Why you need to customize Salesforce for private equity
Salesforce is an invaluable tool for private equity fund managers seeking to streamline fundraising, manage their portfolios more effectively, and gain competitive advantage.
Many of the functionality and workflows that savvy private equity fund managers demand from their software systems are built into the Salesforce platform. And because the platform is so easily customizable, it lends itself to a variety of opinions around the best configuration for fund management.
Exactly how your fund, specifically, can best leverage the platform is a complicated decision.
Why Do You Need Customization?
The first question most fund managers ask is why they need customization at all. It’s because Salesforce is built for organizations that have traditional sales and customer support workflows. These usually include handling leads, opportunities, and support cases. The way these standard workflows are designed simply were not made with private equity or venture capital fund managers in mind.
A common problem for fund managers using Salesforce is that they often overpay for licenses. This is because they are paying for functionality that they simply don’t need. So, while Salesforce is a very flexible platform, using it out-of-the-box often results in users throwing away sales and support-related functionality that they are paying for, then start from scratch with custom objects.
If you are committed to implementing Salesforce on your own, we recommend purchasing platform licenses, instead of the full Sales Cloud or Support Cloud licenses. This will make Salesforce a much more cost-effective (and efficient) investment for your firm because it costs less and does not include features that you will probably discard anyway.
A CRM Geared Towards Your Industry
Salesforce does provide an option for fund managers that want to use it but need something more geared toward their industry.
This template is more useful than out-of-the-box fund management. Unfortunately, the Private Equity/Venture Capital template is not a product that improves or evolves.
Salesforce has not demonstrated the commitment to evolving or supporting the product. Users are often on their own for enhancements, support, and maintenance.
Ultimately, the template serves as a good baseline example of what can be done with customization, but it lacks the support from to serve fund managers effectively and doesn’t improve quickly as business and industry needs change.
Is your firm in the process of deciding on a new technology partner? Our Buyer’s Guide can help narrow down what questions any firm should be asking to be on the right track for growth.
