Four Factors to Consider for a Successful Salesforce Org Strategy

Defining your Salesforce org strategy is one of the most foundational and architecturally significant decisions you will make during a Salesforce project. But what does org strategy really mean?

Said simply, your org strategy determines whether you will use a single org or multiple orgs for your company. Choosing an org strategy requires aligning your approach for reliably and sustainably using Salesforce technology, while factoring in business, technology, governance, and operational considerations. It involves multiple points of view, guidelines, and principles.

The org strategy decision will lay the foundation for Salesforce implementation and impact all future Salesforce initiatives and designs. This decision will have implications on staffing, governance requirements, budget, and overall functionality. Plus, this is a decision that can only be changed at a significant cost, once implementation is underway.

Establishing an org strategy is not a trivial effort. Many times there are conflicting requirements that leave customers unclear about the best org strategy for their business. So, how do you balance all of these requirements to make the right decision? Read on to learn how you can think holistically and plan ahead to choose the right strategy for your business.

The four dimensions of a holistic approach to org strategy

When working on an org strategy, a common error is focusing exclusively on the technology when in fact a comprehensive approach is needed. Org strategies are inherently holistic; they encompass the four distinct dimensions of business, technology, culture/governance, and operations. Without further ado, here are the four factors to consider for a successful Salesforce org strategy:

1. Business — Look at how business units are structured, how they go to market, and their important customer engagement processes. Factors to evaluate within this dimension include:

• Business strategy — Prioritize speed of innovation versus managing common business processes in a common org.
• Business units and locations — Decide whether to handle complexity within an ever-expanding single org or within multiple new orgs.
• Operation model — Determine if the best approach to ensure standard business processes and consistency in shared data is with a single org or multiple orgs.

2. Technology — Focus on reviewing the requirements of data strategies, security, application architecture, and back-end systems integration. Factors to evaluate within this dimension include:

• Application architecture — Assess the cost-effectiveness of implementing standards in a single- or multiple-org environment.
• Functionality — Take into account the complexity of managing standard requirements within a single org versus within multiple orgs.
• Data strategies — Understand the governance framework to ensure a common data model across business units, in a single org or with several orgs.
• Salesforce limitations — Analyze whether higher data volumes risk impacting performance in a single-org environment, and how to address this.

3. Governance and culture — Understand the culture of all the business units and how they interact with each other. Factors to evaluate within this dimension include:

• Sponsorship, ownership, budgets — Ensure the majority of the organization buys into a single-org strategy before implementing it. Also ensure that there is enterprise architecture oversight.
• Business and IT governance — Balance the need for strong controls over multiple project teams in a single org versus individual controls on each org, which can be numerous.
• Appetite and readiness for change — Assess which option would be best considering your company’s maturity and readiness in handling change management.

4. Operations — Consider how solutions are supported and developed either within a single org or within each org you have. Factors to evaluate within this dimension include:

• Design and delivery approach — Take into consideration the need for fast deployment of shared functionality in a single org versus the need for reuse of functionality from one org to another in a multi-org context.
• Deployment and end-user support — Choose between multilevel support in a single org via an integrated, single service desk and having dedicated support teams per org.
• DevOps lifecycle — Determine if you should a have dedicated release management process per org or a centralized process across multiple orgs.

At the end of the day, there is no one-size-fits-all answer in defining your org strategy. Making the best decision is truly a balancing act among the four dimensions.

Where do we go from here?

For practical examples and a deeper understanding of the balanced approach we follow at Salesforce for org strategy, we strongly recommend the course Manage Your Salesforce Org Strategy on Partner Learning Camp. (This resource is accessible only by registered Salesforce partners.)

After taking this course you will be better able to:

• Explain the value of having a defined org strategy
• Differentiate between different org architectures
• Identify the building blocks, methodology, and considerations of a holistic org strategy
• Create a holistic approach to org strategy through discovery, assessment, and recommendations across business, technology, governance, and operations dimensions.

You can also find a number of resources on the Architect Digital Home, including the SOGAF Operating Model, that will help you balance the tradeoffs that go into org strategy decisions.

About the Authors

Divya Alavarthi is a Program Lead of the Salesforce Enterprise Architect Program at Salesforce. She is part of the Architect Success team, which engages with the diverse and growing Salesforce Architect community across Partnerforce, employees, and customers via use-case-driven and project-ready enablement content. You can connect with Divya Alavarthi on LinkedIn

Martin Griffiths is a Digital Transformation Consultant by profession; Salesforce Business Architect and Global Program Manager by day; author of SOGAF, a “Salesforce Operating, Governance, and Architecture Framework” by night; and mentor of numerous colleagues by passion. He is Anglo-French by birth and polyglot by necessity. You can connect with Martin Griffiths on LinkedIn.

Pierre Couppey has been delivering digital transformation programs with customers across the world for 15 years, half of these on the Salesforce Platform. He is currently Business Architect Director at Salesforce in Paris. His passion is working hand-in-hand with companies and non-profits to successfully adopt, use, and secure long-term value from the platform and improve peoples’ lives in doing so. You can connect with Pierre Couppey on LinkedIn