In August of 2015, Salesforce announced an upgrade to its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform that promised “to accelerate adoption and value for every Salesforce customer and end-user” (source). The new upgrade, Salesforce Lightning, streamlined the user experience by offering a more intuitive (and lightning-fast) Graphical User Interface (GUI).

By simplifying the experience, the new interface also promised to welcome more of a diversity of end-users to the platform. As Carlo Thomas noted last year for TriFin Labs (a third-party Salesforce app developer):

“Admins…now enjoy an enhanced drag-and-drop functionality that doesn’t require code. Rather than collaborating with a developer to create or modify a Salesforce page, an admin can rearrange the page components to their liking”.

This new functionality of Salesforce Lightning represents a fundamental shift in how organizations can use the platform to improve the business experience.

Salesforce boasts that Lightning can improve productivity, saving organizations “up to 10 hours per employee per week” (source). In one famous example, T-Mobile sales representatives reduced the number of clicks to create a sales quote from 104 to eight.

And according to a recent study by Forrester Consulting (commissioned by Salesforce), Salesforce Lightning saves money by reducing the time spent on documentation and customer support while increasing customer satisfaction by 8.5%. The net effect of making the switch, Forrester notes, is a 475% ROI over three years (source).

Many firms have made the switch to Lightning, and many of the same firms are now seeking qualified candidates with Lightning experience. Yes, despite the new streamlined interface, which promises to welcome new end-users without coding experience, organizations making the switch to Lightning still need experienced professionals to manage the system and train employees.

Also, the transition itself presents development challenges. As Lauren Horwitz notes for Search Customer Experience in her write-up about T-Mobile’s adoption of Lightning: “With Lightning, which promises to make mobile and application development far more user-friendly, there are liabilities. Companies still need to deal with their existing code, particularly customized buttons and templates that won’t translate.”

However, as Horwitz notes, the transition also offers an opportunity to clean up processes. The trick for firms making the switch, of course, is finding the right salesforce development pros to lead the transition.

NewConfig, a leader in Salesforce Staffing, has extensive experience recruiting qualified professionals for firms using Salesforce Classic and Lightning. Firms switching to Salesforce Lightning require talented professionals who understand the new technology as well as the structural challenges of adopting the technology. NewConfig can help you find these skilled professionals. To learn more about our Salesforce Lightning recruitment experience, contact us today.