When you plan on getting Salesforce for your company, the first call with the Salesforce representatives, Account Manager or an implementation partner, cannot go with out them mentioning
You know what, you can go to AppExchange and find this awesome extensions that you will need to run your business like x, y, z!
And naturally, as a business owner/sponsor, you will be inclined to think that all solutions of your problems are out there!
And its true to a great extent, no denying on that.
But when you go shopping, you realise that most of the solutions come at recurring price. Sometimes the cost is small, other times its huge.
Comes the implementation partner whom you will consult to see alternative – they would say
Invest in building the application one time, you wont need to pay the recurring fee!
And you are caught in this puzzle where it gets pretty confusing to chose if you should built the solution with help of your partner or just get the AppExchange solution out there ?
Here is my take if I run into that situation
How Soon You Need The Solution?
That’s the first question I would ask.
If its mission critical, I would look out for the right AppExchange app and get started.
If I can wait for couple of months before I need it, i will sit down with an implementation partner and get an estimate and a quote
Weigh it against the recurring cost of the AppExchange solution
Weigh in the benefits against the cost
Try Before Buy
Either AppExchange or in-house development, I need to see some of it in action.
To the AppExchange provider, I will ask for demo org where I can try the feature out with some of my business users to see if the product meets my needs.
I would ask the implementation partner for a Proof of concept(POC) – trust me, with Salesforce, its always better to see if a quick POC can be built and tried.
Think Long Term, All That Glitters Now, May Not Be Gold Later
With every feature I am importing to my org, the complexity of the org increases.
If you install a package from a AppExchange, it comes with objects, code, components required to run it. So is with new in-house development.
The long term vision, the KPI of the users, the advantage that this new feature will bring in to meet the KPI is one side of the metric.
The long term maintainability of the product is something I need to thoroughly understand.
Does the product require special skill, can the regular admin maintain it, how flexible is it to build additional features are some of the other questions that I will enquire about.
Dont Reinvent The Wheel
I got a Salesforce org for my company to ensure the operations are streamlined and my team gets to use the right tools to get the job done effectively and efficiently!
Thumb rule, don’t need to built everything that your team asks for.
Everyone wants new features, but when it comes to utilisation, it drops significantly.
Try to use out of box as much as possible.
An AppExchange package takes out the burden of maintaining the product, so in a way, it can be out of box.
I would prefer to go with an AppExchange package if the recurring cost for couple of years is less than the development cost.
I get to use the product right away, over period, I dont need to worry about the issues as the support will be there from the product team.
And if you have in house development team, ask them to see if the can replicate the features over a period and replace the package.
Overall, its the urgency, the maintainability that should drive your decision!
Let the cost decision be with the finance to worry about !!!
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