Salesforce Platform Rationalization, Expansion & Support
May 2016
Alert Logic has more than a decade of experience pioneering and refining cloud solutions that are secure, flexible and designed to work with hosting and cloud service providers. As one of the nation’s leading cloud security providers, they have the tools and experience that set them apart from other cloud security companies.
Challenge
As a high-growth, fast-paced SaaS provider was leveraging an 8-year-old Salesforce org originally implemented in 2005. Over the better part of a decade, the SaaS provider expanded the use of the platform beyond Sales and Marketing to provide a holistic solution for service operation, provisioning, customer support, and finance. In unison, the Salesforce platform, AppExchange applications, and integration with proprietary systems, resulted in an ecosystem that became core to the company.
As the Salesforce ecosystem evolved, it was adapted to meet the demands of the business among regular rounds of reorganization, changing initiatives and needed to take the next step up the capability maturity ladder. The in-house support team was hindered by limited specific skills, limited budget, aggressive timelines, and system complexity. In addition to day-to-day continued support, a system rationalization was required to ensure the continuing sustainability of the platform.
Solution
Through a detailed discovery and system health assessment, Ventas Consulting worked with the SaaS provider to develop a plan to rationalize, expand, and support the platform.
Some of the planned objectives are as follows:
- An inventory and evaluation in the usage and interdependencies of custom objects and installed packages
- Code coverage optimization project
- Sandbox environment review and refresh
- Implementation of a cloud-based, subscription-based finance billing system
- Implementation of an on-line ordering application
- Customer portal enhancements
- force.com platform administration and development (Tier 1-3)
- Transition planning and training of in-house resources
Results
The results of the Ventas Consulting engagement has produced a measurable improvement in system stability through the increase of code coverage, supportability and a manageable environment. The Ventas Consulting engagement has also allowed Alert Logic to hire and train in-house resources at a reasonable pace without slowing down. What was initially a six-month engagement has turned into a long-term value added partner relationship.