everything, from an initial review of your business to final testing and handoff. Our fixed-price implementations leverage Apprivo best practices, allowing you to benefit from the real-world lessons we’ve learned and enabling us to get Salesforce up and running in 30 days.

Each Quick Start follows our proven implementation methodology:

Phase 1: Business Process Review

First, we’ll conduct a business process review (BPR) session with your designated business stakeholders. Market dynamics and the intended strategic value of your Salesforce implementation are discussed and current and future business processes are reviewed. We’ll use that data to generate to a formal agreement of requirements and priorities. Be sure to bring a pen or No. 2 pencil.

Phase 2: Design

Next, Apprivo will document the BPR findings and recommend a set of best practices to meet your unique business requirements. The outcome of this phase is the solution design workbook, a design document that captures the page layouts, required fields, custom fields, pick-list values, and profiles required for your Salesforce implementation. A talking pop-up version of the workbook is available at an additional fee.

Phase 3: Configuration

Thirdmostly, which isn’t a word but should be, Apprivo will use the approved solution design workbook to configure the implementation. During this phase, we’ll perform two to three review sessions to verify that the configuration approach is following the approved design.

Phase 4: Testing & Customer Handoff

Finally, Apprivo will perform end-to-end tests from each user constituent perspective. We’ll also conduct one internal training session with your business users, and one technical handoff with your Salesforce administrator. You can film these sessions and edit them into a training montage complete with Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” in the background if you so desire.

You’re probably ready for me to tell you how much all this costs. Well, that depends on your circumstances. But I assure you, no matter the size and scope of your implementation, Quick Starts are worth every penny. Implementing Salesforce in less than 30 days means a fast ROI for your business and the elimination of the costs and headaches of attempting implementation yourself.

Quick Starts are offered for a fixed price based on the number of licensed users. Changes in scope for additional services are subject to additional fees and require approved change orders.

The implementation must be completed within 30 days of the project kick off meeting. Therefore, you must provide Apprivo with ready access to key business stakeholders and adhere to the agreed upon project timeline. Additionally, all Salesforce licenses must be purchased prior to kick off.

There are a few things that Quick Starts don’t cover. They don’t handle data migration, installing new applications, language support other than English, and custom development including Apex and S-Controls.

To learn more, download the Quick Start data sheet or contact Apprivo now.

To the point…

• Apprivo Quick Starts help your business implement Salesforce CRM, Salesforce PRM, or Salesforce Service and Support in less than 30 days
• Apprivo handles every aspect of implementation, from initial analysis to final testing and handoff
• Quick Starts are a wise business investment that accelerate your Salesforce ROI

If you need advice regarding how to implement Salesforce Customer and Partner Portals for your organization, contact Apprivo for a free, no-obligation consultation.

Well—don’t get me wrong. It isn’t that I doubt the abilities of your gut. In fact, I’m confident that your gut has made a lot of great decisions in the past. But there is a more reliable—not to mention defensible—solution that you might want to try.

Apprivo Special Pricing provides the transparency you need to make informed pricing decisions, whether selling direct or indirect. So you’ll never have to worry about losing money on a gut-instinct pricing decision ever again.

Using Apprivo Special Pricing is easy. Simply enter the line-item discounts you need to win the business, and Apprivo automatically calculates the impact on your distributor and your company’s net and gross margin. Customized approval routing ensures the person with right level of authority receives the request.

This innovation accelerates the decision-making process by permitting you to instantly analyze the impact of non-standard pricing across the entire value chain to determine whether the business is worth winning. Apprivo even simplifies the reconciliation process by calculating and tracking expected channel claims, alleviating verification headaches for you and your partners.

Watch a demo now to learn more about Apprivo Portal Publisher.

To the point…

Apprivo Special Pricing:

- Helps you make informed pricing decisions with full transparency
- Analyzes impact of non-standard pricing across the entire value chain
- Accelerates approvals with automated SPR routing
- Reduces rebate headaches by simplifying reconciliation

Apprivo Special Pricing is available immediately. For pricing and purchasing details, contact Apprivo today.

They were trying to decide between the Professional and Enterprise Editions. They felt that their needs were basic and were therefore inclined towards the Professional Edition. At a high level they needed:
•    Basic lead and opportunity management
•    Account and contact management
•    Reporting and dashboards

They asked me as the implementation partner which factors they should consider in their selection.

My advice was to approach this selection very carefully, and not just from a financial perspective. While the list price of the Professional Edition is almost 50% the cost of the Enterprise Edition, there are significant differences between the two versions. Choosing the Professional Edition because you think your current needs are “basic” may cost you later in terms of user adoption, user satisfaction, and potential expense of re-implementing the Enterprise Edition if you discover that the Professional Edition cannot meet your business requirements.

Salesforce does a good job of documenting the differences between versions at http://www.salesforce.com/products/editions-pricing/feature-comparison. Rather than repeat the comparison chart, I will point out the unavailable features in the Professional Edition that may help you determine whether you need to buy the Enterprise Edition. Note: The points below are mainly geared towards a traditional sales organization, not a support or channel model.

1. User Profiles and Permissions

Do your users all intend to have the same data privileges or will there be exceptions? The Professional Edition provides a fixed number of user profiles that cannot be edited, so all users see the same feature set, tabs, and form layouts.

While a security hierarchy is supported in Professional Edition there is no field level security. Consequently, this limitation more than others pushes people to the Enterprise Edition.

2. Product Catalog

If you plan to have a product catalog, and have salespeople build opportunities using products, the product catalog is not available as standard in the Professional Edition, but can be purchased for an extra fee.

If product granularity on opportunities is important from a reporting and/or production visibility perspective, either buying this feature as an add-on or selecting Enterprise Edition is needed.

3. Workflow

Workflow – both standard and approval – is not available in Professional Edition. Arguably for a small sales team this may not be a show stopper as a review of reports/dashboards would suffice for small data volumes and a small number of users.

As your sales team and transaction volume grows the need for workflow in the form of email notifications, tasks being created, fields being updated, and callouts to external systems such as an order management system will also grow.

4. Campaign Management

Also available as a Professional Edition add-on is the campaign module. Consider this add-on or the Enterprise Edition if you need to aggregate leads or contacts into campaigns for campaign ROI analysis and mass mailings.

5. Outlook/ Mail Integration

Will your sales people want the ability to automatically add emails from Outlook to Salesforce? With Professional Edition they will not be able to do this unless you also purchase the API.

6. API/Integration Capabilities

Access to the Salesforce force.com web services API is not available in Professional Edition as standard, but can be purchased for an extra fee. While the Professional Edition supports some basic imports it does not support the full import/update/delete capabilities offered in the Enterprise Edition.

If you plan to integrate Salesforce with other external systems, or even periodically load data into custom objects, this is not supported in the Professional Edition. Carefully consider this requirement for both your initial implementation, which may require data migration, and for your ongoing needs.
Be aware that Single Sign On is not available, even for an extra fee.

7. Force.com Development

The force.com application development platform is not available for Professional Edition so no Apex code based customizations/extensions are possible. S-control based code is supported if the force.com API add-on is purchased.

One of the areas we have found this to be an issue is in the lead conversion process. Many companies want to do something custom to support their specific process, such as setting up two contacts that are captured on the lead record, or mapping some other related list data to the mapped account/contact/opportunity.

8. Translations

Professional Edition does not provide the Translation Workbench, which is a tool that allows administrators to provide foreign language translations for custom fields/tabs/objects, etc. If you need to support multiple languages, and have created any custom objects or custom fields, then Enterprise Edition is required.

In closing, our experience has been that most companies opt for the Enterprise Edition. Part of this is a function of the types of customers we target and part is a function of the Enterprise Edition offering the best value and long term growth prospects for a sales organization beyond single digit users. The few Professional customers we support have a small number of users, a simple sales process, and sometimes no dedicated Salesforce administrator. However, we often get a collective moan from these customers when they ask us, “Is xyz possible?” and we tell them, “Yes, if you upgrade to Enterprise Edition!”

Bottom line:
•    Think about your long term strategic vision regarding how you will use Salesforce
•    Consider all of your users needs
•    Review the list above to determine the “must haves” from the “nice to haves”
•    Don’t make the decision just based on cost. By the time you add on the cost of some Professional Edition add-ons and you factor in some of the manual work you will likely perform on the workarounds, you my be closer to the cost of Enterprise licenses than you think!

If you need advice regarding which Salesforce edition is right for you, feel free to contact Apprivo directly for a no-obligation consultation.

You’ve got to give credit where credit is due. A few years back, BLUEROADS did a good job of selling its standalone deal registration and channel lead management system to high-tech vendors.  But times are changing. Companies are looking for economies of scale and managing a system for indirect sales and another for direct just doesn’t make sense.

With the growth and maturity of both the Salesforce Partner Networks product suite and the Force.com platform, consolidating direct and indirect processes within Salesforce offers a compelling business case with clear ROI.

The case is so clear that salesforce.com re-branded “Partner Relationship Management” to Salesforce CRM Partner Networks to more accurately reflect the broader value of its solution.

Consequently, Apprivo has completed numerous BLUEROADS migrations over the past year, in which our customers were using Salesforce for direct sales and BLUEROADS for indirect. We thought it might be useful to share the top reasons customers decided to migrate as well as tips for a seamless migration.

Top Business Reasons to Migrate

• Increased Partner Satisfaction
  Partner satisfaction was a top business driver for migration. With a consolidated solution, partners no longer have to log into two different applications and remember two sets of usernames and passwords.  Plus, consolidating lead management and deal registration with existing Salesforce products such as Ideas, Content, and MDF into a single branded portal increases the partner’s ease of doing business with the vendor.
• Reduced Administration & Costs
  Our customers have been able to turn off an entire application, eliminating the license fees and administrative costs. Partner, customer, and user records no longer need to be maintained or duplicated across two applications, reducing maintenance costs. Customers are also driving down the effective cost of their existing Salesforce license as users are doing more for the same license cost.
• Improved Reporting
  Blending direct and indirect processes under a single system allows customers to generate a consolidated pipeline, providing executives with unparalleled visibility. Additionally, the standard reporting capabilities in Salesforce far exceed BLUEROADS, and include the ability to share critical reports with partners via the portal.
• Ease of Customization
  The power of the Force.com platform opens up a level of customization unmatched in any other application. Companies can easily add fields, reports, administer security, configure multiple deal registration approval processes (such as geography based) through clicks, not code.  This level of customization is nearly impossible in BLUEROADS. Plus, the free deal registration application on AppExchange provides a solid foundation that can be easily tailored for your specific business requirements.

Apprivo has implemented more Salesforce Partner Networks than any other consulting firm. As a result, we have developed three BLUEROADS-specific tips to ensure a seamless migration.

Tips for a Seamless Migration

• Data Migration
  Don’t under estimate the level of effort involved in extracting data from BLUEROADS. Not only will you be migrating partner company and user information, but lead and deal records as well. Apprivo has been down this road before and has designed a complete data mapping between BLUEROADS and Salesforce as well as a set of templates to load the extracted BLUEROADS data into Salesforce, dramatically simplifying data migration.
• Process Implementation
  Be aware that BLUEROADS uses proprietary processes for deal registration and lead distribution. You will need to deconstruct and implement these processes in your Salesforce system. Apprivo is experienced in configuring lead assignment rules and deal registration approvals that meet or exceed the features provided by BLUEROADS, ensuring a smooth transition for partners. During the process migration phase, it makes sense to evaluate additional processes that can reduce the collision of direct and indirect selling efforts.  For example, you may want to consider Apprivo Named Accounts, an add-on application that minimizes channel conflict with streamlined lead routing processes.
• Salesforce Expertise
  MigratingBLUEROADS processes and data requires advanced Salesforce expertise, especially in the areas of workflow, customization, configuration, and potentially, Apex.  If you don’t have the depth of expertise in-house, you will need a salesforce.com Consulting Partner with a proven track record of implementing Salesforce for indirect channels. Apprivo leverages the best practices of our most successful Salesforce Partner Networks implementations in every BLUEROADS migration, allowing you to benefit from our real-world lessons learned.

If you’re interested in migrating from BLUEROADS to Salesforce, feel free to contact Apprivo directly for a free, no-obligation consultation and cost proposal.