Why Organizations Should Outsource Salesforce Administration

Based on Zippia.com, there are over 5,000 Salesforce admins employed in the USA alone. And considering the growing popularity of Salesforce over the last few years, the demand for in-house (also known as insourced) and outsourced Salesforce administrators is only going to increase.

If you are balancing between hiring and outsourcing CRM system administration, compare the pros and cons of both options to make an informed decision.

What is Salesforce Administration Outsourcing?

 

Salesforce outsourcing is the use of external service providers to deliver various services like CRM implementation, configuration, or AppExchange app development.

Salesforce outsourcing helps organizations:

• Reduce costs,
• Save employees time,
• Speed up time to market,
• Take advantage of external expertise.

Why Companies Outsource Salesforce Administration

 

There are numerous reasons why companies choose to outsource Salesforce administration.

And here are common benefits of outsourcing Salesforce administration projects:

 

1. Service Cost Compression

 

Based on the data found on Upwork and PeoplePerHour, Salesforce contractor rates range from $30 – $250/ hr depending on the subcontractor’s:

• Technical skill set,
• Industry expertise
• Level of seniority,
• Location.

That is much lower than an average salary of an in-house administrator in the USA, which ranges from $60,000 to $90,000, according to Glassdoor.

Add to this the time you need to spend on hiring a new employee. Based on Glassdoor’s study, it may take from 24 days to 6 months to hire a new employee. And another 6 months for him/her to become competent in their role. Besides that, you need to pay:

• Recruitment agencies’ fees,
• Payroll costs and taxes,
• Onboarding and supervising costs,
• Social benefits and bonuses,
• Expenses on office space and equipment.

But, if you engage with external service providers, you purchase their time at a fixed hourly/monthly rate set by the agreed contract.

So, you will have more control over operating costs. As a result, you’ll end up spending 1.25–1.4 times the base compensation for a Salesforce administrator.

As a seasoned CRM consulting company with 15 years of IT outsourcing experience, we can offer flexible pricing options for our services by mixing our Onsite/Offsite teams.

 

2. Free Time and Resources

 

Outsourced Salesforce administration helps you forget about:

• Spending time on creating training plans for your teams,
• Researching current Salesforce updates,
• Thinking out the further Salesforce career path of your employees.

An outsourced team can scale your Salesforce instance easier and faster. So, you can develop other branches of your business and invest your time in more important business tasks.

 

3. Access to Extensive Salesforce Expertise

 

The main advantage of Salesforce outsourcing companies is that with outsourced admins, you gain knowledge of a full team of experts as a part of one agency compared to hiring in-house experts or freelance contractors.

You’ll be able to cover a wide range of skills you would not really find in a single person.

Salesforce outsourcing companies like Ascendix have a vast pool of top talents like:

• Salesforce admins,
• CRM consultants,
• Software developers,
• Project managers (PMs),
• Solution architects (SAs),
• Business analysts (BAs),
• Quality assurance (QAs) experts.

 

4. Lots of Training Materials and Guides

 

Since Salesforce consulting partners have dealt with diverse cases, they already have sets of ready-to-use:

• Documents,
• Guides,
• Tutorials,
• Best practices.

So, you don’t have to re-invent the wheel and can shorten your way to the go-live stage.

 

5. Unbiased Opinion and Advice

 

The great benefit of outsourced Salesforce administrators is that they can look at your CRM optimization, irrespective of any internal policies. They can provide:

• An analysis of all the internal workflows and business goals
• Validate the work of previous outsourced or in-house experts for quality or maintainability
• Suggest necessary optimizations or technology solutions.

 

6. No Risks of Employee Turnover

 

There is always a possibility that after investing time and money into hiring your in-house specialist, he/she will decide to choose another career opportunity.

Outsourced Salesforce agencies can offer a quick substitution of the admin without the risk of affecting the ongoing processes and set timeframes.

Salesforce outsourcing implies juggling many clients’ projects at a time. It encourages companies to develop the best project management practices for delivering agile personalized approaches without losing the quality of the provided services.

 

7. In-Time Salesforce Support and Maintenance

 

Another important benefit of outsourced Salesforce administrators is that they will configure your CRM exactly when needed without constraining your business with unnecessary downtimes.

You can get Salesforce support as soon as you need it on all the stages of the implementation.

Moreover, you don’t have to think out the tasks for your in-house specialist to justify his/her salary and keep him/her busy.

How to Select Salesforce Outsourcing Companies

 

1. Set Project Goals

 

Start with identifying business goals and analyzing customer needs. Organize requirements workshops and prioritize system requirements for:

• Functionality,
• Data,
• UI

Then document all of them and establish CRM objectives and KPIs.

 

2. Estimate Budget and Time

 

The number of Salesforce administrators you should have depends on the size of your organization. For every 50 Salesforce licenses, you’ll need one full-time (40 hours/week) internal or external Salesforce admin and at least one admin per business unit.

A more precise number of Salesforce administration resources per organization can be found in the table below:

 

However, every project is unique. So, you should consider many other factors like the amount of data to import and required configurations to estimate a timeframe and budget to complete the project.

 

3. Check Company Competency and Customer Satisfaction Rate

 

Before you choose a Salesforce outsourcing company, pay attention to its:

• Customer base,
• Scope of competency,
• Company rating,
• Number of completed projects
• Company portfolios, case studies, interviews,
• Customer reviews on independent websites like themanifest.com, Clutch.co, and AppExchange.

We are always transparent and fair with our clients. And it is reflected in our customers’ testimonials not only on our website but also on review platforms like Clutch. co and AppExchange.

 

4. Guarantee a High Level of Technical Skills

 

Check technical skills, certifications, and experience with various Salesforce Clouds.
Also, verify the scope of Salesforce admin’s technical skills and experience in case studies. It will show that this admin is not only an expert in theory but in practice as well.

 

5. Verify Industry and Solution Expertise

 

A Salesforce administrator can be a great technology expert but can have a zero understanding of your industry needs and challenges. Especially if it is a super-specific niche like commercial real estate or capital markets.

That’s why it’s better to look for Salesforce experts who have long-term proven expertise.

We have been operating in the commercial real estate and real estate industry for more than 17 years.

We not only have experience in the administration of Salesforce solutions but also in managing Salesforce-based CRM tools created specifically for CRE brokers.

 

6. Check Geographical Presence

 

The location of your outsourced Salesforce admin comes into play when you decide what type of business engagement you prefer to:

• Have a local Salesforce administrator,
• Hire an offshore specialist,
• Use the services of a consulting company with a global delivery capacity.

Our teams located in Europe and the US guarantee a culture and language fit for companies in any location.

 

7. Confirm Training Capability

 

If you want to ensure that all your users use Salesforce, you need to train and support them through the whole adoption journey.

This may require external help from the administrator in the creation of:

• Educational videos,
• Guides,
• Sandbox versions,
• Workshops and user training,
• After-training support.

Our team strives for successful Salesforce adoption in your organization as much as you do. So, we’ll ensure that all your team members can freely use Salesforce.

Our Salesforce admins not only create educational videos for our clients but also write expert articles on specific topics (all these Salesforce-related educational resources can be found on our blog).

Top 5 Salesforce Outsourcing Companies

 

 

1. Ascendix Technologies

 

Average Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 (Based on Clutch.co & AppExchange reviews)

Foundation Year: 1996

Location: Dallas, TX

Number of Employees: 200 +

Clients: JLL, Colliers International, CRESA, Savills Ireland, SLG, Source Minerals, Stiles, SAB Capital, Calson Properties, Hanna Commercial, etc.

Ascendix Technologies is a CRM consulting and custom software development company originating from Dallas, Texas with offshore offices in Europe.

What made Ascendix appear among top Salesforce outsourcing companies, is the versatility of CRM consulting services like:

• Salesforce implementation of Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Experience (Communities) Cloud, CPQ Cloud, and Pardot.
• CRM configuration & customization,
• Salesforce administration & support,
• CRM concierge services,
• AppExchange app development,
• Lightning Component development.

Besides that, Ascendix provides custom software and CRM development services.

Also, we have built our own real-estate specific software:

• AscendixRE (a commercial real estate CRM on top of Salesforce),
• Ascendix Search  (an advanced Salesforce search tool),
• Composer  (a point-and-click report generation tool),
• MarketSpace (a secure collaboration portal for brokers).

Ascendix’s expertise lies in the following domains:

• Commercial Real Estate,
• Financial Services,
• Legal Services,
• Insurance,
• Capital Markets,
• Commercial and Residential Mortgage Banking,
• Investment Sales,
• Energy & Utilities,
• Transport & Logistics.

What customers like about Ascendix Technologies:

• In-depth commercial real estate and legal services expertise,
• Extensive CRM knowledge,
• Open and honest communication,
• Willingness to go the extra mile in providing services,
• Constant improvement of their product
• Support current customers rather than just selling and marketing.

 

2. Itransition

 

Average Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.9 (Based on Clutch.co & AppExchange reviews)

Foundation Year: 1998

Location: Denver, CO

Number of Employees: 3, 000 +

Clients: Expedia, Xerox, Toyota, eBay, PayPal, Adidas, Shell, BP, Statoil, KPMG, Acronis, IBM, Citibank, Telekom Austria Group, Kaspersky Lab etc.

Founded in 1998 in Denver, CO, Itransition is among the top Salesforce outsourcing companies with offices in Austin, TX, the UK, and Belarus. They deliver a broad spectrum of IT consulting and development services like:

• Salesforce consulting,
• CRM health check, customization & integration consulting,
• User adoption and support,
• UX design,
• Software engineering,
• Operations support,
• Quality assurance.

Also, Itransition offers platform-based development services.

Itransition helps businesses in these verticals:

• Healthcare,
• Retail & Wholesale,
• Software & Hi-tech,
• Automotive,
• Telecommunications,
• Finance.

What clients like about this Salesforce outsourcing company:

• Ability and willingness to provide valuable feedback and ideas,
• Understanding of not-so-simple projects,
• Efficiency in the estimation of the project timeframe,
• Speed of their response.

 

3. Tkxel

 

Average Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.9 (Based on Clutch.co & AppExchange reviews)

Foundation Year: 2008

Location: Reston, VA

Number of Employees: 250+

Clients: Barclays, ABB, Groupon, TELUS, Family Dollar, Honeywell, Telenor, Knowles, Reidmark, Propelics, Vistaprint, F4S, Replenium, CafeZupas, SKGF, WuxiNext Code, Lumatax etc.

Tkxel is another Salesforce outsourcing company based in the US, the UK, Pakistan, The UAE, and Poland.

It offers:

• Salesforce consulting services,
• CRM implementation,
• App and web development services,
• Force.com development of digital communities,
• UX design,
• Dedicated teams staffing,
• QA&Testing.

Tkxel has cooperated with companies in over 30 industries like Financial Services, Telecommunications, Retail etc.

What customers like about this agency:

• Professional competence,
• Effective communication,
• Technical prowess.

 

4. Avenga

 

Average Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.8 (Based on Clutch.co & AppExchange reviews)

Foundation Year: 2019

Location: Rochelle Park, NJ

Number of Employees: 2,500 +

Clients: Roche, Postbank, Mazda, GSK, Volvo, ABB, Credit Suisse, Allianz, QPharma, SwissLife, etc.

Avenga helps enterprise-level and SMB organizations with Salesforce consulting, implementation, and improvement. Besides headquarters in New Jersey, the US, this Salesforce outsourcing company has offices in Ukraine, Germany, Poland, and Malaysia.

Its scope of CRM services includes:

• Migration to Salesforce,
• Implementation of Sales, Marketing, Nonprofit, Experience, Einstein & Analytics Clouds,
• Salesforce solution architecture assessment,
• CRM analytics and AI solution design,
• Salesforce integration with third-party solutions,
• Custom Salesforce development on Platform Cloud,
• AppExchange app development.

This Salesforce consulting agency also has built a Trigger Control app available on AppExchange for proper trigger organization in Salesforce instance.

Avenga specializes in the following industries:

• Healthcare & Life Sciences,
• FinTech,
• Real Estate,
• Manufacturing,
• Logistics,
• Media,
• Automotive

What clients like about Avenga:

• The breadth of development expertise,
• Strong communication skills,
• Strength in getting us through complex requirements.

 

5. VRP Consulting

 

Average Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.8 (Based on Clutch.co & AppExchange reviews)

Foundation Year: 1998

Location: San Francisco, CA

Number of Employees: 600 +

Clients: Rolls Royce, Welk Resorts, BVT Sweden, Felm, Beyond Better Foods, Digital Genius, etc.

VRP Consulting provides full-cycle Salesforce consulting, development, outsourcing & managed services from offices in the USA, UK, Netherlands, Poland, Bulgaria, and the Philippines.

Besides that, this consulting company delivers other Salesforce-related services:

• Salesforce outsourcing & managed services,
• Custom development,
• ISV app design & development

VRP Consulting works with:

• Sales Cloud,
• Service Cloud,
• Pardot,
• Platform Cloud,
• Non-Profit Cloud,
• Revenue (CPQ) Cloud,
• Marketing Cloud,
• Health Cloud,
• Experience Cloud.

It focuses on these industries:

• Manufacturing,
• Financial Services,
• Healthcare & Life Sciences,
• Communications,
• Media & Entertainment,
• Travel & Hospitality,
• Hi-Tech,
• Retail,
• Energy & Utilities,
• Recruitment,
• Nonprofit.

What clients like about VRP Consulting:

• Effective communications,
• Constructive best practices guidance,
• Understanding both business processes and underlying technology,
• An exemplary job in creating a custom employee onboarding solution.

 

Bottom Line

 

Outsourced Salesforce services help to leave the stress connected with recruiting and managing the employees behind and concentrate more on business improvement and growth.

However, to completely unlock the benefits and mitigate the risks of this option, you need to partner with a qualified Salesforce outsourcing company.

Ascendix has a 21-year track record of managing Salesforce projects in commercial real estate, legal, and financial services domains. Contact us to get qualified Salesforce services originating from Dallas.