What are the benefits of a Salesforce integration?

In today’s technology-driven world, many organizations depend on at least one mission-critical system. For example, Salesforce, as a customer relationship management system (CRM), holds important data about your prospects and customers. Furthermore, it provides reports and dashboards to help you make smarter decisions. If that data disappeared tomorrow, it would be a nightmare that no organization wants to think about. Which is why you should consider a Salesforce integration.

Salesforce becomes even more essential because of its many tools and built-in integrations. For instance, marketing teams can use Salesforce Pardot and Marketing Cloud to manage marketing activities and achieve their goals more quickly. These tools work seamlessly with Salesforce from the get-go.

Even though Salesforce offers many tools and built-in integrations, organizations may depend on an app or system that isn’t native to Salesforce. Whatever that app may be, it’s possible to integrate it with Salesforce. That’s when the real magic happens.

For example, perhaps an organization uses an association management system (AMS) to grow and manage its membership and operations. The organization can also expand its tech capabilities with many third-party apps that are compatible with Salesforce or the AMS.

Then there are all those AppExchange apps. A Salesforce integration with another system allows the organization to benefit from AppExchange apps even when working from within the non-Salesforce system. Without integration, the non-Salesforce system can’t take advantage of the capabilities of an AppExchange app.

Benefits of salesforce integrations

More and more organizations are integrating Salesforce with their other systems to enhance productivity and boost results. For example, integrating Salesforce with QuickBooks allows both systems to share financial data, customer account information, customer sales, and sales opportunities.

Integrating Salesforce with other systems provides these benefits:

Offers all-in-one access. Employees won’t have to switch systems to get what they need. They can stay logged into one system to get everything done.

Increases productivity. Teams do a lot of cutting and pasting data to ensure it appears in all systems. However, manual tasks can lead to mistakes and turn into a time-waster. Integrated systems have automated checks and balances to ensure they have the same information. The time spent duplicating data will go away and employees can get more done.

Provides effortless access to data. System integration allows data to be accessed from all the integrated systems. The more data you have and can convert into meaningful information, the more information you have for making better decisions.

Enhances communication. One department may be more comfortable with Salesforce while another may prefer to work with a different system. Integrating the two systems allows each team to work in the system they prefer, which streamlines communications and leads to more information sharing.

Automates workflows without any code. Since integrated systems play nice together, their workflows can be automated with point-and-click.

Provides more insightful reporting. Employees get more detailed and relevant reports that will help them make better decisions and take the best actions.

Yields a quick return on investment. Combining systems makes it easier to write and modify code as well as isolate and remedy problems. This lowers implementation costs and increases flexibility.

Reduces operating costs. Operations costs also drop as processes become more streamlined, thereby freeing staff to get more things done where they’re needed most. Employees can also stop working in silos and spend more time focusing on customers and their core responsibilities.

Creates more access. After successfully integrating Salesforce with other systems and apps, employees will have more information at their fingertips. As a result, the organization will provide better customer service and support.

How to Integrate Salesforce

Few organizations have the internal resources to integrate their systems. Integrations are complex and require programming for each system. System integration projects are just that, projects. While complicated, the work is finite, and rarely is there enough ongoing work to invest in a full-time staff employee who specializes in integrating systems.

Many companies choose Salesforce integration partners to perform systems integrations. These partners have experience working with different Salesforce setups. They grasp what’s involved in a typical integration project because they know the business, mechanical, and process challenges that come up in such a project. They also have experience with project management for such an undertaking.

Experienced systems integrators know the risks and obstacles and how to work around them. They’ve worked on a variety of integration projects, so they always plan for the unexpected and create the most streamlined plan for the project.

Some systems come with integration capabilities. Others don’t. Salesforce developers have tools to make integrating Salesforce with third-party apps and systems seamless.

Every system has its strengths. You get the power of all when you unify systems to work as one. Done right, Salesforce integration saves time, increases productivity, and provides a lightning-quick ROI. Integrating Salesforce maximizes all of an organization’s systems and apps to get the best out of each one.

See why we’re a leading Salesforce partner.

About the author

Jack Pereira is a chief cloud consultant at Concentrix Catalyst. He has held various high-profile leadership roles and has a passion for making companies well-positioned for growth.