Companies, from small to large, are still reeling from the effects of the COVID epidemic but we are seeing some industries starting to bounce back, which is great news! From a C-suite perspective, does it make more sense to hire on full-time staff or utilize Salesforce managed services offerings? Let’s discuss via pros and cons and cost-benefit analysis below!

The Cost of Hiring a Salesforce Admin

According to data from Salesforce, the average annual salary of a Salesforce Admin is $91,000 USD (US Data), with the expectation that this is reasonably in the 6-figure salary level in higher cost of living areas. That doesn’t include benefits, training, bonuses, or other employee-related expenses either. Most organizations can expect to add 25-30% on top of the salary amount for these additional labor costs. This puts an average cost of over-head for a company at $113,000-$118,300 dollars on average without including the cost of sourcing, interviewing, and hiring that individual. More senior Salesforce resources can cost considerably more from an overall labor perspective. I have chosen to use Salesforce Admin related data here as it’s relevant to the largest number of businesses.

Pros of Hiring Your Own Full-time Salesforce Admin

• Having complete control of a resource that is immersed in your corporate culture.
• Schedules are easier to mitigate when high priority work is needing to be done or meetings scheduled.
• Quicker reaction to down-times or on-the-fly adjustments to your system.

Cons of Hiring Your Own Full-time Salesforce Admin

• Requires having an on-staff employee or resource that can effectively gauge competency and skillsets as it pertains to Salesforce expertise.
• Acquisition costs can be significant once recruiter costs are factored in, on top of internal resource time to review resumes, conduct interviews, negotiate salary and coordinate onboarding and training.
• Admins are typically specialized in smaller-scale maintenance requests and are typically incapable of being responsible for larger, expansive initiatives that require in-depth technical knowledge and architectural design prowess and experience.
• The probability of turnover is high and admins are typically not well-versed in documentation or change management practices. This can lead to technical debt which is a significant risk factor for organizations that are reliant upon one or two key individuals when it comes to the maintenance and management of Salesforce.
• Hiring just one resource often does not lead to a jack/jill of all trades from an experience standpoint.
• You have to find workarounds when your primary Salesforce resource is out of office.

Salesforce Managed Services Offerings

Here at Roycon, we offer 2 different versions of Salesforce Managed Services Support: Service Contracts and Retainers.

Our Service Contract offering is the most economical from an hourly rate perspective, and we have durations ranging from 3 months to 12 month service contracts.

Our Retainer option is a block of hours that has a defined expiration, but where you are unsure of how many hours you may need per month to support your Salesforce instance.

Pros of Salesforce Managed Services

• You have access to Salesforce resources that have been vetted by senior Salesforce architects and they receive ongoing training to ensure they’re staying up-to-date with the newest Salesforce features and products.
• You don’t have to worry about Roycon leaving you for a better opportunity, we’re your partners with a vested interest in maintaining that relationship.
• Risk mitigation in an uncertain business environment, such as COVID, where you are unsure if your organization can take on the labor cost associated with sourcing, interviewing, and hiring a Salesforce resource.
• You have access to Salesforce resources that are skilled across multiple disciplines/products such as custom development, Salesforce CPQ, Salesforce Field Service Lightning, Pardot etc so you don’t have to try and find the needle in the haystack that has proficiencies across these areas. You also get the benefit of us having worked with numerous other clients and use cases to help benefit your business needs and implementations.
• You can use us to supplement your already existing Salesforce staff to keep from having to add additional members from a cost perspective.
• It is difficult being able to vet Salesforce expertise and experience if you’re not already well-versed in the Salesforce ecosystem, and associated labor costs with hiring new personnel are already high enough, so by selecting managed services, you have the potential to save your organization time and costs.

Cons of Salesforce Managed Services

• Some companies are concerned about the lack of a relationship with their managed services provider or are concerned that they’ll have to work with a new person each time they reach out for support. That isn’t always the case, however. Some firms – like ours – have a dedicated Customer Success Manager who is your primary point of contact, and try to build consistency into the support team who work on your account.
• Trust can be a concern as you’re giving an outside firm access to your data and networks. This is why it’s important to find a reputable firm who takes a professional approach to managing your account.

From a CFO perspective: Flexible investments support agility

Contrary to some widely held beliefs, the CFO’s role is not to save money. It’s to ensure money is invested wisely. As such, the CFO brings a different perspective to the managed services decision:

• Flexible workforce. CFOs consider the full costs of maintaining a workforce, including compliance with local laws. Managed services offer staffing flexibility.
• Expending capital in an unsure business environment is risky and managed services help minimize that cost while supporting current business needs.
• Managed Services allows for a blend of expertise and reduces down the total head count required for full-time staff which helps keep overhead G&A and labor costs associated with hiring lower.

Calculating total cost of ownership

Together, the CIO/CTO and the CFO have the purview to assess the total cost of ownership for managed cloud services by considering several factors. The CIO calculates the costs that can be avoided with managed services, such as procurement and maintenance of tech stack expenditures, as well as labor and training. The CFO can help quantify the benefits associated with the continually optimized service delivery of managed services. Having a prompt and skilled managed services provider, such as Roycon, allows for improvements to your Salesforce instance which leads to increased revenue and overall employee satisfaction. By understanding the total costs and benefits, companies may determine that our Salesforce Managed Services are the best choice for their business.

I’m interested, what’s next?

If you’ve evaluated your cost-benefit analysis and considered the pros and cons of Salesfsorce managed services versus hiring internally, we’d love to talk with you more. Please visit our website at https://roycon.com to fill out a form or email our Sales team at sales@roycon.com for more information. We look forward to hearing from you!

If you’ve just gone live with your Salesforce implementation, be sure to check out this helpful post on what you need to do after implementing Salesforce. If you still have some questions feel free to reach out to us.

About Roycon
We’re an Austin-based Salesforce Consulting Partner, with a passion and belief that the Salesforce platform’s capabilities can help businesses run more efficiently and effectively. Whether you are just getting started with Salesforce or looking to realize its full potential, Roycon specializes in Salesforce Implementations, Salesforce Ongoing Support, and Salesforce Integrations, and Development. We’re the certified partner to guide the way to increase Salesforce Adoption, make strategic decisions, and build your Salesforce Roadmap for success.