The term “social enterprise” is confusing for many in the corporate world. Traditionally, the term has referred to an organization with a social mission of philanthropy, charity or taking on a noble cause. However, in the past few years, Marc Benioff, CEO of salesforce.com, has used the phrase to define organizations that are pioneering a new level of connectivity within the corporate world. Made possible through cloud computing, the social enterprise mirrors the metaphor of personal social networks like Facebook that leverage the social grid to share information and ideas. The new social enterprise extends this familiar model to the companies as a means of establishing a synergy between organizations, their employees, their customers, and their business partners.

The value of the social enterprise is simple. For consumers, it provides a means of getting closer to their favorite brands, offers them a voice when they have something to say (good or bad), and allows them to make better buying decisions. For companies, it magnifies the voice of the customer, allows them to identify macro trends, improves their ability to service customer, maximizes sales through new channels, and can even improve employee satisfaction.

The social enterprise is a strategy; it is not simply a single system or idea. It impacts the culture, business processes, systems, and the bottom line. Leveraging social networks, social media, and the other concepts that will be discussed here is new to many companies, but time is ticking for those that are not developing a social enterprise strategy. Chances are your competitors have a head start and the cost of NOT taking action could be high.

The social enterprise strategy is different for every company, so the topics covered here should not be viewed as an exhaustive list, nor do the all need to be covered in every organization. They are simply characteristics of the social enterprise that require consideration. The social enterprise is:

Characteristics of the Social Enterprise:

Internal and External

Connectivity within an organization between employees, departments, regions and divisions within an organization is key. Improved communication benefits every company, no matter what the size, and mastering it ensures that the company strategy is carried from the CEO all the way down to entry-level employees. Connectivity also aids in tactical communications related to business process, on-boarding new employees, and building a culture of teamwork.

Private, internal social networks like salesforce.com’s Chatter revolutionize internal communication and collaboration to be revolutionized by facilitating conversations and idea sharing, and by providing a forum for asking and answering questions. Unlike traditional collaboration solutions, Chatter conversations are contextual and integrated into every day work. Unlike email, questions and ideas can be posed to a broader, non-specific audience so that responses are invited from and available to an entire group. What’s more, Chatter allows customers to be selectively included in the conversation to facilitate collaboration on projects, share documents securely, or even conduct negotiations.

Chatter customers are reporting some astounding benefits including:

• 27% fewer meetings
• 30% reduction in email
• 36% increase in customer responsiveness
• 39% increase in collaboration
• 52% faster finding of information

Participation in external, public social networks is a requirement of the social enterprise. By establishing a public persona on public social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, a company can manage its brand where consumers are spending most of their time.

Person-to-person recommendations, which today often disseminate through the social grid created by social networks, are a major influencer in buying decisions among consumers. Just this holiday season 66% of social media users made a purchase on Black Friday as a direct result of a recommendation made on social media networks. With the Facebook user population over 750 million and growing, the social media channel is a difficult one to ignore.

Be careful not to dismiss these channels as only being for consumer brands either; YouTube marketing strategies for B2B customers often include customer testimonials, product demos, fun topics related to an industry, and “Viral video” contests.

Personal

The brand loyalty that customers of social enterprises demonstrate is partially attributed to the personal attention that they receive. Historically, market data established through sales metrics and customer surveys has been key to decision making and tracking of consumer trends. Sample groups were used to collect data and that data was extrapolated to extract customer sentiment. By the time this data was distilled down to actionable insight, the source was often months old making it nearly impossible for companies to react quickly.

In the age of the social enterprise, every consumer gets a voice and companies can address consumer issues proactively rather than reactively. Public social networks are filled with consumer comments, questions, issues, and opinions about the products they use. As companies tap into these networks, they can identify issues to resolve and turn potentially dissatisfied customers into advocates. Best of all, this can be done in real time.

Monitoring social networks may seem like a daunting task, but social monitoring tools like Radian6 are made to help. Radian6 continuously monitors public social profiles on thousands of social network sites and funnels invaluable information back to into companies that are savvy enough to proactively mine customer ideas that can enhance their products, services and messaging. The data captured builds a repository of individual issues, but also identifies macro trends in consumer sentiment, industry conditions and brand strength.

Awareness of your consumer’s opinions, expectations and issues is not enough. Successful incorporation of this knowledge into an organization’s operation requires a commitment to heeding the call to action, and that will require a strategy in itself. Here is an example of how Gatorade established a Mission Control to monitor social networks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InrOvEE2v38). As a result of this initiative, Gatorade has been able to: Track Media Performance; Monitor Sports Landscape; Track Sports Trends and Buzz; Track Brand Attributes; Monitor Online Discussion; and Perform Proactive Social Media Outreach.

Contextual

The personalization of the social enterprise, internally and externally, requires that consumers, partners and employees are able to converse on topics that are meaningful within the context of what they are doing. Customers looking for information to make an educated purchase or solve a problem need timely and relevant data. If they can’t find it, they may move on to your competitor to serve them.

Live chat has been used in the customer service world for years. It empowers the customer to ask a personal question through the medium that makes them the most comfortable. Live chat and instant messaging have helped companies open new communication channels with their customers while driving down the cost of support.

Online communities are another mechanism a social enterprise can use to provide customers contextual information, answer questions, field suggestions and further reduce costs because solutions can be crowd-sourced rather than pushed out from a central location. Forrester has credited social communities with being able to satisfy human social needs including the abilities to communicate, connect, contribute and create. To be effective, communities need to be updated, policed, and managed, but the effort required to govern them is far outweighed by their impact. Starbucks has done an excellent job building communities with their mystarbucksidea.com initiative (http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/03/20/where-customers-submit-discuss-and-vote-your-ideas-for-starbucks-my-starbucks-ideas/).

Internal collaboration and solution identification can also be aided by contextual social tools. Like communities, internal collaboration tools like salesforce.com’s Chatter allows users to be fulfilled by their sense of inclusion in corporate communication and collaboration. It also provides private messaging, file sharing, groups, and even customer interaction in the context of existing business processes.

Contextual social interaction creates a sense of relevance for both employees and customers. When their voices are heard, a hand of assistance is offered, or they have an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge by helping someone else through a community, people are touched in a way that ensures them that they are important and valued. This message is one that resonates deeply and facilitates loyalty.

Predictive

The primary goal of information systems is to gather data, turn that data into information, and derive knowledge from the information. The next frontier is using the knowledge that we derive to predict outcomes. Social enterprises look for ways to leverage the data that they are collecting to anticipate the needs of their customers, business partners and employees. They are also tapping into a whole other category of data provider.

There are over 1 billion people on the Internet, but that number is quickly being eclipsed by the number of “things” on the Internet. Things being devices, sensors, gauges, etc that are all transmitting data. The data that they dispatch can be collected, aggregated, analyzed and used to make our lives easier by predicting future events (Internet of Things, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfEbMV295Kk).

Suppose, for example, that you have a company that makes pumps. Each pump is connected to your social enterprise and transmitting data about its performance. What if you could proactively contact a customer when you learned that the pump was going to malfunction and save your customer a disaster? Would it be a meaningful contribution to your customer to avoid a flood?

These types of technologies already exist today and are getting easier to use and more functional all the time. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-listen-to-your-world-talk-to-the-internet?ref=live

Predictive analysis can be complex and will likely take time to perfect. However, social enterprises realize that it will be impossible without significant historical data to draw from. Therefore, the sooner you get started, the better positioned they are going to be.

Mobile

It is difficult to talk about the social enterprise without including mobility as a primary characteristic. Social interactions cannot be realistically limited to captive audiences sitting at desks. The prevalence of smart phones and tablet PCs has reached an all-time high, and that trend will continue. Social enterprises are embracing mobility and are establishing a strategy for mobile devices, but they are also revolutionizing the way we work with them.

Mobile applications are not simply PC-based applications that run on a mobile device or within a browser. Users interact with mobile applications much differently than traditional apps. A mobile application is often used for a specific, targeted purpose. It is intuitive and easy to use, and it takes advantage of capabilities and functions that are unique to mobile devices (e.g. geo-location, camera, gyroscope, push notifications, video, touch screen input, etc). This provides an experience that is context-aware, familiar and personal to the user.

With the dominance of mobility in the market place, it is tempting for many organizations to get anything into their consumers’ hands to provide them a mobile capability. Beware of this strategy. Mobile applications are an extension of your company’s brand and it is critical that quality and relevance are priorities.

As they incorporate the social enterprise principles, companies are embracing mobility, establishing device strategies, challenging the status quo, and arming their employees and customers with the power of information from virtually anywhere.

“Gamified”

When thinking of the terms “social” outside the context of social computing, social media or social CRM, for many the first thing that comes to mind is that “social” implies “fun,” like a social event or a social gathering. Gamification creates the connection between fun and the concepts of social enterprise.

Gamification is the process of using game thinking and mechanics to engage audiences and solve problems (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O1gNVeaE4g, Gabe Zichermann). Game theory allows organizations to use game metaphors to connect with audiences (e.g. customers and employees) to gain their loyalty and encourage interactive behavior. This is a powerful science, that when used effectively, can transform a relationship between a company and a consumer.

Gamification incorporates points, badges, status, and virtual rewards to blur the lines between work and fun for participants. Incorporating these concepts can improve performance in customer support, sales and marketing efforts. For example, a customer service rep can earn points for every case he or she closes with a successful disposition. A collaborator on an internal social network can earn status based on the influence he or she has over others in the company through their contributions. How an organization allows employees to redeem their points or exercise their status is secondary to simply having the program because rewards systems like this resonate with a users’ personal sense of gratification.

The same concepts can be employed externally as well. Foursquare (www.foursquare.com) is a great example of a social enterprise that leverages gamification to encourage users to contribute comments/reviews of restaurants. By frequenting establishments and contributing feedback, patrons earn status that can be redeemed for discounts that have proven to be a strong incentive for participants. In turn, Foursquare is building a powerful social network of referrals and recommendations while the establishments serving Foursquare customers benefit from personal endorsements (assuming the customer has a good experience).

Consumers have high expectations for the products they use. It is no longer enough for systems and applications to be functional; they must also be intuitive, self-serving, and even fun to use…no matter what the task.

Benefits of the Social Enterprise:

In some respects, the characteristics of the social enterprise are absurdly simple in theory, but can be enormously complex in practice. The value of being a truly social enterprise is not found in a single dimension of the strategy, but in the synergies created by a balanced approach suited uniquely to your needs.

This diagram aligns common benefits realized by social organizations with a matrix of internal (within a company) and external (partners, customers, general public), micro (personal and small group benefits) and macro (large volume of data points) applications of the social enterprise.

What benefits exist for your company?

I was flipping aimlessly through channels last weekend and I stopped on a NASCAR race (go ahead and insert your joke here).  I’m usually not a racing fan, but I was captivated by some of the drama as the race was nearing its end.  As I watched events unfold, I started to think about what separated the leaders from those who had been lapped (and for that matter, those that didn’t finish).  Each one of these drivers has teams of people behind them calculating and planning the minutia of each move, so how can the results be so different?  The two key differences that strike me are 1) The Driver and the team themselves and 2) The Strategy/Approach to the race.    What does this have to do with the implementation of cloud technologies you ask?  Everything.

Over the past 8 years of implementing cloud-based solutions, I’ve had the opportunity to see the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to implementation strategies, methods, and processes.  Over that time, it has become clear that the single most important ingredient in project success is a great team.  Strong technicians are great, exceptional individual contributors certainly help, but great TEAMS breed success.  Teams that are aligned with a clear objective, embrace unknowns, and support each other in the heated, stressful moments of a project can overcome all of the unplanned for anomalies that come with working with technology.

The value of strong teams and team members may not be any great epiphany, but it is a fundamental criteria for success that gets lost in this age of cloud computing.  This may be blasphemous to those in the industry, but cloud computing is not the silver bullet to resolve all of our technology issues.  As much as it is scalable, nimble, fast and efficient compared to its predecessors, it does not change the fact that people are ultimately at the root of the project team. There are complexities, differences of opinion, and misaligned priorities to overcome and it is a quality team that will adapt and overcome.  Take time to select your team, both internal and external, so that you can be confident that the probably of success is commensurate with your investment.

Once the team is in place, there must be a strategy and methods that help the team to work effectively.  One of the most common questions that I am asked by customers approaching a cloud implementation is “What is your methodology?”  I love this question because it is a great opportunity to gain alignment with a customer and begin developing a high performing team.

Methodology is not just a series of steps used to complete a project.  It is not a project plan.  It is not a checklist.  A methodology is actually a broader concept and we use the opportunity of discussing it to learn about a clients structure, belief system, regulatory environment, culture, and so much more.  We cannot dictate methods unilaterally because we are not in control of some of these factors.  Instead, we start with a general approach that fits the organizational footprint of a client and mold the details to align with the team.  Just like in NASCAR, the approach to the race must change depending on the track, weather, competition and driver, a project team must alter their methodology to accommodate the team, organizational culture, timeframes, objectives, cost constraints, regulatory conditions, and other factors deemed critical.

So what are the approaches?  We tend to look at methodology in 3 general categories including: Agile, Waterfall, and Iterative development.  Each of these methodologies has its place and there are infinite permutations of each.  In future posts, I will go into detail to describe each, as there is a lot of ground to cover.

While organizing your cloud computing initiative, don’t fall into the trap of focusing solely on the technology.  People and processes matter, and they will ultimately determine your level of success!

As much as I have always loved technology and held a deep appreciation for how technology can be used to solve business problems, I have always been fascinated by what is coming next. I have never considered myself a technology visionary, but I don’t feel bad saying so because I’m in pretty good company. Here are some famous quotes to prove my point:

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

    – Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Patent Office, 1899

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

    – Ken Olsen, Founder of Digital Equipment, 1977

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”

    – Bill Gates, Co-founder Microsoft, 1981

Predicting the future isn’t easy, and the pace at which technology moves makes it even more difficult. With that said, it is incumbent upon technologists to stretch the limits of today, establish a vision, challenge the status quo, and relentlessly pursue improvements. Information Technology holds a purpose; not just streamlining and automating those things that we do manually, but allowing us to think and work in entirely new ways. How can we possibly know what’s next?

I have a trick that I use to cheat the system. It is a theory that allows me to see into the future of technology for Fortune 500 companies. This theory is based on the motivations and behaviors of technology leaders. You see, good leaders affect change and have the responsibility and authority to make decisions. They are not being paid to maintain the status quo, but to move their companies forward. If they aren’t growing, they are dying. Leaders have a second motivation, and that is one of risk aversion. Not all change is good, so strong leaders know that they must make calculated decisions toward progress and avoid pitfalls that are going to have the undesirable results.

Now let’s start at the top of the food chain and put yourself in the shoes of a CIO at a Fortune 500 company. Without stereotyping too broadly, these organizations have a reputation for being slow moving, very risk averse, and unwilling to be the first to try anything new. Furthermore, when it comes to technology, these CIOs might be great leaders, but they may not be visionaries.

On the other end of the spectrum are some of my favorite people to talk to, technology leaders for non-profits. Why non-profits? Well, technology leaders at non-profits (I’m stereotyping again) are often charged with doing more with less. They have all of the demands to make the improvements of any other business, but are heavily constrained when it comes to human capital and funds. This combination effectively increases the risk tolerance of the non-profit leaders as compared to their Fortune 500 counterparts! Who better to initiate the fulfillment of the purpose of technology?

I have seen this over and over again with the adoption of “cloud” technologies. Non-profits were early adopters of Salesforce.com, gmail, Amazon Web Services, and countless other service based offerings because they had no capital to invest in buying servers and no budget to train an army of people to operate them. They are willing to take these risks because their alternative is to maintain status quo.

Once non-profits, and small businesses start to realize some wins, other business start to take notice…larger business, more complex business. They piggyback off of the success stories, and wonder whether these new technologies will work for their business. In the case of cloud computing, the stories drive discussion around what capabilities could be added to meet the risk tolerance of the next company, and the next, and the next. Pretty soon, mid-sized business take notice and technology leaders at those companies feel confident in adopting something that used to seem too risky because they had a peer group that had already paved the way. The confidence grows and the stealing continues up the corporate chain to SMBs, mid-sized, and mid-large organizations. Finally, the story extends all the way up to those Fortune 500 CIOs.

This pattern is a predictable and repeatable one. Some technologies will fizzle in the early stages, but the solid ones move through this evolution time after time. So next time you are at a conference, user group or chat room, spend some time with the non-profits and the small businesses; they will help you to predict the future.

Bill Kalma, VP Tech Services for Model Metrics

Data Management and Data Quality is an issue in every CRM deployment. The reason for this is that CRM data is not transactional and doesn’t get balanced at month end like accounting data. CRM systems are full of soft data points that can be aggregated to provide information and knowledge, but only if the foundation is accurate and trusted.

A data management strategy has many dimensions including proactive cleansing of data to prevent issues, reactive management of data to fix issues that already exist, manual processes of data stewards, and automated processes that ease the manual burden. The approach to choose will depend on the specific needs of the organization, but will probably include all of these components.

The most difficult part of implementing a strategy is having some metrics on which to base your response. With all of the potential data issues that exist, it makes sense to focus on the highest value, lowest effort fixes as a means of maximizing your CRM investment. Each problem has its own cost-of-bad-data associated with it, whether it be time spent pursuing out-dated information, hard dollars spent on marketing to the wrong contacts, or wasted time managing information that is obsolete to the business. It is imperative to understand these costs and how they impact the business, but that requires some basis for action.

Recently, Model Metrics has come up with a tool for taking the guesswork out of data quality in a salesforce.com implementation. Data Profiler interrogates an org’s data and metadata to provide concrete, actionable data quality indicators down to the field level! This tool is proven to provide our customers a baseline health check of their data quality, and on-going metrics on how it is improving or degrading over time.

The value of the Data Profiler comes in two main categories. First, the tool provides all of the raw data at a summary and detailed level to make an actionable data management plan. Second, the service Model Metrics provides to interpret the Data Profiler output and help to devise a plan that is unique to your business.

Data Profiler provides summary information related to data “Completeness” and “Conformity.” Completeness is the relative completeness of the records that are being entered in the system. If Contact records, for example, are just being entered with Names and Email Addresses, but no Phone Numbers, Addresses, or other information, the level of Completeness is going to be low. Conformity, on the other hand, is a measure of how the metadata of picklist values matches up with the actual values in a field. If there is low conformity, it likely means that there is a process by which records are being loaded into the system (without using the standard UI) and compromising data integrity.

Completeness and Conformity are only two of the metrics that are visible at a more detailed object and field level views. Object by object, there are metrics related to the record count, fields, ownership percentages, record aging, and much more.

The above is just a glimpse into the comprehensive data health report that the Data Profiler provides. If run on a monthly, quarterly, or even annual basis, it can prove as a compass on your data management roadmap. It can also help to measure progress against the initial baseline of data health and allow for easy identifications of new issues that are sure to arise over time. No CRM implementation should be without a solid data management plan and Data Profiler is a great way to start.

Bill Kalma

Model Metrics – VP, Technical Services

Dreamforce 2010 will be remembered as the year of the platform. As usual, it was an incredible show with all sorts of great product announcements, entertainment, vendors, and innovative customers. Most impressive were the platform announcements that provide us a glimpse into the direction that we are headed over the next year.

As with any announcement, salesforce.com is sure to include a Safe Harbor announcement to emphasize the point that these features, modules and capabilities are not currently part of the product. That fact alone makes it all the more exciting for us to speculate on the potential and meaning of each!

70% Reduction in Governor Limits. This is music to the ears of developers all throughout the force.com ecosystem. It is nearly impossible to talk about APEX development without some discussion on how to cope with, work around, or otherwise avoid some of the governor limits that exist. In many cases, the noise generated around governor limits has more to do with inefficient or poorly written code than it does a real problem, but there is room for improvement here. So far I have not seen any documentation that will provide further evidence on the limits actually being addressed, but we can remain hopeful that the 70% includes the ability to manage larger data volumes without timeouts.

Database.com (www.database.com). Perhaps the most talked about new module is Database.com that represents a true cloud-based database priced at just $10/user/month. This service will allow custom development on the force.com platform with authentication (oAuth), SOAP & REST based APIs, auto scaling, elasticity, and security. It is presumed that connectivity to Database.com will be made through the standard force.com API, so there is still going to be some variance between standard database capabilities and that of those offered through this service (e.g. outer join queries, custom indexing, etc), but it will make a splash in the market by competing directly with cloud based infrastructure vendors.

REST API. The new REST API is in developer beta currently, and should be generally available in either Spring or Summer 2011. This new API allows for simpler, faster development with much less overhead than the SOAP version. The capabilities of REST are currently only a subset of the SOAP version, but it easily covers the most commonly used features. The REST API also support JSON formatted messages. The predominance of mobile solutions will surely make development using REST a staple in force.com development shops.

The Force.com Labs folks have been so kind as to build a REST Explorer app that developers can use to send REST messages and interrogate the JSON response messages. Check it out: http://sites.force.com/appexchange/listingDetail?listingId=a0N30000003IjwLEAS

SiteBuilder. Force.com sites development is going to get a lot easier with a slick IDE that is integrated directly into your force.com instance. This tool has a WYSIWYG designer, the ability to drag and drop files from your file system, and site previews. Currently, it appears that this feature is mostly demo-ware, but in 6 more months it is going to be great.

Heroku (Ruby on Rails). Salesforce.com formally announced its intent to purchase Heroku to allow for native support of Ruby on Rails within the force.com environment. Marc Benioff did a great job introducing Heroku to the Salesforce.com family, but it is a bit early to understand the nuances of how they will play in the ecosystem.

All of these announcements (not to mention VMForce) make 2011 a year to anticipate from a technology standpoint. You can trust that Model Metrics will be here to lead the way!

What a great time we live in.  I always love the energy of this time of year as excitement builds around the buzz of Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference.  This year will be my 7th time attending the event and each year is bigger and better than the one before.  This year I can’t find enough superlatives to describe my excitement around the Monday Cloudstock event preceding the actual conference (http://www.cloudstockevent.com/).

If you have not heard of Cloudstock, it is time that you did; it has the potential to be a truly revolutionizing event.  Salesforce.com has partnered with about 20 other cloud computing vendors, big and small, for a one day cloud-technology extravaganza.  Event participants will include the likes of Google, Amazon, PayPal, Yahoo, Salesforce.com (of course), Adobe, Ebay, LinkedIn, and many more.  The goal of the day is simple…bring together the best minds in cloud computing for a day of networking, collaboration, and inspiring fun.  Participants will be able to choose to participate in presentations being given by a who’s who in this space on topics ranging from telephony, service integration, ecommerce, cloud architecture, virtualization, and much more.  Feel free to check out the list yourself (http://www.cloudstockevent.com/sessions).  Best of all, event registration is FREE!

Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Great…sounds like a tradeshow.”  Wrong.  What Salesforce has done with this event is truly foreshadowing the next phase in the maturity of the industry.  Cloud service providers to date have been in strong competition to establish superiority in their respective markets.  We have seen applications evolve into platforms, social networking sites evolve into marketing behemoths, and a spree of mergers and acquisitions in this space.  The next frontier is going to be the bundling of technologies to create powerful synergies and truly transformational enterprise solutions.  So why is this event exciting?  Because it is not every day that one gets to be a part of exploring new spaces and pioneering new ground (or more appropriately new clouds).

I am so excited about Cloudstock that I am taking a dozen of our best technical minds at Model Metrics to participate.  Our goal will be to learn, contribute, socialize and savor the moment of history in the making.  I hope to see you there!

Have you ever had an experience where you see a new product and think, “I wish I would have thought of that.” This tends to happen when we see something that is so simple and so obvious, yet so remarkably useful that we can’t imagine how we got along with out it. Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” There is a lot of truth in that.

I had this experience about a year ago when I was first exposed to salesforce.com’s new Chatter product. Chatter is a social networking mechanism within salesforce.com that allows for powerful collaboration among the users of a salesforce instance. That is the simplicity, but the power and the implications are transformational.

Salesforce.com has a long history of taking the simplicity of the consumer web (e.g. eBay, Amazon, Google) and brining it to business. I heard a question posed years ago that asked “why is it that we have so many web-based tools that we can so easily use in our personal life, but when we go to work we are saddled with 10 year old technology?” Well, salesforce.com and other cloud computing vendors have addressed that issue by building intuitive, easily modifiable products that are capable enough to meet the needs of complex businesses. Chatter is the latest example of leveraging interactions akin to those of Twitter and Facebook, and applying the paradigm to business productivity. Brilliant!

As we look at how enterprises generally build their systems, they start with process. Process defines the tasks, decision points, inputs and outputs that an organization follows to get things done. Process provides structure and predictability, but is it really how things get done? What about informal conversations, one off ideas, and word of mouth? Don’t these things play a part in how things get done? Doesn’t productivity sometimes depend on whom you know rather than what you know?

The answer to these questions has generally been to initiate more process. If you have an interaction with a colleague or customer that you deem important, there must be a process to log that activity, develop a call report, or record an event. Problem solved. Or is it? Does anyone in your organization refer to the process manual every time they go to complete a task? What if there is no formal process?

The fact is that we need structure, but everything that we do cannot be dictated by structure or process. The conversations that occur within your organization aggregate to define the pulse of the company. How can we define a process that captures these conversations to make them useful? How do we get visibility and obtain real collaboration in a way that isn’t defined by process, but leverages the way that people naturally communicate? CHATTER!

Chatter allows organizations the ability to stop fighting the uphill battle of distilling unstructured data into information that can be readily understood. Instead, it allows for the free flow of real information in the form that is most consumable by the people that matter…your employees. It enables the “conversation” and the “pulse” of a company to be shared across geographies, across business functions, and across personal relationships without the need to run reports or do some other heavy analysis.

The value proposition around Chatter has only begun to be realized, but we can take a peek at the potential by looking at the likes of our companions in the consumer web space like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp. Social interaction is how business gets done, and now we have a technology that allows everybody’s voice to heard.

Like many who follow technology, I have been entertained over the seemingly endless banter between Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff.

There has been a lot made of the verbal jabs between the two heavy-hitting CEOs.  For those that are late to the party, Marc Benioff has realized enormous success in taking SaaS to “The Cloud” while positioning Salesforce.com at the center of the Cloud Computing phenomenon.  Larry Ellison, former mentor of Benioff at Oracle, has been very critical of the concept of Cloud Computing; first denying that it exists and then sarcastically claiming that “Everything is Cloud Computing.”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UYa6gQC14o&feature=related

At the center of Ellison’s argument is the fact that computing, at its core, requires software, servers, networks, memory, micro-processors, etc.  With all due respect to Larry, these comments come across as a bit obtuse and literal.  You mean Cloud Computing isn’t actually a cloud?  Of course not…  Just like the St. Louis Cardinals aren’t really birds and the VW Beetle isn’t really a bug.

Now Larry is an intelligent guy, so his mocking of the cloud isn’t out of ignorance, but simply a marketing ploy to make headlines and publicize his company.  So that is all well and good, but why should we care?  Why is this architecture for delivering technology important?

The answer doesn’t lie in the technology.  In fact it is just the opposite; it is the abstraction of the technology that is so meaningful.  You see, in it’s purest form, technology is not for technologists; it’s for those who USE technology.  The compelling thing about cloud solutions such as salesforce.com is the ability for businesses to focus on business problems, and the ability for end users to increase their efficiency and their effectiveness.  These application can be deployed in weeks rather than months, complex infrastructure concerns become a distant memory, and the nimble nature of these system create the ability to quickly adapt to rapidly changing business requirements.  In short, it allows all of us to get back to the roots of what computers were intended for:  Making our lives easier.

So Mr. Ellison, I have great respect for you and everything that you have done for the industry.  However, if you really fail to see the impact that cloud computing has made by taking the focus away from hardware, software patches, and code, it’s time that you look at the forest instead of the trees.  Or more appropriately, focus on the limits of the sky rather than the “Cloud.”

In the world of CRM implementation and management, we tend to focus a lot of effort (and rightfully so) on process compliance, collaboration, and user adoption metrics. We do this because we know intuitively that impacting these behaviors of CRM users will ultimately lead to desired outcomes like increased customer loyalty, better customer service, lower costs, and increased revenues. These are the real metrics that success or failure will be measured against; the others are simply a means to an end.

What is often lost in the focus on change management is the end users’ ability to optimize their behavior with the real end goals in mind. Remember, a sense of ownership among end users is a key tenant to behavioral change.

Here are a couple of examples taken from the real world that help illustrate the point. First, I was teaching my 7 year-old daughter how to hit a softball last summer. I spent a great deal of time coaching her on her stance, her grip, the position of the bat, contact point, bat speed, rotation of hips, and on and on and on. She was a natural at hitting the ball, but she kept hitting the ball between first and second bases making her an easy out for the other team. So, I worked with her some more to speed up her swing, swing earlier, focus on the release point of the pitcher and follow-through. No change. Finally, in frustration, I said, “I want you to hit the ball to left field, not right field.” Would you believe that this is all it took? She never hit another ball to right field. It occurred to me that I had not effectively communicated the outcome that I wanted up until that point; I was so focused on the “process” that I forgot all about the goal!  By communicating the goal, it allowed her to apply the processes that she had learned to achieve the desired outcome.

The second example is more relevant to the CRM space. I worked with a company that sold food ingredients, and one of the major scope items in their CRM implementation was to increase collaboration among their sales people. They listed all of the various interactions that were mandatory to log in the system: call reports, quote requests, sample requests, meetings, phone calls, etc. It worked by most measures. There was rather high compliance to the process, user adoption was strong, and revenues were on the rise. One day I was having a side conversation with one of the real rainmakers in the organization and I asked him how he was so successful. He described an involved process that he followed to understand his clients’ products, the pricing of competitive ingredients, and the calculations that he did before we walked into a sales call that made him confident that he could win the business. I said, “Does anyone else do this?” He responded, “I don’t think so.” So when I asked him why he hadn’t used the capabilities of this new system to share his well-thought out approach, he said “that isn’t the type of thing that anybody said I should be sharing.” Now, you can make the case that this is implied behavior, but the point is that the process was, once again, over prescribed and the end goal of increasing top line revenue was not effectively communicated.

The great thing about implementing Salesforce.com as a CRM solution is that it provides the flexibility needed to allow your end users to participate and own the processes. Change in the business is easy for the technology to adapt to so the business doesn’t have to constantly adapt to the capabilities of the technology.

Steven Covey says “Begin with the end in mind,” but don’t forget to communicate the end to those that are intended to get you there.

I have been working within the Salesforce.com ecosystem for more than 7 years. In that time, I have seen the technology grow from a CRM application targeted mostly at the SMB market to a technology platform that has gained serious credibility with some of the largest companies in the world. In my role, I have the opportunity to meet with all types of businesses about their strategy (or lack thereof) to gain efficiency by bringing solutions to “the Cloud.” I have recently been faced with a number of companies debating the question of whether it is appropriate to grow their footprint within a single instance of salesforce.com or whether to leverage multiple instances. Still other companies that have already acquired multiple instances look to consolidate into a single instance. The questions that they pose about which approach is superior presume that there is a one-size-fits-all answer. Although there is no single solution, this post will outline a set of decision criteria that should be considered.

Most CRM professionals agree that a single instance of a CRM system lowers total cost of ownership and creates efficiency in maintenance, support, and re-use. However, proponents of a multiple-instance strategy would argue that localization provides for more flexibility and more closely addresses the needs of end users. For them, the tradeoff to consolidating to a single instance is that the system becomes less useful and introduces more bureaucracy. Hmmm. Where do we go from here?

Reporting
Let’s begin with data visibility and reporting needs. If, at any point, it is going to be a requirement for senior management or someone else in the organization to do global reporting, a single instance should be considered. This type of reporting makes it easy to compare performance in various regions and evaluate variability in system adoption. By its nature, it also makes it easier to do analysis because data structures are common and the analyst can compare apples to apples. It’s true that there are alternatives to global reporting needs like an enterprise data warehouse where data is aggregated for holistic viewing, but the presents an additional challenge of marrying disparate data structures. The best approach is to establish a single source of truth that can be referenced without transformation or lag time.

Collaboration
Related to data reporting is data sharing. CRM, at its core, is about tracking and sharing information about customers. Silos between functional groups like sales, marketing, customer service and account management fundamentally kill the effectiveness of a sound CRM strategy. For this reason, if an organization has the need to share data between geographies, functional groups or process areas, then a single instance is appropriate. Collaboration is key, and if the organization is dealing with a common set of customers, they should consider leveraging a common system for sharing information. In cases where geographically segmented customer bases or business lines don’t share customers, they can autonomously operate in separate instances.
It should be noted that a Salesforce-to-Salesforce integration is an alternative to sharing information across orgs, but not a replacement for a full view of customer data.

Integration
If an organization is leveraging integration from back office or third party data sources, it will be a major factor in determining whether to go with a single or multiple instances. Integrations cost money. These costs can be attributed to the time spent developing, testing, deploying, and managing them, or in the case of third party data sources, there is a cost of obtaining connections to a metered service. In either case, it seems desirable to consolidate integrations wherever possible. Rationalization of these processes also tends to establish consistency in the output of the integrations (for example, if data as being transformed one way from the back office system to Salesforce.com instance A and transformed a different way to Salesfore.com instance B, a mismatch is created).
However, if an organization is obtaining common data elements from multiple data sources, it may be a good case to have multiple instances of Salesforce.com. To illustrate, consider a company with two divisions that operate in two different geographies. In one geography, SAP is used to manage customer financial data and in the other, a homegrown ERP system is used to manage the same information. With the back office systems separated, it is likely that there are going to be conflicts related to key customer information if we try and integrate both into the CRM tool. In this scenario, it would seem that the two geographies operate fairly independent from one another, so multiple instances of Salesforce.com might be the optimal way to go.

Process Rationalization
As mentioned earlier, proponents of the single system site operational efficiency and total cost of ownership as benefits. To dig a bit deeper into this, we need to do some detailed analysis of the process overlap between various business segments. Is there commonality? Is there synergy? Or are there direct conflicts?
With traditional CRM tools, process diversion would be a good reason to propose multiple instances, but with Salesforce.com a significant amount of localization can be accounted for within a single instance. Process reconciliation is potentially a complex and involved process because it has as much to do with managing change and changing old habits as it does evaluating real business drivers.
It is important to note the strong executive sponsorship is key to effectively prioritizing localized process support against other business drivers like globalization or cost management. Most regional business leaders are incented on the performance of their own business so conforming to a standard process (or system) for the common good is not a big motivator.

Governance
In any case where multiple business groups are operating within a single instance of CRM tool, a thorough governance strategy needs to be in place. Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that you establish in an enterprise to guide, direct, and control how the organization uses technologies to accomplish business goals. A governance steering committee should have representation from senior management, IT, Salesforce.com Administrators, and participating business units. The plan should include detailed processes for prioritizing and vetting issues that arise so that conflicts are resolved.
With a multiple-instance strategy, governance is still important, but not as critical as when competing interests are prevalent.

Administration
Administration is one of the areas often cited as being an opportunity to create efficiencies for companies considering going from multiple instances to a single instance. In most cases, each instance has one or more people responsible for administration and maintenance. When consolidation occurs, the job becomes larger because the resulting system can be more complex, but the redundancy is often eliminated. The breakeven point for what is optimal varies on a case-by-case basis.

Globalization Settings
Salesforce.com provides standard support of globalization features like multi-language and multi-currency. Consolidating multiple instances into a single instance will have an impact on users if doing so requires either of these features to be enabled. Who will be responsible for maintaining the Translation Workbench? How will currency conversions be managed?

Governor Limits
Some Salesforce.com governor limits are set based on the number licensed users in an instance (e.g. API calls per day). This can be a consideration in cases where multiple instances that are heavily customized or are running integrations that require API calls.

Edition Constraints
For organizations looking to consolidate orgs, the Salesforce.com Edition of each candidate org should be evaluated. In every case I have seen, it is advisable to consolidate into the highest-level edition of the candidate orgs. For example, if looking to consolidate a Professional Edition and an Enterprise Edition org, it should be done using the Enterprise level instance at a minimum. It may be required to move to Unlimited Edition if the joining of the two orgs would exceed certain limits imposed by Enterprise Edition.

In evaluating your organizations optimal endpoint, these are some of the factors that should be evaluated and prioritized. The analysis needs to be thorough and balanced to ensure that the opportunity cost for each decision is well understood and documented.