Insights for employers
Salesforce implementation
Whatever the Salesforce role, use our guide to benchmark your salary or contact rate, or to uncover what you should be paying employees in your team.
Of the end user organizations that migrated to Salesforce from a competitor product, 22% did so in the last 12 months.
Who supported the organization through the migration?
Salesforce Partner
63%
In-house employee(s)/internal resources
54%
Independent contractor(s)
46%
Not sure
2%
Of those organizations that used in-house employees, 58% also enlisted the help of a Salesforce Partner, an increase of 1% from our previous survey. Half (50%) sought help from an independent contractor to support their internal staff, up from 37% in our last survey. This indicates a continued trend of organizations using external resources to assist with Salesforce integration projects.
Do you need a contractor to help get your project over the line?
What challenges might you expect when working with a partner?
| Communication difficulties | 33% |
| They struggled to understand our requirements/business processes | 33% |
| Problems defining the scope of the project | 30% |
| Keeping the project on schedule/meeting agreed deadlines | 30% |
| Keeping the project to budget | 26% |
| They struggled to understand our industry | 22% |
| None | 15% |
| Other | 11% |
‘Other’ responses include the turnover of project staff at the partner organization.
According to partners, what challenges do end users face when migrating to Salesforce?
We asked those that work for a partner what challenges their clients commonly face during a migration to Salesforce—difficulties mentioned this year include:
Issues with data mapping and migration from legacy system(s)
56%
Lack of technical knowledge in-house to manage and execute the project
53%
Poor data integrity
48%
User adoption, engagement, and training challenges
47%
Lack of change management processes on the client's end
43%
Underestimating the amount of time required to replace the legacy system
34%
Incorrect budgeting of the costs involved
32%
Issues sticking to the project timeline
30%
Lack of clear project scope, including precise requirements for platform functionality
29%
Communication difficulties
28%
Confusion regarding Salesforce's product offerings, capabilities, and limitations
28%
Difficulties aligning business processes with product features
26%
Other
3%
We also have data on the challenges partners encounter when working with end user clients, helping you to ensure your Salesforce project runs smoothly. Scope creep remains the top issue partners report end users facing on a project (54%), followed by a lack of communication between stakeholders (47%).
Why are organizations choosing to implement Salesforce?
0
%
Functionality of the product/services
0
%
Need to increase business responsiveness
0
%
Trusted products/services
| Ability to integrate with third-party vendors | 33% |
| Variety of products/services | 33% |
| Desire to move to the cloud | 29% |
| Ease of user adoption/user friendliness | 25% |
| Ease of migration | 24% |
| Need for global capabilities | 22% |
| Desire to reduce costs | 14% |
| Post-migration support offered | 14% |
| Lack of confidence in previous cloud service provider | 10% |
| Salesforce's commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) | 6% |
How long do migrations to Salesforce take?
Our respondents tell us their migration took an average of one year and six months to complete.
Implementing Salesforce can be a complex process, with timelines typically ranging from three to six months for smaller organizations to upwards of six months for larger enterprises with more intricate systems.
To ensure a smooth and efficient implementation, consider partnering with a Salesforce expert who can assess your business needs, provide accurate project timelines, and guide you through the process.
Salesforce go-live delays
Almost two-fifths (39%) of organizations experienced a delay to their scheduled Salesforce go-live.
How long were these delays?
-
Less than 1 month 7% - 1-3 months 33%
- 4-6 months 47%
- 7-9 months 7%
- 10-12 months 0%
- 12+ months 7%
What factors caused the delay?
| Lack of skills in-house to manage/work on the project | 65% |
| Poor planning prior to migration | 47% |
| Staff shortage | 41% |
| Delay in training staff | 41% |
| Rescoping of the project/changing needs of the project during implementation | 35% |
| Issues dealing with partner/consultancy | 35% |
| Unforeseen customizations | 29% |
| Data migration issues | 29% |
| Issues with testing | 29% |
| Poor in-house project management | 24% |
| Budget shortage | 12% |
Top 10 challenges that organizations faced during an implementation
0
%
Lack of appropriate skills internally
0
%
User adoption challenges
0
%
The cost of custom integration
| Lack of stakeholder buy-in | 27% |
| Customization challenges | 27% |
| The business was not ready for the change | 27% |
| Rescoping of the project/changing needs of the project during implementation | 27% |
| Difficulties migrating data from legacy systems to Salesforce | 24% |
| Integrating Salesforce with another system(s) | 20% |
| Difficulties hitting deadlines | 18% |
| Difficulties managing projects | 18% |
Over two fifths (43%) of organizations surveyed encountered implementation challenges stemming from a lack of internal skills. This is up from 36% in our last study, suggesting that there is a growing lack of skills in the Salesforce universe.
Are organizations integrating Salesforce with non-Salesforce products?
Results show that 87% of Salesforce customers we surveyed have integrated their Salesforce product with a non-Salesforce product.
What non-Salesforce products are customers integrating Salesforce with?
DocuSign
43%
AWS
29%
Microsoft Azure
28%
Conga
27%
Marketo
22%
Hubspot
16%
SAP
16%
NetSuite
13%
Outreach
12%
Zendesk
11%
Other
34%
‘Other’ responses include FormAssembly, Mailchimp and Oracle.
What Salesforce-acquired products do you intend to use?
| Tableau | 34% |
| Slack | 33% |
| Mulesoft | 22% |
| Salesforce Industries (Vlocity) | 8% |
| None of the above | 25% |
| Not sure | 17% |
Almost two-fifths (39%) of respondents said they were more likely to use these products because Salesforce had acquired them.
MASON FRANK’S
CAREERS AND HIRING GUIDE
KEY FINDINGS 2025
Our key findings report contains highlights from this year’s Careers and Hiring Guide, plus our salary tables to allow you to compare your compensation or benchmark your teams’ salaries or rates no matter their role in the Salesforce ecosystem.
