Our topic today—Apprivo Dynamic Public Groups.

#7 You can share without the scare

While sharing information with your employees, partners, and customers is an important Salesforce capability, you can’t risk sharing the wrong information with the wrong people. With Apprivo Dynamic Public Groups, you won’t have to.

#6 You can manage without the…head bandage…

Manual Public Group management can create all kinds of headaches. Group membership is defined either by individual user, which isn’t scalable, or by user role, which quickly becomes unmanageable. Apprivo Dynamic Public Groups makes these worries a thing of the past.

#5 You can say important-sounding words.

Everything sounds better with the word “Dynamic” in front of it. Go ahead, try it out.

#4 You can keep groups tidy and safe

Apprivo Dynamic Pubic Groups uses a rules-based approach to automatically and dynamically manage Public Group membership by user account attributes. That means group upkeep is faster, easier, and safer.

#3 You can write rules that totally rule

Who controls those rules? You do. You can create reliable rules using account attributes to automatically define Public Group member. That way users always have the right level of access to the right information.

#2 You can save big on theme park admission

Just tell them you’re part of a Dynamic Public Group. They’ll have to give you a discount, right?

#1 You can make Salesforce work for your business.

Simply put, if you’re looking to reduce admin costs and boost user satisfaction, you need to streamline group management and improve information access. And there’s no better way to do that than with Apprivo Dynamic Public Groups

Watch a demo now to learn more about Apprivo Dynamic Public Groups.

To the point…

­Apprivo Dynamic Public Groups:

-       Streamline group management and improve information access

-       Protect information using reliable rules

-       Ensure the right information is shown to the right people

-       Reduce overhead costs and improve user satisfaction

Apprivo Dynamic Public Groups is available immediately. For pricing and purchasing details,
contact Apprivo today.

To help guide your decision, we’ve indentified the top five factors to consider when determining whether leads or opportunities offer a better starting point for your deal registration system.

Who Approves Deal Registrations?

The question of who approves deal registrations impacts the decision of whether to use leads or opportunities. Let’s consider the options:

Channel Manager

If the channel manager is approving deal registrations you want as few steps as possible.  We all know that channel managers are busy with multiple partner activities and they risk becoming a bottleneck in the process. When starting with leads, the approval process at a minimum requires that the approver search for potentially duplicate deals – whether internal or from another partner – approve or reject the deal, and then convert the registration to an opportunity. These processes are time consuming yet imperative. The importance of searching for duplicate deals cannot be understated in order to minimize channel conflict. Starting with opportunities simplifies the process by eliminating the conversion step.

Deal Desk

Larger companies with high deal registration volumes may have a dedicated deal desk to process registrations and therefore the bottleneck issue is less of a concern. Furthermore, a central deal desk will have more time to search for duplicate registrations and manage the lead-to-opportunity conversion process. Consequently, starting with leads is a viable option.  If you decide to start with opportunities, be aware that opportunities cannot be assigned and owned by a queue for approval when using the native Salesforce workflow. The current work around is to grant deal desk users greater administrative rights to be able to approve deals, which we have found to be an acceptable tradeoff.

What is the approval criteria and process?

Your approval process can be designed for both lead and opportunity objects. However, if deal registration approval hinges on the ability to identify whether net-new products are being sold into an account that is either existing or new, then it makes sense to start with the opportunity object.

What is the volume of registrations?

If you have a large volume of registrations, consider using the leads object. The advantage is that leads can be owned by a queue. This alleviates process bottlenecks by enabling multiple approvers – whether centralized at a deal desk or decentralized in the field – to rapidly respond to registrations.

How do you identify duplicate registrations?

Salesforce ships with robust functionality for identifying duplications using the lead object. The intended goal is keeping account and contact data clean. Yet this same functionality allows you to avert potential channel conflict by effortlessly identifying dupes and consistently adjudicating approvals. If you start with the opportunity object, a similar level of functionality is achievable, but custom development is required.

How do you forecast registered deals?

If your deal registration program is offered to an elite sub-set of trusted partners that are empowered to update opportunity sales stages, thus directly impacting your forecast, then starting with the opportunity object may be advantageous. If you pursue this path, you will need to consider how to handle the accounts and contacts associated with approved opportunities so data integrity is maintained. You will also need to bullet proof your de-duping and approval processes to safeguard forecast accuracy so multiple representations of the same opportunity don’t slip onto your forecast.

Who owns the opportunity for approved registrations?

If you use a referral sales model where the partner identifies the deal and your team closes the opportunity, then starting with leads is an obvious choice. If you have a high touch channel model where your partner is responsible for identifying and closing deals, but your team updates the opportunity, leads may also offer a good starting point. In both scenarios, you maintain control over opportunity conversion and forecast management. If you pursue this path, beware of potential bottlenecks on the front and back end of the sales process and adjust internal resources accordingly.

So, where will you start, with leads or opportunities? The answer will differ from organization to organization based on channel structure, deal registration approval criteria, deal volume and a number of other considerations. Whether starting with leads or opportunities, you can rest assured that Salesforce supports both equally well.

If you need advice regarding which Salesforce object is right for your deal registration system, 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.