The Cost of Internal Resources

It’s important to remember when setting up a project, that the internal resources who will be involved are not free either. Generally speaking, the people involved in the delivery of a project like this ought to be top-tier performers (because their input is the most valuable) and, in getting involved with this project, they’re being pulled away from their day job.

Consultants should always remember that their clients do not live and breathe Salesforce; there’s a reason they’ve invited external consultants to be involved in the project. The time they’re devoting to discovery sessions, progress reviews and UAT is time they’re taking away from their “proper” jobs, and shouldn’t be treated lightly.

The client should have someone in mind who will end up being responsible for the Salesforce org once the project is complete. Ideally they should be technically literate, but they don’t need an IT degree or anything.

The key requirements for the Salesforce administrator are:

  • A good grasp of business process design
  • An understanding of good practice in data model design
  • The competence to communicate to senior management why certain requirements may or may not be advisable

That last point is actually of critical importance. It is easy for me as an external consultant who regularly offers advice to C-level executives to express an opinion to senior management and have it respected. After all, they’re going to value an opinion costing them over a hundred quid an hour as at least a-hundred-quid-an-hour’s-worth. Internal resources, on the other hand, are frequently told that the decisions they’re weighing in on are “above their pay-grade” or that they’re not fully aware of the facts. If that resource is responsible for the care and maintenance of a business-critical system though, their opinion ought to be considered at least as valuable as the system(s) they look after.

If you’ve any questions, or you think I might be able to help, I’d be delighted to hear from you! You can always email me, call me on +44 2393 96 06 42, request a (virtual) meeting or, if you prefer, fill out and submit the form on my Contact page and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Leave a Reply