“Rather than having to hire conventional Salesforce administrators, I can now consider candidates with the skills and talents to create a much wider impact.”

─ Patrick Haley, Sr. Director of Sales Operations, NTT Global Data Centers Americas

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the massive migration to working from home that followed, demand for data center services has surged. With in-person meetings temporarily suspended and an instant need for cloud-based IT services, the data center colocation world is exploding. Keeping up with demand requires more power, more cooling, and more space.

Already underway with a three-million-square-foot expansion, NTT Global Data Centers Americas is poised to meet demand. In anticipation of soaring business volumes, the organization is extensively enhancing its Salesforce CRM platform to ensure processes remain efficient and that users have access to the capabilities they need. The project demands speed, accuracy, and careful focus on the minutiae involved in reconfiguring the intricately interconnected application.

Stacking Impact

Patrick Haley, senior director of sales operations, and his team are expertly managing the transition, simultaneously evolving both the department’s expertise and the organization’s Salesforce environment. In contrast to roles in previous companies where hiring employees with Salesforce administrator or developer experience was a necessity, at NTT Global Data Centers Americas, Haley has the flexibility to recruit talent with a broad range of skill sets.

He shared, “Rather than focusing on Salesforce administration skills, I can consider candidates who may be stronger in analytics, deal desk management, or even marketing operations. The freedom to cover these gaps really opens possibilities within other areas of sales operations where our team can have an elevated impact.”

NTT Global Data Centers Americas achieves this flexibility by collaborating with a managed services provider to administer Salesforce.

Currently, the sales operations team is scoping enhancements to the organization’s quotation process and user-interface design. Though seemingly moderate changes on the surface, any alteration within Salesforce can have cascading effects. Haley and his colleagues are able to partner with their managed services provider to oversee implementing the enhancements in Salesforce.

While seasoned experts focus on advancing the CRM system, the sales operations team can devote attention to stacking other critical tasks for the expansion, such as optimizing pricing for volatile market conditions and tailoring services to the unique needs of individual customers.

Help Wanted: A Different Class of Partner

The managed services provider NTT has selected — Rimini Street — functions like a business partner that is able to contextualize requests and independently manage more complex and sophisticated tasks, such as building workflows for automated processes.

Haley explained, “We interface with a single contact that works on projects with us every day; they understand our system, our business model, and the different roles our users play within it. Our support engineer dissects the details of projects we propose, understands the business goals behind these initiatives, and then effectively champions our vision to deliver our desired results.”

Rimini Street: 24/7 Impact

The sales operations director has found the predictable monthly subscription costs for Rimini Street Application Management Services (AMS) for Salesforce highly beneficial. Whereas contracting for managed services from other Salesforce partners can mean varying rates depending on the tasks and type of expertise required, Rimini Street offers a fixed price for deliverables from its highly inclusive service catalog.

“The cost structure for AMS is a huge asset, particularly for the projects that we don’t predict but that inevitably pop up and require timely attention. NTT is a very large company and not having to continually lobby for funding — including projects that I see as being business-critical — is a major plus,” enthused Haley.

He concluded, “With Rimini Street Application Management Services for Salesforce, for about the same cost of hiring one reasonably experienced Salesforce administrator, I have access to a worldwide group of highly qualified engineers. Not only have I expanded the skills and depth of my team, I now get the benefits 24/7.”

“The Rimini Street team’s breadth of experience, their accountability ─ it’s like having a security blanket.”