How This Company is Building a Global Business Network With Salesforce and AppExchange Apps
By enabling companies to digitize trade and automate invoices, cloud-based business network Tradeshift helps countless transportation and logistics organizations adapt and connect in a digital world. A global network of 1.5 million buyers and sellers across over 160 countries currently uses the Tradeshift platform to access supply chain payments, B2B marketplaces, and apps.
For Tradeshift to manage the mass updates, reports and assessments, and global marketing required by a platform of its size and scale, the digitalization company leverages Salesforce and a number of apps available on AppExchange.
We caught up with Nadina D. Lisbon, Systems Capability and Salesforce Architect at Tradeshift and Salesforce MVP, to learn more about how Salesforce and AppExchange are enabling the company to help its customers grow.
Can you tell us about Tradeshift?
Nadina D. Lisbon: Tradeshift is a cloud-based network; buyers and sellers use our technology to execute supply chain payments. We’re in the B2B marketing space, but we also have our own marketplace for our different applications.
One of our main focuses as a company is in enabling digital invoicing for our customers. If you run a supplier business, for example, and you’re sending lots of paper invoices, we help you transform your invoicing process from paper to digital, then we make sure that all your invoices are connected to our platform so you can utilize our secure payment process. We make it easier to connect with different buyers as a supplier, and then to connect across the network to send out those invoices and get paid quickly.
Tell us about your role at the company and how you got started with Salesforce.
Nadina: I’ve worked at Tradeshift as a Systems Capability and Salesforce Architect for the past two years. Strategically, I think of my role encompassing three different scopes:
- I lead a team of global developers and Google admins. Additionally, I also lead a team of internal admins and have close connections with the business and product managers.
- I’m in charge of our integration, so anything coming into Salesforce is my responsibility.
- Finally, I manage the overall architecture of the system. Whenever we’re looking for something to add from a technology standpoint, like AppExchange apps to extend our Salesforce org, that falls under my wheelhouse as well.
My journey with Salesforce began during my master’s program when I did an internship for an Independent Software Vendor (ISV). The internship was a development role; I wrote a few triggers and kind of just catapulted there from junior dev to architect. I’ve never looked back!
What role has Salesforce and AppExchange played in Tradeshift’s success?
Nadina: Our CEO, Christian Lanng, loves Salesforce. That was the main reason why the company made the shift to get on to Salesforce around 2008.
When it comes to technology, it’s always been easier for us to go to AppExchange because we know all AppExchange apps have to go through the security review — that checks an important box for our security officer. From a functionality perspective, our Salesforce users need the ability to do mass updates on different objects. With AppExchange, we can quickly evaluate tools, install them, and let the users try them out without having to spend any development time. AppExchange apps have met approximately 80% of our use cases.
What AppExchange apps does Tradeshift leverage?
Nadina: Quite a few! I actually went to look them up because I didn’t realize we had so many. RingLead is essential for our data cleanup — it enables us to run field trip jobs and gain better insights into how we’re doing from a field usage standpoint. The app saves us hours and hours of time and definitely helps projects run smoother.
We use Permission Helper to help reduce our admins’ work. Between tickets and users constantly pinging admins, you still have to take care of the system. This is definitely a favorite app for our admin teams!
There are a number of other apps we leverage as well. We use Auto FX for currency, that’s a really big one. We use the Domo Connector Package as our business intelligence tool. We utilize the Highspot Sales Enablement package for our sales team. And then we have a few others that we’re using for opportunity management, like AppExchange Dashboard Pack for Sales, Marketing, and Service which gives us cleaner dashboards.
We use a project management tool called Klient to help with our own onboarding process. I think it’s safe to say we are big fans of AppExchange!
How does Salesforce and AppExchange fit into your vision of success for the future?
Nadina: Salesforce helps us understand our customers better, and that will always be critical. As we move forward with our different integrations to make sure we get that 360 view of the customer, we know AppExchange will always be right there, helping us leverage whatever technology that we need when it’s needed. When we need new technology, our first question is always, ‘does the AppExchange provide what we need?’
Again, we’re a very security-oriented company, so the AppExchange security review process can’t be overstated. With Salesforce and AppExchange technology, we know we can free up resources to do other strategic things. That will always be so valuable for us.
Do you have any words of advice for other businesses that may have a similar business model to Tradeshift?
Nadina: I would say always try and leverage Salesforce and AppExchange as much as you can! From a security perspective, the technology has already been vetted by Salesforce, and from a business use case perspective, it can meet almost all of your needs.
Let Salesforce and AppExchange make your job, and the job of your team members, easier.
Discover all the apps mentioned and more on AppExchange.
