Why migrating your data to Salesforce.com can transform your CRM to a System of Action

Over the past 18 months I have had the opportunity to work with a number of great insurance customers. In all cases we have helped the client not only configure and customize Salesforce but we have also designed and built a migration platform for their existing data. 

Here is the thing though. Migrating your transactional data from your legacy system to Salesforce.com is only half the battle. In order to fully exploit the Salesforce platform one needs to understand what the Salesforce Platform really is. It is not just a CRM. It is not just a replacement for the legacy system that can now be accessed via the browser. So what is it then?

It is a system of potential action.

Oh I can just hear you now. Blah, blah, blah. Just another buzz word or phrase from the marketing lexicon. Now here is a shocker. You would be right. With out the data to enable users to make actionable next step decisions you are not full exploiting the potential of your investment. 

So this is getting confusing. Lets take a step back and walk thru all of this.

What is a system of action and how does it differ from a legacy CRM?

If we look back to some of the first stand alone CRM’s. You know the ones. They were nothing more than an electronic rolodex. This was followed by the big client server solutions and more recently the cloud has exploded onto the scene with the likes of Salesforce.com and others. These systems all had a lot in common. Companies would use them to record activity. Now don’t get me wrong its good to have a place to record activity. There are huge advantages for both user and management but at the end of the day all this just helped you look backwards. The truth is that to move the ball down the field a system needs to look forward. Think proactive and predictive. To quote the great Wayne Gretzky.

"A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."

In other words a CRM that provides proactive decision making information to the user is a system of action. Instead of providing the user a view of the past it takes that past and uses it to provide the user with insights into what to do next. 

So that is all well and good but how does one build a system of action? How does one make the jump from being a store of legacy transactional data to a system that is proactive and predictive. Well here is the bad news there is no silver bullet. However there are certain things that you can and should do to begin the process. 

Step 1 - Take time to smell the roses

When it comes to migrating your data to Salesforce.com most customers focus on the data that is interned in their existing legacy application. Now obviously making sure that this data moves across to the new system is critical. It falls into the ‘do not pass go’ before you have done this quadrant. However given the concept discussed above we should also use the opportunity to take a step back and smell the roses. By this I mean what other data should we be moving. Moving to a new system like Salesforce.com is an incredible opportunity to transform the system from a transactional system to a system of action. To do this we don’t need to just move transactional legacy data but rather we want to also populate Salesforce.com with ‘actionable data’ which when combined with the incredible human intellect of our users will drive informed next step actions. 

Step 2 - Do not throw the baby out with the bath water

The truth is many organizations have already invested huge amounts of time and resources in creating systems that contain much of the actionable data you need to turn Salesforce.com into a system of action. How many organizations already have something like a data warehouse? Tons. How many organizations have some kind of reporting or modeling infrastructure in place? Think Cognos or Business Objects. I would say from my experience almost all. Now I am sure you are starting to see where I am going with this. Lets take the results of all this investment and in many cases years of work and make the results available in Salesforce.com. This after all is the magic of the platform. When you chose to invest in Salesforce.com you did not just sign up for a static application rather the platform allows you to customize the solution to fit the needs of your business. So why not take this actionable intelligence that is silo’ed in your reporting system and use it to empower your users to make actionable decisions. So when you are contemplating your migration take a step back and explore what else can your team do to better leverage the flexibility this opportunity presents. 

Step 3 - Choose the right tools

Now all this is well and good but in order to make this happen you need two things. You need the right partners and the right tools. Despite what you may have read or been told moving data in and out of the cloud can be a complex business. Believe me I know. The good news is that it is all possible. The bad news is that many of the existing tools sets may not be up to the task. The majority of existing data migration tools were born before the advent of multi tenant environments. The were designed and built to move data around inside on premise data centers or between data nodes located at the very least on the same WAN’s. Unfortunately many of these tools won’t cut it when it comes to providing error free transparent data transfers between your on premise data nodes and the cloud. My choice of tool when it comes to migration and integration is Informatica Cloud. I won't delve into too much more detail here. Rather I will leave that for another post. 


Step 4 - Choose the right partners

The bottom line is that it is absolutely critical to the successful outcome of your project that you choose the right tool set to ensure that you can move your data efficiently between your legacy system and the Salesforce.com cloud and that you can leverage this self same technology to empower your users by surfacing actionable data inside Salesforce.com. 

To make all this work you need to ensure you choose the right partners. Not only does your migration partner need to understand Salesforce.com but in addition they need to understand how to design and configure the so called “migration environment” in such a way that it can facilitate not only the data migration but also the exposure of the actionable data to your users. This environment should not just be designed to facilitate your migration. Rather it should be built with an eye to it forming the basis of your integration platform. Oh yes and that partner should also understand insurance. Sorry I had to throw that in there. 

So in summary remember that a migration project presents an opportunity to empower your users and affect bottom line performance. Just make sure you select the right tools and partners to get the job done because after all you are investing in a system of action rather than an expensive Rolodex.