For many years, the end-to-end process of sales forecasting through revenue recognition has been managed under disparate tools. The ‘middle office’ processing methods create a blind spot for organizations and hinder the ability to provide real-time updates for revenue expectations to executive management.
With the recent Salesforce announcement of Salesforce Revenue Cloud, Salesforce plans to unite customer transactional data on a single platform with 360-degree customer visibility. Disjointed E2E processing of Quote-to-Cash, Contract Management, Digital Commerce, and Supplier Relationship Management could be a thing of the past.
With the acquisitions of Vlocity, Tableau, and Mulesoft, Salesforce is enabled to support real-time updates on competitive deal analytics and sales transactions (including channel management and pricing optimization) through revenue recognition via rich reporting and dashboards.
The automation of customer revenue cycles enables businesses to manage growth across channels, to better control customers’ experiences through a 360-degree view of the customer, and to manage the cost to acquire and maintain customers across channels. This requires a platform that spans from Sales & Marketing to Sales Operations (direct, channel, digital commerce) through finance and ultimately revenue reporting/recognition. As more customers start their journey via a digital platform and engage with a direct or channel partner for more complex offerings, businesses need a single platform that will enable and manage these interactions.
Before you can determine where you are going, you need to know where you are starting from. Many customers have started their journey with a different ERP tool or other quoting platform for products/services, but use Salesforce for CRM. Still others have decided to look to Salesforce CPQ for quoting. Likewise, large enterprises can be constrained by their highly customized ERP applications. Still, there is the need to move quickly to differentiate existing offerings to remain competitive, and in some cases seeking subscription models as a way to achieve predictable revenue growth, yet have systems designed for a single, non-recurring sale.
There are a number of factors for businesses to evaluate when measuring the complexity of the current state and how a move to Salesforce Revenue Cloud can enable the lead to revenue processes.
Will this new app fit with my current Quote-to-Cash ecosystem?
What do we centralize versus push closer to the customer?
What capabilities can be leveraged across the ecosystem and operating model? What must be discrete?
How much can we standardize tools across our operating model?
Are there complex billing and revenue solutions unique to our business that will require further investigation?
Can we integrate with our legacy ERP and order provisioning/fulfillment without heavy tech debt?
Will this support my existing digital commerce storefront and Salesforce Partner Communities? (e.g. Taxation (Avalara / OneSource), Digital Commerce payment sources, etc.)
Existing Billing applications and Legacy Data/Migration for billing schedules, invoicing, contracts and agreements
Are there penalties for not complying? How do we enforce outside our function?
Working with you to understand the answers to the above questions.
Reviewing the factors that can impact the cost and time to implement Revenue Cloud.
Providing advice before you sign that purchase order for additional Salesforce licenses to make sure there is a return on your investment.
Partnering with you to implement the components that will enable you to get better visibility and control, end-to-end.
Founded in 2018, Spaulding Ridge is a top management consulting firm dedicated to client success and helping organizations implement and adopt best-in-cloud technology to solve their most pressing challenges. Spaulding Ridge provides best in class Salesforce services for Sales/Service Cloud, Revenue Cloud, Pardot, Field Service Lightning, Communities, MuleSoft, Einstein, and Tableau thru the lens of the Office of the CFO.
For more information on our Salesforce Practice, visit https://www.spauldingridge.com/salesforce or contact us at [email protected].
