Once the Solution and Technical Architects lay the blueprints, you’ll be able to begin construction of your Salesforce.
Imagine that you’re building a house. You’d want a well-staffed team of specialists leading the construction and planning process, especially in the beginning stages to ensure that the foundation is sturdy and that the architecture is sound, right?
Before you can make any decisions about how you’re going to decorate the interior, the architects will draw up a blueprint and consult with you about how to best construct the house. Soon after, you can begin hiring other workers or even DIY to save money. You can always teach yourself how to tile the floors of your bathroom, but the beginning and most important stages require specialists with far more expertise than you could ever gain by watching a video on YouTube.
That’s how you need to treat staffing the leadership roles of your organization’s Salesforce (SFDC) team. In fact, those roles even use similar job titles. Technical Architects and Solution Architects can create a tailored infrastructure for your organization by helping you find and utilize the best-fitting Salesforce solutions that will promote efficiency, growth, and profit.
Whether you are just beginning to build your Salesforce team, or you are seeking additional talent to support new Salesforce enhancements, you need to start by envisioning who should be on your team based off what you need them to do.
At the architecture and strategy level, we broke down both Solution and Technical Architects – what you should look for and when you’d need them.
The Solution Architects
Think of the Solution Architects as the ones designing the structure of the house. During the planning process, they decide what the house will look like in terms of style and structure, as well as what rooms will go where.
Solution Architects are similar to fully developed and functional Administrators, with a vast amount of exposure to different parts of the platform⎯they perform a lot of the same duties, but in larger scale. A Solution Architect must be highly versatile in order to oversee the other team members with varying skill sets, and in order to lead major system implementations or upgrades. While they may not be programming, they are creating your organization’s CRM strategy and finding the best solutions for you.
In general, only consulting partners employ Solution Architects, but in certain situations, you’ll find them at larger SFDC customer organizations. Knowing the difference between when you need a Solution Architect instead of just a highly skilled Administrator is a bit of a nuanced decision, but we like to think of Solution Architects as being most beneficial at large companies doing large projects.
Meet Ben… He works for a small consulting firm in Boston and he is currently on a project to help an Enterprise SaaS company implement Sales Cloud. After leading the project kickoff with the Vice President of Sales, CFO, and Vice President of Marketing, Ben led the discovery and requirements gathering process to understand their sales process, how the sales team currently utilizes their legacy CRM, and the relationship between the sales and marketing teams.
Based on the information that he collected, he designed a solution that was based on a hybrid of internal and external sales teams. When he learned that there has been a major disconnect between the lead handoff from marketing to sales, he suggested the client implement Marketing Cloud alongside Sales Cloud.
The Technical Architects
When building a house the Technical Architects will be more involved in the technical (as the name would imply) responsibilities, such as determining how the house will be wired, how its plumbing will work, and overall, how the Solution Architects plans can be best executed by the Developers.
Technical Architects are the top-level talent and the most senior technical consultants in the ecosystem. They’ve have mastered both the functionality of Salesforce and the design of its technical solutions. What does that mean for you? Your Architect will build the framework for your organization’s instance and equip it with all the additional AppExchange and Salesforce products that you need to succeed.
Depending on the size of your organization, some Technical Architects might maintain the responsibilities of Developers and sometimes even Solution Architects. They are very hands-on and can do everything from drawing up the plan and framework of the project to understanding and writing code, although that is usually what your developers will be there for.
Again, really, only consulting firms use Technical Architects, and you can expect them to work alongside Directors of Technology, Vice Presidents of IT, and even CTOs at their clients.
Meet Jenna… A rock star Tech Arch at a large consulting firm in San Francisco. Jenna has been doing a little bit of everything while working with her current client, an insurance company, who is looking for better ways to communicate with doctors at clinics. She’s very involved with the client⎯meeting with its employees to gain an understanding of its current SDLC, and assessing how the client has been using Salesforce. She also oversees a team of developers⎯reviewing their code and working with them to set up sandboxes, integration points, and UAT. The solution Jenna’s team is developing is almost ready to be rolled out and will change the way the insurance company interacts with doctors and make it not only easier, but also more secure.
So, who do you need to build your house?
Contact TwentyPine for a consultation! We will gladly help your architects on both a full time or contract basis.