Top 5 (Non-Technical) Obstacles Delaying Moves to Salesforce Lightning
There’s no time.
The move to Lightning may require integrations and custom apps to be refactored for the new platform. But those don’t just present technical challenges. Updating apps and integrations can mean involvement from the business side, too, especially if the old apps have been limping along or if the existing migrations have many manual components that need to be addressed.
Unfortunately, that means having the business teams that use these tools available for requirements gathering, user acceptance testing, and so forth. It can be a lot to ask of the business teams - they are shouldering the manual work of legacy Salesforce apps that fall short of what they need and being asked to take on planning and designing the new solutions.
Of course, lessening the burden on the business team means shouldering some of the prep in IT. There, too, time constraints can keep the migration from Classic to Lightning from getting off the ground. If no one is available on either side to take up the project, it will be hard to get the migration moving in the right direction.
Your data is dirty
Data is vital in Salesforce, and it’s your own data that enhances the value of the platform regardless of which version you are on. Unfortunately, bad data input and governance habits have resulted in many organizations living with dirty data in their Salesforce instance.
Before a migration can get legs, the data needs to be cleaned up. Without that, you’ll just be adding to the technical and operational debt with the new platform. Worse, too much bad data could impact performance, resulting in a poor reception by the business.
Cleaning up the data requires participation from Salesforce admins and the business owners of that data. Aligning that participation requires dedicated effort and a plan. Who will own the project? Who has the authority to get all parties involved? These questions need to be answered before you can begin what may be some long-overdue data cleanup.
Your team needs training
One of the Lightning platform benefits is the hundreds of new features that are available, with more on the way. Salesforce has had the time to add, refine, and enhance the platform over the last six years, and with full buy-in on Lightning, they aren’t holding back.
That means that your team has six years of new features and enhancements to learn, however, to be able to get everything out of the new platform. Even just treading water and using Salesforce the way you always have will require getting up to speed on the new interface and functionality.
Your team will fight adoption
With such a monumental change, there’s going to be a learning curve. Logically, the business users may be hesitant, even skeptical, about the success of moving to Lightning and the impact that change will have on their productivity.
While the pushback may be hard now, it will be much worse if users must shift to the new system under duress. Letting the migration from Classic to Lightning sit until Salesforce forces your hand will lead to unhappy users who are frustrated and unsure how to use the new solution.
Your processes need to be updated
Many of the hurdles to migrating from Salesforce Classic to Lightning center on process. In some cases, it’s because a company’s processes were hard to map into the platform, to begin with. In others, it’s because the current support for the business process in your Salesforce Classic implementation already doesn’t fully satisfy the business requirements.
These are tough challenges. However, what can be more challenging is when the processes themselves are what need to be re-vamped. If those processes were created to adhere to the tool and not the other way around, there may seem to be little sense in replicating it into a new platform.
Turn Migration Into Acceleration
The truth is, the challenges your business faces in moving from Classic to Salesforce Lightning are real. But, so is the opportunity.
Knowing that a required migration is looming, tackling it on your own terms means leveraging it to make other improvements simultaneously. Process improvements, discussed above, are just the start.
There are dozens of initiatives that can be married to a Lightning migration that will move the business further forward than a platform move alone will do.
Have you been waiting to implement new data hygiene and governance rules? Now might be the ideal time.
Security enhancements? The Winter ‘21 multifactor authentication requirements could be the catalyst your business needs.
Streamlined development and deployment processes on the roadmap? New Lightning apps and integrations could be the perfect testbed for a new DevOps process.
Now may be the time to stop dreading the work involved with moving from Salesforce Classic to Salesforce Lightning and instead see it as the chance to catapult the business’s growth.
We can’t say this often enough or clearly enough - Salesforce Classic is on its way out. When Salesforce finally announces Classic’s end of life date, you’ll want your company ahead of that curve. Overcoming the obstacles that have prevented your migration until now won’t be any easier when you’re under the pressure of a hard deadline to move.
There’s good news, though. Whatever your challenges with adopting Salesforce Lightning, Six Consulting is here to help. We have extensive experience in Classic and Lightning and various platform migrations under our collective belt. We can even help you move the needle on other improvements to your internal processes so that your migration becomes much more than merely a shift to a new platform.
Six Consulting can help you find a path around the roadblocks that keep you from Salesforce Lightning and the wealth of features and enhancements that will put you out in front of the competition. Contact us to find out how we can get your migration off to the right start.
