Excerpt
“Apps enhance Salesforce® efficiency, but without careful selection, they can increase complexity, costs, and misalignment with business goals and ROI”.
How Did You Get Here? Apps and Integrations
Are Your Salesforce® Apps Helping or Hurting Your Business?
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Apps built to support Salesforce® can help drive business forward—boosting sales, improving marketing, and enhancing customer service. But at what point do helpful tools become roadblocks, slowing productivity, complicating systems, and adding unnecessary costs? And how are these apps selected in the first place, and by whom?
Salesforce® reports that over 90% of organizations using the platform have installed at least one app. Most of these apps focus on sales, helping businesses grow revenue and scale quickly. After sales, many organizations move to marketing automation tools to better connect with customers using richer data.
This trend underlines a key point: apps must align with your business goals. If not chosen wisely, they can hinder performance instead of improving it.
We could rattle off stats about the types of apps available—native vs. third-party, sales vs. service—but instead, let’s shift the conversation. Our goal is always to get you to think more critically about how technology fits into your operations and drives results.
Time to Take a Closer Look?
Think about your current system setup. With all your apps in place:
- Are they solving the original problems you set out to fix?
- Are they delivering the ROI you expected?
If your answer is, “I’m not sure,” then it might be time to introduce a more structured approach. Define what results you’re aiming for, and make sure you have a way to measure them.
In our work with both large enterprises and small businesses, we’ve seen one consistent truth: when a clear vetting process exists, typically driven by a committee or governance group, app decisions are smarter, and outcomes are better. But smaller organizations often lack this structure, leading to wasted money, lost time, and poor adoption.
When no formal process exists, we often step in to play that role. We encourage clients to ask key questions before committing to a new app or integration:
- What problem are you trying to solve?
- How did you find this app?
- Was it vetted by all key stakeholders—or just the most vocal one?
Too often, decisions are driven by whoever pushes hardest, not by what’s best for the business. That’s risky. Apps require time and money to implement and the cost of reversing a poor choice can be even higher.
Ask yourself:
- What ROI do you expect from this app?
- How will you measure it?
- Does the app align with your current systems, and future plans?
Apps should be selected based on clear, documented needs, not wants. If you can’t answer these questions confidently, or don’t have a process in place, it might explain why things feel off.
We’re here to help. Whether you’re unsure about your current tools or just want a second opinion, let’s talk through it together.
We love helping businesses reach their objectives!