How to Run Your Company Fully in the Cloud with Salesforce

 

Cloud computing introduced many benefits to the business world, such as seamless scaling and a cost-effective infrastructure. One of the most significant changes is the support for company-wide integration of separate systems resulting in a company who ultimately has one-source for all data . When you take your business into the cloud, you create a fluid, agile, mobile, and fast-paced environment suitable for the current market. Salesforce, the leading cloud platform,  gives you the foundation you need to achieve this cloud-fueled goal.

When it comes to managing your business your life would be a lot easier if your accounting, ERP, sales, inventory and other business systems shared data. Sales staff could look up stock numbers before selling a prospect on a particular solution, rather than crossing their fingers and hoping the product remains in-stock at the end of the sales cycle. Once they close the deal, the customer’s information is sent to relevant parties through Salesforce and the accounting application generates an invoice.

This same process requires a lot of back-and-forth between departments and additional data entry, and increases the chances of human error when your applications each run in a separate silo.  You can achieve integration with Salesforce through pre-built integrations and companies like  FinancialForce, Intacct, or Accounting Seed are examples of accounting solutions that do so. If you have third-party solutions that don’t have Salesforce integration built in, you can work with its well-documented API to create a custom connection.

One of the biggest drivers of running your business in the cloud is to free yourself of spreadsheets.  You can’t scale a business when it depends on spreadsheets for accounting, inventory, and other critical systems. They make it difficult to track down information, lack streamlined processes, and may be deleted or lost without backups. As your company grows, these sheets get harder to understand. When all of your applications are in the cloud, you can create your reports with this technology as well. Salesforce Wave Analytics provides business intelligence for every line of business, pulling data from various data points including Salesforce. You don’t have to spend hours hunting down information in a spreadsheet as the reports get created in real-time.

Your time now goes to making strategic decisions for your company. You can act quickly thanks to dynamic reporting. Get on top of developing market trends before your spreadsheet-using competitors even start compiling their data.

An effective marketing plan brings in new opportunities to grow your business. It’s capable of scaling as you reach new goals, but many strategies rely on substantial hands-on input and repetitive tasks. When you’re ready to go to the next level, you’re held back by a cumbersome system. Marketing automation solves this dilemma, and Salesforce Pardot offers you a cloud-based option designed to work with your existing Salesforce foundation and the data it has.

This B2B marketing tool optimizes many processes, from your email marketing to your lead management. Lead nurturing messages go out at the right times, marketers can send qualified leads directly to sales, and forms can be added to landing pages quickly. Integration with Wave Analytics lets you see how well particular campaigns are performing, so you can adjust your efforts accordingly.

The days where every department acts on its own is long gone. Salesforce offers many ways to take your entire operation in the cloud, from the deep insights generated from analytics to seamless integration with many solutions. Need help getting started with Salesforce or expanding into Pardot and AppExchange applications? Get in touch to talk about your cloud consulting needs, and get ready to transform the way you do business.