Managing Your Business Through Change Introducing Bluewolf Beyond

The AgileEnterprise

2

The AgileEnterprise

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Managing Salesforce.com for Change

executive summary

Until recently, the software consulting

industry was almost entirely filled with

dinosaurs. Many of the outside firms

that helped companies acquire, design,

implement, customize, and manage

software were slow and expensive. They

were often likely to deliver outdated results

by the end of their engagements. Moreover,

the same consultants would typically

maintain the same system they designed.

Complex business applications that

promised to revolutionize how business was

conducted required teams of professional

consultants to drive lengthy requirements

and customization phases. This model

(often referred to as the waterfall consulting

model) led to a cycle where companies

made huge financial investments in building

overly complicated systems, that by the

time they were delivered, were often

irrelevant and outdated.

The rise of SaaS and cloud based business

services have, in effect, killed the dinosaurs.

These new breeds of technology empower

companies, freeing them from the

complications and drawbacks of custom

development and bloated, expensive

enterprise software packages. SaaS

applications are updated with new features

and functionality at a regular, almost

blinding, pace to help companies increase

operational efficiency. Waterfall consulting

firms, which advocate taking slow,

methodical steps, are not suited to manage

the rapid and easy cadence of change

promoted by SaaS. Nor is the waterfall

approach a match for businesses seeking

fast results, value, and flexibility from their

consulting partner.

Today’s SaaS solutions are quickly adaptable

and evolve to individual business processes

like never before, enabling companies to

increase productivity and profitability. This

white paper describes a new consulting

model, one that is as fluid and flexible as the

SaaS applications they support. By leveraging

this new, agile approach, companies can

ensure their new business applications

grow along with them and continually

evolve to meet changing business and user

requirements. This paper also explains the

benefits of investing ongoing in managed

support services such as Bluewolf Beyond

for Salesforce CRM, a cost-effective solution

provided by Bluewolf (the company that

literally wrote the book on agile consulting).

market evolution

In today’s fast-paced, Internet-driven

economy, businesses must continually

embrace the new value offered by next-

generation network infrastructure and

applications. Companies making any

investment into critical business process

or customer relationship management

(CRM) solutions must continually evaluate

“The disruptive force of SaaS created an opportunity for a new breed of consulting, and an increased focus on customer success has been a direct result.”Marc Benioff

CEO salesforce.com,

from Iterate or Die

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and fine-tune their applications in order to

improve their business methods. Only then

can they offer their employees the solutions

that empower them to work faster and more

efficiently while remaining competitive in

a market in which business innovation and

constant evolution is essential.

Unfortunately, companies often lack the

time, budgets, and staff to regularly reassess

their business applications and add new

features and functionality. Moreover, many

do not have employees with the specialized

skills to maintain and enhance new emerging

business systems. Managers tasked with

supervising CRM solutions frequently come

from the business side of the company, not

from IT, making it a daunting task to learn

the complexities of a new technology. Even

if employees have the expertise, they might

not have the time to spend away from their

core responsibilities to do an effective job.

The rapidly changing pace of technology

posses challenges for companies at every

size, even testing the ability of the biggest

of enterprises to keep pace.

finding an answer

The promise of next generation business

applications enable companies of all varieties

and sizes to utilize first-class, proven

business applications, while allowing them

to avoid the headaches and expenses of

custom development, deployment, and

management. SaaS solutions require no

initial costs for hardware or software,

only a more affordable monthly or

annual subscription charge. Because the

applications are hosted rather than installed

on premises, there is no infrastructure

to maintain. Just as importantly, SaaS

vendors enhance their products frequently

in response to changing market and user

requirements, eliminating the need to ensure

applications always remain up to date.

The best SaaS solutions are dramatically

more cost-effective and simpler to maintain

than custom or off-the-shelf software

installations, yet many businesses have

discovered that it is not sufficient to simply

implement SaaS and hope for the best. Many

companies find that they must perform

some level of maintenance, training, and

user support. They often need to adapt

the solution to fit the needs of individual

users and business divisions. For example,

company sales territories often change on a

regular basis, mergers and acquisitions can

add new organizations and employees, and

new product line-ups can add a multitude of

new database entries.

A business can support its SaaS application

internally, since leading solutions such as

Salesforce CRM are simple to understand

“SaaS solutions require no initial costs for hardware or software, only a more affordable monthly or annual subscription charge.”

customer highlight

Headquartered in southeast

Michigan, Macquarie provides IT,

medical, and capital equipment

leasing, plus service for every

stage of the IT life cycle — from

asset planning and upgrades

to re-marketing, online asset

management, technical and

strategic advisory services, data

destruction, and disposal.

challenge

Staffing changes at Macquarie

created an immediate need for

Salesforce administration support.

strategy

After losing its internal Salesforce

administrator, Macquarie chose

Bluewolf Beyond to drive application

innovation more effectively at a

lower cost than staff replacement.

results

Bluewolf Beyond streamlined

system level changes to Macquarie’s

instance of Salesforce and deployed

enhancements that have improved

business insight, employee

productivity, and customer

communication. Bluewolf Beyond

freed Macquarie to focus on its core

business and mission — to support

customers and give answers with

ever increasing accuracy and speed.

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From ‘Iterate or Die’

and use. Salesforce.com also provides all

the tools and assistance necessary for

customizing, making it easy to tailor the

solution to fit individual business needs.

Even so, companies still require dedicated

personnel to learn and manage the

application, and that is an expense many

are unwilling to bear.

Another alternative is to hire an outside

vendor to support the application. However,

companies should resist choosing among

traditional IT consulting firms (the dinosaurs)

which typically lack the flexibility and cost-

effective engagement model to support SaaS

applications on an ongoing basis.

As noted previously, traditional technologists

trained in the waterfall method follow a

slow, highly ordered approach that is not

conducive to SaaS. Legacy consulting firms

typically require expensive and lengthy

service engagements, which focus on

a single issue or project. Many will not

quickly change the scope of a project if

an unforeseen need arises, and often will

require a separate service engagement.

A New Style: Agile Consulting ModelBusinesses that choose to implement SaaS

solutions would be better supported by a

partner with a consulting services model

that ensures applications continue to evolve

in the same manner as the SaaS solution

itself. The new model of consulting reflects

one where consultants are deeply invested

in the customer’s ultimate success. Such

consultants are invested not only to help

customers keep business applications up and

running, but to also ensure businesses are

leveraging applications more effectively to

gain deeper value and return.

Technologists who follow this approach

are called agile consultants due to their

flexible, open approach to support and

development. These consultants incorporate

adaptive planning and practices that actually

Bluewolf’s Four Laws of Consulting Economics

1) Projects don’t matter, results matter

2) A successful business process trumps cool technology

3) Iterate or Die: businesses that do not change quickly will not survive in highly competitive, highly dynamic markets.

4) Software consulting (and services) is the process of helping companies improve performance, taking advantage of new technologies to automate tasks for the purpose of achieving specific results.

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At a Glance:Benefits of Agile Consulting

encourage change. Agile consultants

continuously evaluate the client’s SaaS

solution, apply regular refinements, and

continually look for new ways to help

customers improve the application.

Agile consultants also follow simple

guidelines, exert light rather than heavy

control, and communicate among team

members and clients often. Continuous

collaboration, teamwork, and transparency

are hallmarks of agile consulting, unlike

the waterfall approach. Moreover, clients

remain active participants in the agile

consulting process every step of the way.

A typical agile consulting program

remains open-ended so that the

infrastructure can evolve organically to

continually improve the way the business

operates. The stakeholders decide new

goals and work on them in short, regular

intervals (often as short as a few weeks)

and then choose new ones at the end of the

cycle. Perhaps most importantly, revisions

can be made at any step of the process.

Because cycles are short and consultants

are flexible, it’s simple to make evolutionary

changes to the business application being

supported on short or sudden notice.

Business Challenges Benefit

Need to reduce or eliminate IT staff

Supplements or replaces dedicated IT staff with highly experienced

personnel, providing complete support for less cost; provides expert staff

with the high skill level that even large enterprises might not have the time

or resources to develop.

Need to boost employee productivity

Frees in-house staff to focus on activities that improve the business rather

than IT issues.

Need to improve customer service

Enables customer service staff to respond to customer requests faster due

to improved application functionality; agile consultants continually and

pro-actively optimize applications to better serve business processes such as

order processing,

Need to update best practices regularly and ensure standards

compliance

Agile consultants make it their mission to keep current with industry best

practices and standards and rapidly institute them for their clients.

Need to ensure company business practices constantly evolve to meet ever changing

user and business requirement

Applications and employee use patterns and processes are evaluated on

a continual basis and enhanced regularly to streamline productivity and

business processes.

Need to react quickly to market conditions

Functionality and features are fine-tuned in market time in response to

fluctuating changes in the business.

bluewolf leadership

Bluewolf cofounders Eric Berridge

and Michael Kirven are pioneers of

agile consulting, having created the

company in the aftermath of the

dotcom bust. Today, Bluewolf is

the leading and world’s largest

provider of professional services for

on-demand software applications.

Their book, Iterate or Die,

Agile Consulting for 21st Century

Business Success, is widely

recognized as a key authority and

reference in the field.

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offerings

added benefits of agile support services

For companies committed to investing

in business applications that continually

evolve, an agile consulting firm can

provide additional value through flexible

maintenance programs and/or growth

plans. Depending on the goals and needs

of a company, agile support services can

either replace dedicated in-house staff

or supplement the team, improving staff

productivity and an organizations ability to

make improvements that help the business.

Services provided by agile consultants can

replace the costs and efforts of maintaining

dedicated staff with a predictable monthly

service fee. A single service level agreement

(SLA) supplants traditional statements of

work (SOWs) or multiple detailed contracts

for individual service projects. Large

companies can reduce the risk of over or

under-hiring technical staff, while smaller

companies that could ill afford big service

engagements or a dedicated IT department

can now obtain highly trained technology

consultants at an affordable budget level.

Moreover, agile consultants offer a depth

of application knowledge and hands-on

experience that even the largest enterprises

could not afford to implement themselves.

Agile consultants offer their customers

access to teams of people, with different skill

sets, all honed with the latest training and

whose experience has been proven working

with other customers in real scenarios. The

agile approach frees companies of all sizes

to focus on core business issues since the

consulting firm takes over support of the

applications and/or systems and services.

bluewolf — a history of agile consulting

Bluewolf has continually led the charge with

an innovative, agile approach to consulting.

One area of consistent innovation for

Bluewolf has focused on agile consulting

Management Development Other Services

•System set-up, customization,

and maintenance

•Administrator support

•Platform support and

release management

•Proactive system review

and recommendations

•Training and re-training

•Custom Apex/VisualForce

development

•Business system integration

•Data cleansing and management

•Asynchronous JavaScript

and XML (AJAX) development

•AppExchange solution

deployment

•New Salesforce.com functionality

deployment (from new releases)

•Refinements/enhancements

•Remote administration

•Release management

and governance

•Custom application

development and support

•AppExchange support

•L1, L2, L3 help desk support

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services for Salesforce CRM. Through a

combination of professional consulting

services, and its Bluewolf Beyond for

Salesforce CRM program, Bluewolf offers

Salesforce CRM customers expert advice,

guidance and a commitment to success.

Bluewolf delivers that high level of

service via its Bluewolf Beyond program,

a comprehensive solution that

minimizes businesses involvement in

ongoing salesforce.com maintenance

and management.

In fact, Bluewolf Beyond for Salesforce

CRM is the only program available that

offers advanced administrative support

plus custom application development

for salesforce.com — all within the same

service agreement.

With Bluewolf Beyond, businesses gain a

single point of contact who resides within

the U.S. to help plan and coordinate all

changes to the salesforce.com application,

and a team of experts provides proactive,

day-to-day maintenance and/or application

development, as well as special requests and

ongoing case resolution.

During each engagement, the client’s

instance of salesforce.com is customized

to meet user and business needs. Clients

receive an allocation of ongoing monthly

hours that they are free to use as they

see fit. For example, a company may ask

Bluewolf to spend 50 percent of its allotted

time on maintenance and the rest on

custom development. However, clients can

also change the amount of time spent on

individual services at anytime.

conclusion

With IT staff, corporate departments, and

budgets under greater pressure than ever

before, now is the time to adapt business

processes to become smarter and leaner.

Bluewolf’s agile consulting services and

Bluewolf Beyond program represent an

important opportunity for companies

to make real progress towards that

objective. Together these programs offer

comprehensive, cost-effective solutions

that can help companies evolve and grow.

In today’s business environment in which

companies need to anticipate, expect, and

plan for change, businesses cannot afford

to let business applications sit idle. Only

through embracing the next evolution or

wave of technical innovation can companies

ensure their ability to become increasingly

competitive and successful.

customer highlight

Based in New York City, Dow Jones

& Company is a leading provider

of global business news and

information services and

a subsidiary of News Corporation.

challenge

Dow Jones needed ongoing

development support in the face of

employee layoffs for its advanced

salesforce.com implementation,

which ties together advertising sales

and delivery teams in 17 divisions

and 4 websites, and unites multiple

business systems.

strategy

Dow Jones augments its IT staff

with Bluewolf Beyond, which

assists with system standards,

best practices, quality control,

and ongoing maintenance of its

salesforce.com application.

results

Bluewolf fully integrated the

organization’s print and online

divisions resulting in a 360 degree

customer view, improving service.

The solution eliminated the loss

of intellectual property by

centralizing data in a web-based

system. Administrative time

needed to manage customer data

diminished, leading to improved

sales force productivity and higher

revenues. The time it takes IT staff

to evaluate and generate new

development projects decreased by

approximately 75 percent.

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why Bluewolf Beyond?

Since opening its doors in 1999, Bluewolf has partnered on more than 2,000

Salesforce implementations and over 500 business system integrations.

FLEXIBLE

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about us >

Bluewolf is your guide on the journey to

enterprise agility. We partner with clients to

sync business and IT to create a new level of

business responsiveness. From cloud enabled

customer life cycle innovation, to IT staffing,

to agile managed services, Bluewolf knows

how to get your business to the next level of

innovation. Our clients include Time Warner

Cable, GlaxoSmithKline, ADP, Dow Jones &

Company, United Way, Chevron and more.