“Cloud in India turned our risky legacy exit into a disciplined migration. We gained reliable data, standard processes, and dashboards leadership trusts.”
Case Study: Migration from a Bespoke CRM to a Salesforce Org
Engagement Lead: Priyanka Gawalier
CRM Migrations | Data & Integrations | Governance
“We de-risked the move off a brittle bespoke CRM with clean data, staged cutovers, and Salesforce guardrails that scale.”
1. Overview & Objectives
A diversified global B2B manufacturer had outgrown its home-built CRM. Custom code made changes slow and reporting unreliable; regional teams were running conflicting processes and spreadsheets. The company chose Salesforce to modernise revenue operations and standardise service. Objectives: (1) land a clean, governed Salesforce Org, (2) migrate high-quality historical data with traceability, (3) rationalise processes across regions without losing essential edge cases, and (4) enable trusted pipeline, service and install-base reporting.
2. Delivery Approach
We executed an “extract-map-migrate-measure” program in four waves to reduce risk and release value early:
Discover & Baseline: System inventory, data profiling, lineage, and contract discovery; workshops to harmonise processes and KPIs.
Blueprint: Target object model, record types, roles & sharing, Salesforce Shield encryption posture, and DevOps branching strategy.
Data Strategy: Master data standards, golden record rules, reference data library, and survivorship logic for deduplication.
Migration Factory: Repeatable ETL pipelines (staging → transform → validate → load), delta strategy, and rollback plan; synthetic data for performance tests.
Cutover Playbooks: Freeze windows, rehearsals, comms, and business verification scripts; reversible steps for “no surprises”.
Value Waves: Wave 1 (Core Sales), Wave 2 (Service & Entitlements), Wave 3 (Partner Portal), Wave 4 (Advanced Analytics & Forecasting).
Enablement & Sustain: Role-based training, admin runbooks, centre of excellence, and adoption telemetry.
Pillars: Clean Data, Standardised Processes, Secure Integrations, Measurable Outcomes.
Why it works: We didn’t “lift & shift.” We refactored the operating model—simpler objects, fewer custom fields, automated hand-offs, and dashboards people trust.
3. Solutions Implemented
1) Sales Cloud: Account hierarchies, territories, product & price book rationalisation, CPQ alignment-ready opportunity stages, and guided selling paths.
2) Service Cloud: Case taxonomy, entitlements & SLAs, knowledge base, queues & Omni-Channel routing, and escalation policies.
3) Experience Cloud: Partner portal for deal registration and service visibility; secure document exchange with audit history.
4) Data Migration (ETL): Staging DB, field-level mappings, survivorship rules, dedupe (Fuzzy & exact), and pre/post load validation reports.
5) Integrations (MuleSoft): API-led connectivity to ERP (orders, invoices), identity (SSO/SCIM), marketing automation, telemetry from devices, and cloud storage.
6) Security & Compliance: Shield Platform Encryption, Field Audit Trail, event monitoring; GDPR/CCPA consent model and retention schedules.
7) DevOps & Quality: DevOps Center + Git branching, unlocked packages, automated Apex tests, static code analysis, and scratch org CI.
8) Analytics: CRM Analytics (CRMA) for pipeline, case SLAs, install-base, and forecast accuracy; Tableau for executive scorecards.
9) Data Quality Ops: Scheduled duplicate jobs, validation rules, picklist governance, and proactive data health dashboards.
10) Adoption & Change: Role-based enablement, micro-learning, in-app guidance, feedback loops, and super-user councils.
4. Outcomes & Impact
• Time-to-quote: Reduced by 24–38% with streamlined opportunity paths and product catalog clean-up.
• First-response time: −30–45% for priority cases after Omni-Channel and entitlement policies.
• Forecast accuracy: Improved by 12–18 points via standard stages and CRMA governance.
• Data quality: 50%+ duplicate reduction; 98% picklist standardisation in 90 days.
• Change velocity: 40% faster safe deployments through DevOps Center and package-based releases.
• Risk reduction: Zero-critical findings in security audit; reversible cutover with verified rollback.
Next step for your business: Start with a 4–6 week migration blueprint—target object model, data quality baseline, integration map, and a rehearsed cutover plan. Then deliver in waves to de-risk and realise value early.