Ahead of the Curve

AOTC EP 43 - Secrets to a Successful Salesforce Implementation

Businesses in virtually every industry are finding tremendous value in deploying Salesforce within their organization. But with any new platform, software, or toolset, comes one major question for managers and team leaders: “How do I get my team to actually USE it?” An effective implementation can be the difference between a widely adopted solution and one that goes largely unused and eventually gets quietly shuffled off. In this episode of Ahead of the Curve, we take a deep dive into Salesforce implementation, from planning to training to deployment, and look at how managers and directors can ensure a successful digital transformation from the ground up. Key Ideas 01:56 - What should team leaders have ready on “Day Zero” of a Salesforce implementation 05:08 - How the digital transformation process is different for experienced businesses vs. those adopting a digital solution for the first time 11:13 - How managers can ensure a successful deployment with real, meaningful adoption 14:47 - The value in approaching implementation in “bite-size chunks” 17:35 - Managing the learning curve of a new solution while balancing a team’s day-to-day responsibilities 24:08 - Potential stumbling blocks during an implementation and how to avoid them Guest Bio Ravi Muntha Gerent’s Senior Vice President of Delivery Ravi brings over 25 years of towering experience in cloud-enabled enterprise transformations to his current role at Gerent, including 16 years at IBM, and over 8 years at Oracle consulting. He specializes in orchestrating highly productive and cost-effective delivery models by combining organizational design, financial transformation, and process improvement with leading-edge technology, both in the CRM and ERP space.

AOTC EP 42 - Top-Down Transformation - How Team Leaders Can Operationalize Big Change

In theory, embracing digital transformation is one of the biggest steps a business can take to differentiate itself and adapt to a rapidly changing world. But in practice, digital transformation can often be a daunting proposition; one that requires leaders to rework processes, get team members in alignment, and bring in new technologies that, without careful management, might not be adequately adopted long-term. That’s where effective team leadership comes in. On this episode of Ahead of the Curve, we take a look at how managers and directors can lead the charge, align their teams on goals, processes, and the benefits of digitalization, and drive real, boots-on-the-ground change. Key Ideas 01:57: The starting point for teams looking to kickstart the digital transformation process 04:57: Key areas managers should focus on while guiding teams through digital transformation 08:26: When does technology enter the digital transformation equation? 10:49: Important criteria for teams to keep in mind as they get ready to adopt a new technology 12:44: The question of scale – how SMBs and enterprises approach transformation differently 16:09: How to identify a project champion, and how to bring them onboard to a project 20:47: Common stumbling blocks in digital transformation and how leaders can overcome them 25:19: Closing thoughts for managers considering digital transformation Guest Bio Anandhi Narayanan Gerent’s Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Transformation in Manufacturing Anandhi brings over 17 years of experience in manufacturing, not just with technology, but with the people and processes that can lead to meaningful change. During her tenure in IT, she led digital transformations across finance, supply chain, operations and sales operations. For the past 4 years as a consultant, she has been leading cross cloud implementations, driving strategy and thought leadership for supply chain organizations in the Salesforce ecosystem.

AOTC EP 41 - MuleSoft – Pulling Data From Any Source and Making It Accessible To All

Companies, organizations, and industries are waking up to the critical value and importance of data. It drives everything today. But data comes from different sources which means that companies have to find a way to bring it all together. That’s what breaking down silos is about. However, data comes in different forms which can create roadblocks to bringing the data together in one “place”. Enter MuleSoft. In this edition of Ahead of the Curve, we discover the capabilities of this powerful platform from Salesforce and the roles it’s playing across numerous industries, through the eyes of Hari Shankar, MuleSoft’s Principal Client Solutions Engineer. Guest Bio In addition to his current role with Salesforce, Hari has held senior posts with Snaplogic, CA Technologies and IBM. He also holds an MBa from the University of North Carolina, an MSc from the University of Texas and a B.Eng from India. Key Ideas 03:18 – The roadblocks and issues that make data integration challenging for companies 06:11 – The power that comes to supply chains when data is visible to all suppliers in real time 11:09 – How MuleSoft is impacting Human Resource Information Systems in a major way 15:36 – Healthcare is screaming out for data integration. MuleSoft is there with the solution

AOTC EP 40 - Gerent Digital – A Full-Service Digital Customer Experience Agency

It’s surprising to find a digital agency these days that was founded before the word ‘digital’ was in anyone’s vocabulary. Gerent Experience (formerly Gerent Digital) is just such an agency. The principals – Mike Simon and Gordon Forsyth – began their agency work 20 years ago. Not surprisingly, their company has evolved as technology has evolved to the point where, today, Mike and Gordon along with their 50 employees can offer Gerent customers a full-service agency built around customer DX. Gerent Experience is literally an all-inclusive digital agency with a single focus: provide blue-chip customer DX strategies, solutions, and products. In this episode, an interview with Mike Simon and Gordon Forsyth on the genesis of their agency and how it has evolved over the last two decades to maximize technology and push the boundaries of agency work. Key Ideas: 04:07 – Mike Simon on what digital agency work was like 20 years ago… 05:56 – …and what Gerent Experience does today with Salesforce products at the core 08:28 – Gordon Forsyth discusses how customer data now drives everything they do 12:25 – Gerent Experience’s unique selling proposition 16:53 – 3 case studies that illustrate Gerent Experience’s work for clients Episode Guests: ‍ Mike Simon Partner and Principal Consultant, Gerent Experience & DefinedLogic Mike Simon is a business and IT practice leader with over 35 years of experience in business and IT transformation, process excellence, managed business, and IT services. He previously served as the CIO of a global logistics firm and as the Global Solution Executive for IBM IT Outsourcing. In his current role as a partner and principal consultant, he strives to help clients realize the value of their digital investments through brand development, creative design, customer experience design, engineering, and analytics. Gordon Forsyth Senior Practice Lead, Gerent Experience With two and a half decades of experience in the digital marketing sector, Gordon is a seasoned marketing leader and strategist. In his current role as Senior Practice Lead, Gordon brings expertise in digital business strategy, product management, digital marketing, content management and analytics, with implementation experience across the Salesforce platform.

AOTC EP 39 - CPQ: Streamline the Process of Configuring, Pricing and Quoting

Sales teams have been churning out customer quotes for as long as there have been salespeople in the field. Before the advent of quoting software, prices and quotes were generated manually on spreadsheets. As virtually all companies across all industries have come to realize, spreadsheets are slow, cumbersome, and prone to human error. In fact, the more complex the quote, the more the odds rise of errors creeping in to disrupt the selling process. And if a customer wants a quote immediately, well, forget it, it’ll take a few days. In this episode of Ahead of the Curve, we’ll hear from Gerent solution architect Lisa French on why Salesforce CPQ has been an absolute game-changer for sales teams around the world, allowing instant, accurate, and even complex quotes in the field while the sales rep is across from the customer. Guest Bio Lisa French openly admits to being a geek. She “speaks” a number of different computer languages, programs with them fluently and is one of Gerent’s top solution architects. Lisa specializes in Pardot and CPQ and is Salesforce-certified on both. She has nearly 20 years’ experience with Salesforce technology and programming, all of which she brings to Gerent every day. Key Ideas 01:57 – Why CPQ is a game changer for sales teams 04:08 – How CPQ allows sales teams to create complex quotes and pricing engines 06:28 – What happens when you can integrate CPQ with an ERP 10:43 – CPQ comes in two versions: Industries CPQ and Salesforce CPQ 13:11 – Is CPQ a user-friendly solution? 14:54 – Two case studies that prove CPQ’s worth