18 Reasons why the Salesforce Project Fails?

Salesforce has grown in the last 2 decades massively. It has given the business one of the state of its art CRM tool which has changed the way of doing business.

Across the planet, industries, companies, and individuals are using & recommending Salesforce. Salesforce is leading the charts in Gartner Magic Quadrant for the last 5 years continuously.

Did you realize that as many as 70% of CRM projects end in failure? If you’re intending to use a CRM solution like Salesforce for the first time, this could sound disheartening. The good news about failure is that we can grow from it. I’m about to discuss the main causes of implementation failure and how to steer clear of each one.

This post doesn’t intend to depress or discourage you; rather, it focuses on disaster risk reduction and how to reduce it. According to the risk factor’s severity, I have divided my groupings into three parts — High, Medium, and Low.

HIGH-RISK FACTORS

1. Identification of the right partner for implementation.

This is the most critical part while working with any partner. If you don’t pick the correct partner for your project, this is the most important risk factor and can throw your entire project off track.

You should do the following things must be considered when choosing a partner:

a. The partner’s skill set, to start. whether the potential partner has the abilities needed for your project.
b. Does he have a capable team that can work diligently on your project?
c. The partner’s prior experience in the same sector.
d. Do not be afraid to request any references.
e. Make sure Salesforce has verified the partner.
f. Make sure your partner won’t employ any subcontractors from the third party on your project.
g. Make sure to prepare a solid legal contract before transferring the agreement.

2. Lack of Executive Commitment.

This is another crucial element that I have observed leading to project failure.

What you should do — You must make sure that as soon as your partner is identified, you start working on RACI. RACI is an acronym for critical project duties: responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. These are defined as follows: Responsible. People assigned an “R” on a project must ensure they complete the task or get help completing it if they need it.

Additionally, make sure that once-month Steercom meetings are held during the project’s execution so that all participants — partners, the implementation team, project sponsors, and other important stakeholders — can receive updates. The following general topics should be covered during this meeting:
a. Current Project Status
b. Plan for Upcoming week
c. Key Risk
d. Mitigation Plan for Risk
e. Potential impact on cost
f. Project Plan

3. Project Scoping

Project scoping is important from the client’s and the implementation partner’s perspectives. I frequently see requirements being given in vague terms or details being withheld from the implementation partner, which may cause issues later. The business team needs to ensure that they give proper requirements not the statements like —

a. We need the complete ERP to be integrated with CRM. In this case, the Partner must capture what are the processes, transformations, and endpoints that need to be covered.
b. Any custom process must be explained in a detailed way. Partner teams must ensure that they should capture the details properly. Proper User Story must be captured and followed up by client acceptance.

Please take a minute to review my other post — How to write a User Story in detail: https://medium.com/doctorsalesforce/how-to-write-a-user-story-in-detail-4a6c8fb08a6d

The medium and Low Factors are very self-explanatory, so I won’t go into detail about them; I will just point them out. But if you feel the need to know more, please let me know.

MEDIUM RISK FACTORS

1. Lack of a coherent CRM strategy
2. Not choosing the right Salesforce edition
3. Trying to achieve everything in one shot
4. Not investing time in user training.
5. Technical Reasons -
   a. Poor data quality
   b. Lack of alignment with the existing IT architecture
   c. Bad Architecture
   d. No Automation
   e. Not covering reporting requirements properly

LOW-RISK FACTORS

1. Lack of focus on the core users & primary requirements
2. Absence of a full-time Salesforce administrator
3. Employees Don’t See the Value
4. Poor Communication
5. Limited Investment on Tools.

In case you think I missed out anything or you need more details do let me know. Drop me an email at sumit@matteys.com if you wanted to discuss one to one. I would be more than happy to cover in depth.