Salesforce is one of the most common and strategic SaaS applications in enterprise SaaS technology stacks. With the breadth of Salesforce products offered today, it can be difficult to prepare for a complex Salesforce renewal.
Salesforce Renewal Tip #1: Review purchased versus provisioned licenses by type
Effective Salesforce license management creates the foundation for renewal preparation and ensures the organization purchases the appropriate amount of licenses in the future. A user license determines the baseline of features that the user can access. Understanding which of the user types are included in your contract, how many users of each were purchased and how many are provisioned is step one in Salesforce renewal preparation.
Salesforce Renewal Tip #2: Analyze Salesforce adoption metrics of each license by type
Going beyond the review of purchased licenses versus provisioned licenses, it’s possible to determine how well Salesforce end-user adoption is going in the organization by reviewing active utilization by user and license type. Using one SaaS system of record makes it easy to determine the value of Salesforce by pairing active utilization data with contract spend information.
Salesforce Renewal Tip #3: Collaborate with power users to forecast future needs
Working with the business to understand how the Salesforce application(s) is being used is critical to understanding the day to day business processes built around the technology. Insight into what each department is planning for the future in terms of new capabilities, functionality, or even team growth will be very impactful during Salesforce renewal planning.
Salesforce Renewal Tip #4: Survey your Salesforce users for application feedback
Measuring employee satisfaction of strategic cloud applications gives the organization a 360-degree view across cloud application spend, usage and user feedback. These data points in one SaaS system of record provide a layer of transparency that was not previously possible.
Preparing for a SaaS renewal with employee sentiment data is a strategic advantage to assess the full value each SaaS application provides the organization.
Salesforce Renewal Tip #5: Review complete Salesforce functionality
Using a SaaS management platform like Zylo enables users to identify redundant application spend and redundant application functionality. Salesforce is a great example of a SaaS application supplier that offers a wide breadth of capabilities and products. It is good to analyze if there are applications in your SaaS stack that are serving purposes that a Salesforce product could also serve.
Consolidation of SaaS suppliers and negotiating a larger contract with strategic suppliers can produce dramatic cost savings.
Through its integration with Salesforce, the Zylo SaaS management platform pulls user and licensing information directly from a customer’s existing Salesforce instances. This gives a consolidated view of the entire relationship with Salesforce across the business, including insight into all applications, licenses, payments, utilization, employee sentiment, contacts and documents related to an existing Salesforce relationship.
Teams are using the additional visibility to increase adoption, re-provision users as needed and gain a deeper understanding of what apps users are actively engaging within the application.
Proactively Manage Your Salesforce Renewal
Proactive SaaS renewal management is important for all applications, but especially for a robust enterprise solution like Salesforce. We recommend planning at least 90 days before your renewal — or even further out. To make sure you don’t miss a step in the renewal process, grab a copy of our Renewals Checklist.
