How Much Should a Marketing Cloud Implementation Cost?
Questions you should ask, types of implementations you should be offered, and hidden costs you need to look out for.
Get the guideChoosing Between a Salesforce Partner & Independent Consultant
You have arrived at the conclusion that you need to hire dedicated Salesforce help or you know you have unmet goals with your use of Salesforce and are evaluating that option. The next step is to determine the resource planning strategy that is best suited for your organization.
The 3 main options are: engaging a Salesforce Consulting Partner, utilizing an Independent Salesforce Consultant (i.e. Freelancer), or hiring full-time Salesforce employees. Perhaps you already know if you’re going to hire a Salesforce Consulting Partner or a Salesforce Contractor, in which case you can focus on the actual vendor / Contractor identification process. Alternatively, you may still be determining which of these two options makes more sense for your company’s objectives.
We will cover a few topics to help guide you through the decision making process:
- What Salesforce Customers should be asking themselves at the start of this decision making process.
- What is a Salesforce Consulting Partner?
- What are the main differences between using a Salesforce Consulting Partner and hiring an Independent Salesforce Consultant?
- How do the logistics of an engagement differ with a Consulting Partner vs. Independent Consultant?
Getting Started: Questions to Ask
There is no one-size resourcing strategy within Salesforce; however, there are certain variables that can help point you toward the right approach for your organizational needs.
Here are some of the key considerations to evaluate as you determine the long-term Salesforce resourcing plans.
How much Salesforce knowledge does your org currently possess.
- No Customers should entirely outsource their Salesforce product strategy and Salesforce has published basic Salesforce Administration best practices for your consideration. If your company has limited Salesforce knowledge and no full-time Salesforce professionals on staff, engaging a Consulting Partner is the equivalent of offloading / outsourcing decision making. You will rely on them as an outside vendor when deciding goals, expenditure, best practices for training users, support and maintenance, product roadmap, and hiring strategy. This option makes sense when implementing Salesforce for the first time. However, if you are optimizing an existing Salesforce instance or adding new products / functionality to it, an Independent Contractor embeds as a member of your team, whose incentives are more closely tied to your organization than any external influences.
How well defined are your goals for Salesforce and Enterprise Applications in general?
- Ultimately, it’s a question of how much you are looking for external support on strategy vs. production. Customers undergoing new implementations of Salesforce will be looking for equal parts strategy & execution, understandably. However, if you are an existing Customer optimizing your environment or adding on to it, you’re likely looking for some strategy guidance and a heavier emphasis on production. Engaging a Consulting Partner just to get access to a Salesforce Developer or two is an inefficient use of capital - Partners are valuable when deploying cross-disciplinary project teams with a dedicated Project Manager but a team of 1-2 will cost 2x-3x the amount of an Independent Salesforce Developer or Architect with the same skill set.
Do you anticipate an ongoing need or resources for a one-off project?
- Is there a specific project scope in mind or you need staff augmentation support on an ongoing basis? Perhaps you are a small Salesforce Customer that doesn’t need a full-time Salesforce Developer - instead, you need someone for 5-10 hours/week as needs arise.
Will you be able to manage the vendor adequately if you select a Partner?
(Yes, you still need a dedicated Project Manager when using a Partner or you will have significant challenges when they ultimately roll off the engagement and hand you the reigns.)
- As noted above, the value of a Consulting Partner comes in when you’re engaging a project team - these teams will consist of Salesforce Developers, Administrators, Business Analysts, and Architects. While the Partner will have a dedicated Project Manager, you will want a point of contact to liaise with that team throughout the lifecycle of an engagement, otherwise you’re looking at a steep learning curve when you inherit the environment and the Partner leaves. Independent Consultants can be particularly valuable in these scenarios even when you do plan to engage a Consulting Partner - they will work on behalf of your org, helping to manage & guide the work of the Partner as a member of your organization.
How much does budget factor into the decision making process?
- Short answer - if budget is a serious consideration, you’ll want to leverage a solo Independent Contractor or assemble a team of Independent Contractors that will work together on the project. On average, the bill rate for a Contractor is 60% of the cost of Consulting Partner bill rates and many of these Contractors previously worked at a Partner, so there is no drop in quality.