RSMUS.comOrg merges. Just the phrase can send shivers down the spine of even the most seasoned Salesforce admin. It’s a complex undertaking, often fraught with potential pitfalls. However, with careful planning and execution, you can successfully consolidate your Salesforce instances and enjoy the benefits of a unified platform. This post outlines key steps to navigate the process.
Particularly in the mid-market space, companies frequently acquire, merge and carve out divisions as part of a larger growth strategy. When companies conduct these corporate transactions, the work of merging or splitting entities across people, process and technology is fraught with complexity and risk. Combining two or more different sales and services processes and CRM applications is needed in order to realize the strategic and financial gains of merging. The integration of different application instances of Salesforce is often technically called an “org merge”.
Imagine you are a master puzzle solver, and there are two intricate puzzles in front of you. Each puzzle represents a Salesforce org, filled with unique pieces like data, processes, and customizations. An org merge is essentially combining these two puzzles into one seamless masterpiece. It’s a complex task where you must carefully assess, strategize, and align all the pieces to create a unified, efficient platform. With the right approach, you can turn the daunting challenge of merging Salesforce instances into a smooth and successful consolidation, unlocking new opportunities for streamlined operations and enhanced customer engagement.
Based on past experiences, we highlight a few key steps to consider:
1. Assess and Strategize: The Foundation of Success
Before diving in, thoroughly assess both orgs. Identify:
- Overlapping Functionality: Where do the orgs have similar processes, objects, or customizations? This is where conflicts and redundancies will likely arise. What can you get rid of and what can you merge together? This is your chance to clean up the orgs and make sure you are starting out with an optimized destination org.
- Data Migration Needs: What data needs to be migrated? How clean is this data? Consider implementing data quality initiatives before the merge. This will always be an ongoing process but establishing data quality standards will be the foundations of clean data for the future. Remember: garbage in, garbage out!
- User Impact: How will the merge affect users in both orgs? Plan for training and communication to minimize disruption. User adoption is critical to the success of merges so it’s important to plan for training and communicating with users.
- Technical Dependencies: Identify integrations, managed packages, and custom code. These can be significant roadblocks if they are not addressed properly. This is your chance to remove redundant integrations and streamline processes, ending up with an optimized pipeline that will be easier to maintain.
Develop a detailed project plan with clear timelines and responsibilities. This plan should also include rollback strategies – because sometimes, things go wrong.
2. Data Mapping and Cleansing: Taming the Data Beast
Data mapping is crucial. Determine how data from the source org will map to the target org. Will fields need to be renamed, transformed, or consolidated? Here, you’ll make decisions about data retention policies and handle duplicate records.
Be sure to cleanse your data before the merge. Duplicate records, inaccurate information, and outdated data will only compound issues during and after the merge. This could be as simple as accounts and contacts or can get more complicated with items such as product catalogs. This is your opportunity to cleanse these and start anew with one consolidated process. Invest in data cleansing tools and processes.
3. Environment Strategy: Setting the Stage for Success
A robust environment strategy is essential for a smooth org merge. This involves more than just having a sandbox. Consider the following:
- Full-Copy Sandbox: This is essential for mirroring your production environments. It’s where you’ll perform the initial merge testing and refine your approach. Refresh it regularly with production data to ensure accuracy.
- Staging Environment (Optional but Recommended): A separate staging environment, allows for more realistic testing, including user acceptance testing (UAT)and integration testing with other systems.
- Version Control: Implement version control for all code and configuration changes. This facilitates easy rollback and tracking of changes during the merge process.
Your environment strategy should clearly define the purpose of each environment, the data it will contain, and the processes it will support.
4. Communication is Key:
Keep stakeholders informed throughout the entire process. Clearly communicate timelines, potential disruptions, and any required actions from their end. Regular updates and open communication will build trust and minimize resistance. It is of upmost importance to communicate these processes, especially in org merges, because the impact of business processes from one division could drastically affect those in another, post-merge. We’ve encountered situations where the sales leadership never conferred with the provisioning team (as they were handled differently at the two merged companies) and made decisions without input. This led to a significant disconnect and caused rework that cost time and money because sellers weren’t sending the information needed downstream to the provisioning team.
5. Post-Merge Activities: The Home Stretch
After the merge, don’t just breathe a sigh of relief and walk away. You need to:
- Validate Data: Verify that all data has been migrated correctly and that relationships between records are intact.
- Test Functionality: Thoroughly test all key processes and customizations to ensure they function as expected in the merged org.
- Train Users: Provide training to users on any changes to processes or the user interface.
- Monitor Performance: Keep a close eye on performance after the merge, identifying and addressing any bottlenecks.
Org merges are complex, but they don’t have to be a nightmare. The steps outlined above are specifically for application change and how RSM has handled these types of projects in the past to great success. Should your merge need additional help in the areas of change management, oversight, project management, etc, RSM has teams that can help facilitate those aspects as well. The above is just a very high-level overview of what we find as a path to success specifically within the Salesforce space. Feel free to reach out to us at RSM if you have any questions – we hope to be a trusted partner in facilitating your org merge!
Kevin Ma
Kevin is a manager in the Salesforce practice and leads the Salesforce Core team. As a Salesforce and Enterprise Architect, Kevin has delivered many successful implementations with clients across diverse industries, from education to healthcare. Kevin's experience covers nearly the whole Salesforce suite and he strives to deliver to clients an efficient, integrated, and foundational CRM solution that continuously adapts to changing needs. Kevin is a leader in the RSM Salesforce practice and recently received the Rising Stars Award from ALM Consulting Magazine.
