Managing Your Business Through Change

Introducing Bluewolf Beyond

The Agile Enterprise

The Agile Enterprise

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

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.

Todays SaaS solutions are quickly adaptable and evolve to individual business processes software were slow and expensive. They like never before, enabling companies to were often likely to deliver outdated results increase productivity and profitability. This by the end of their engagements. Moreover, white paper describes a new consulting the same consultants would typically model, one that is as fluid and flexible as the maintain the same system they designed. SaaS applications they support. By leveraging Complex business applications that this new, agile approach, companies can promised to revolutionize how business was ensure their new business applications conducted required teams of professional grow along with them and continually consultants to drive lengthy requirements evolve to meet changing business and user and customization phases. This model requirements. This paper also explains the (often referred to as the waterfall consulting benefits of investing ongoing in managed support services such as Bluewolf Beyond model) led to a cycle where companies made huge financial investments in building for Salesforce CRM, a cost-effective solution provided by Bluewolf (the company that overly complicated systems, that by the literally wrote the book on agile consulting). time they were delivered, were often irrelevant and outdated.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

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

market evolution
In todays fast-paced, Internet-driven economy, businesses must continually embrace the new value offered by nextgeneration network infrastructure and applications. Companies making any investment into critical business process or customer relationship management (CRM) solutions must continually evaluate

join the agile conversation

www.bluewolf.com

contact bluewolf

1-866-455-WOLF | +44 (0) 118 937 1059

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.

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.
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 Macquaries 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.

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

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

join the agile conversation

www.bluewolf.com

contact bluewolf

1-866-455-WOLF | +44 (0) 118 937 1059

Bluewolfs Four Laws of Consulting Economics

1)

From Iterate or Die

Projects dont 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. 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.

4)

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

an unforeseen need arises, and often will require a separate service engagement.

A New Style: Agile Consulting Model

Businesses that choose to implement SaaS are unwilling to bear. solutions would be better supported by a partner with a consulting services model Another alternative is to hire an outside that ensures applications continue to evolve vendor to support the application. However, in the same manner as the SaaS solution companies should resist choosing among itself. The new model of consulting reflects traditional IT consulting firms (the dinosaurs) one where consultants are deeply invested which typically lack the flexibility and costin the customers ultimate success. Such effective engagement model to support SaaS consultants are invested not only to help applications on an ongoing basis. customers keep business applications up and running, but to also ensure businesses are As noted previously, traditional technologists leveraging applications more effectively to trained in the waterfall method follow a gain deeper value and return. 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 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

join the agile conversation

www.bluewolf.com

contact bluewolf

1-866-455-WOLF | +44 (0) 118 937 1059

Business Challenges
Need to reduce or eliminate IT staff

Benefit
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.

At a Glance: Benefits of Agile Consulting

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 Need to ensure company business practices constantly evolve to meet ever changing user and business requirement

Agile consultants make it their mission to keep current with industry best practices and standards and rapidly institute them for their clients.

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.

encourage change. Agile consultants continuously evaluate the clients 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, its simple to make evolutionary changes to the business application being supported on short or sudden notice.

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 worlds 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.

join the agile conversation

www.bluewolf.com

contact bluewolf

1-866-455-WOLF | +44 (0) 118 937 1059

Management
System set-up, customization, and maintenance Administrator support Platform support and release management Proactive system review and recommendations Training and re-training

Development
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)

Other Services
Refinements/enhancements Remote administration Release management and governance Custom application development and support AppExchange support L1, L2, L3 help desk support

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

join the agile conversation

www.bluewolf.com

contact bluewolf

1-866-455-WOLF | +44 (0) 118 937 1059

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 clients 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.

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 organizations 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.

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. Bluewolfs 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 todays 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.

join the agile conversation

www.bluewolf.com

contact bluewolf

1-866-455-WOLF | +44 (0) 118 937 1059

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.

Call Today! 1-866-455-WOLF or +44 (0) 118 937 1059

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.

B R E A DT H O F

S E R V I C E S LO W E R S FLEXIBLE

RISK

REDUCES

S PE N D I N G

join the agile conversation

www.bluewolf.com

contact bluewolf

1-866-455-WOLF | +44 (0) 118 937 1059