Achieve more success more quickly with a Salesforce Architect

What makes this critical role so important?

Rohit Romley, Salesforce expert at XCentium, shares his perspective on the critically important nature of leveraging a Salesforce Architect for new or evolving instances of the platform.

Almost all organizations realize success in the era of accelerating change depends on digital transformation. Most also understand transformation will require them to build or buy new technology. However, many still do not recognize the roles and processes necessary to adopt and manage their technology investments over the long haul. And when it comes to success with Salesforce, a Salesforce Architect is a critically important role.

While a Salesforce Architect can be a challenging full-time, in-house hire for many organizations, outsourcing is an option (and a service XCentium provides). This post will explore why the role is so essential and unpack the critical attributes of the job.

Why is a Salesforce Architect so important?

A Salesforce Architect is a platform expert who also explicitly understands their clients' unique needs and customers. They provide strategic value by setting measurable goals, creating a roadmap to the ideal state, and then tracking and reporting progress. The most experienced know how to frame progress reports for various stakeholders in an outcome-based format that is easily digestible and meaningfully demonstrates ROI.

A Salesforce Architect helps their clients realize all platform benefits and how to maximize its capabilities by:
Evangelizing the use of Salesforce Platform to support change management communications.
Tracking enterprise adoption in terms of headcount and feature penetration.
Staying on top of the latest and upcoming changes to the platform and considering how they impact each client's unique situation.
Creating the most efficient processes and workflows while communicating them effectively with custom training.
Tracking the latest product roadmap changes while helping each client plan and prepare for how upcoming change will impact them.
Building prototypes for advanced features or product enhancements as needed.
Acting as a strategic advisor to the company.

Additionally, the Salesforce Architect fills a variety of roles at different stages of a typical design, define, and deploy initiative. Here are a few examples.

Business Analysis

A qualified Salesforce Architect will gather requirements and specify a solution based on their client's unique business needs. Then, the business architect selects the correct Salesforce products, defines necessary customizations, and determines how Salesforce will integrate with other technology in the client's ecosystem.

Program Development

The Salesforce Architect is uniquely qualified to specify a program to guide the development and ongoing management of Salesforce. They know the platform in-depth and have expert knowledge in designing the systems necessary to succeed.

Design specification

Once Salesforce is implemented per the client's needs, it requires personalization based on the employer, customer, or partner's use. To help achieve this, a Salesforce Architect will leverage information on how users, customers, and partners, use Salesforce and then changes over time.

Implementation oversight

During the implementation of a new or changing salesforce instance, the Salesforce Architect provides app-focused guidance to the development team and client while navigating complex technical conversations with in-house and third-party technology integration partners.

Pick the right Salesforce Architect for the job.

There are also Salesforce Architects who may specialize in a variety of different business scenarios. Specialization is another reason it can be beneficial to hire a partner like XCentium because we have experienced many different scenarios over the years. Let's look at some of the most common specializations we have provided for our clients.

Technical architects

Extremely helpful in smaller organizations, technical architects are strategic advisors with hands-on expertise with every Salesforce product. They can write code that solves complex business challenges independently while fulfilling all the previous roles.

Digital commerce specialists

A Salesforce Architect that excels in B2C digital commerce has unique expertise with the challenges associated with selling online. They understand product merchandising, experience design, and digital commerce systems integration.

Order management specialists

Often also digital commerce experts, these specialized resources have deep experience in order allocation, payment, returns, and other functions specific to OMS. They are also experts with Salesforce Lightning OMS.

Solution architects

These senior experts also have a long track record of success defining, designing, and implementing full-stack solutions that rely on multiple platforms to deliver a world-class digital customer experience. With this knowledge and experience, they drive successful outcomes by advising their clients and leading the design, implementation, and coordination of multi-cloud deployments.

Achieve more with a Salesforce Architect.

A qualified and certified Salesforce architect can be difficult to hire in-house for a variety of reasons. They possess unique expertise and knowledge spanning digital commerce, web content management, CRM, marketing automation, and full-stack development. They are seasoned consulting professionals with excellent interpersonal skills, sharp business sense, problem-solving skills, and leadership abilities. It's easy to understand why a Salesforce Architect is an intelligent business investment for any organization that wants to accelerate the adoption of Salesforce, achieve full use of its capabilities, and recognize a return on investment while driving their business to new heights.

If you've got questions about adding a Salesforce Architect to your team, we'd love to connect. Please contact us for a no-cost, no-commitment consultation, and a member of our Salesforce team will contact you shortly.