From managing customer relationships to compiling financial reports, the uses for Salesforce have grown to impact the entire enterprise. A major driver of that evolving utility is the Salesforce AppExchange. Users can choose from thousands of apps that expand their Salesforce capabilities, automate manual processes, and maintain the cleanliness of their database.
What (and Who) You Can Find in the AppExchange
The types of apps offered in the AppExchange are wide-ranging. They can cover simple tasks, like document signing, or automate complex tasks, like reporting. You can also find consulting partners who can help with building, configuring, and optimizing your Salesforce environment. While Salesforce Labs creates a fraction of the apps, most are made by non-Salesforce developers and independent software vendors (ISVs).
ISVs that sell their software services in the AppExchange are part of the Salesforce AppExchange Partner Program. To become a Salesforce ISV, companies must undergo a rigorous evaluation process to ensure they meet high standards for quality and security. Areas of specialty for Salesforce ISVs run the gamut. It should come as no surprise that the most common focus area is Sales, followed by IT & Administration, Human Resources, and Analytics, according to a report by MagicFuse.
A Closer Look at Salesforce Integrations
While the AppExchange offers a massive amount of tools that extend the capabilities of Salesforce, it can also add to an already unwieldy tech stack. On average, companies use more than 650 SaaS platforms. Integration is critical to streamlining workflows and preventing errors as data flows between systems. And that integration extends beyond the apps available on the AppExchange – if any of your systems rely on Salesforce to retrieve data (such as financials) or trigger actions (such as restocking inventory), they need to integrate with Salesforce.
Why RevOps Teams Need Salesforce Integrations
RevOps teams manage the operations of go-to-market (GTM) departments (typically sales, marketing, and customer success). Salesforce integrations help RevOps teams improve the processes, data quality, and overall collaboration among the functions they work with.
Traditionally, there has been friction between GTM teams, often unintended. Although their ultimate goal is to drive revenue, each group may have its own objectives and KPIs to track, which can sometimes conflict with one another. Since many team members are laser-focused on their individual tasks, it can be easy for them to overlook how their decisions impact others across the organization. Because of this, 40% of companies say there’s a disconnect between GTM teams.
RevOps teams close the silos between these groups by identifying gaps and redundancies and creating strategies to reduce them. Salesforce integrations are an important part of bridging those silos since they improve collaboration and data sharing between GTM teams. And they provide everyone with better visibility into the activities of their counterparts.
Here are some of the top Salesforce integrations for revenue-generating teams.
- Chatbots are everywhere these days, and integrating them with Salesforce enables you to maximize their use. If a new lead comes in via a popular chatbot tool like Drift or Qualified, integrations allow you to create a new lead in Salesforce automatically.
- Sales engagement platforms like Salesloft and Outreach centralize sales teams’ interactions with leads and prospects into a single platform. These tools build upon the native functions of Salesforce, so integration is a no-brainer.
- Revenue forecasting apps take the guesswork out of pipeline management by gathering data from Salesforce, emails, call logs, and more. Instead of compiling reports from Salesforce, teams can rely on tools like Clari or Gong to mine the right data and provide clarity on the team’s revenue.
- Marketing automation tools like Marketo and Pardot can connect with Salesforce to send and retrieve lead data, score leads, and improve the handoff between sales and marketing.
The Challenges Posed by Integrations, and Why Change Intelligence Is the Solution
Putting all of these tools and integrations to work will help improve workflows and collaboration between teams. But it also creates a major hurdle for RevOps teams. Every time you make a change, you risk breaking an automation or losing important data. Even if you built your company’s tech stack from the ground up, it’s hard to fully understand how each system is connected and the impacts your change will make.
That’s why Change Intelligence is so important. A Change Intelligence tool like Sonar enables you to see how your various systems using Salesforce are interconnected. Whether you’re incorporating a new tool from the Salesforce AppExchange or simply editing a picklist, it can impact your other systems and the quality of your data. At best, that can cause frustrations for GTM teams. At worst, it can cause the company to lose revenue. With Sonar, you can see the impacts of a change before you make it. Instead of going into new changes blind, Sonar alerts you to potential errors before a change is made.
Sonar also allows you to look back at previous changes that were made. As part of an effective change management program, it’s important to document modifications made to your Salesforce instance (and any integrated tools). With a Change Intelligence solution, this process is automatic. Not only does this save RevOps teams time, it also makes it easier for new members to get up to speed on the team’s recent activities.
While Salesforce and the many apps available on the AppExchange empower revenue-generating teams to perform more effectively, they also pose challenges. To truly maximize Salesforce and integrated apps and prevent unwanted surprises, implement a Change Intelligence solution to round out your tech stack. As your tech stack grows and evolves, your Change Intelligence platform will ease the process of onboarding new tools so GTM teams can start using apps quickly without encountering surprises or hiccups.