A Guide to Modern CRM With Salesforce
Connect data, teams and workflows to create stronger customer relationships at scale.
Why CRM Needs a Fresh Look
Customer relationships are built across more touchpoints than ever. Sales, marketing, service, commerce and operations teams all play a role in how customers experience your organization. But when those teams rely on disconnected tools, inconsistent data and siloed processes, it becomes harder to understand customers, act quickly and deliver the right experience at the right time.
For many organizations, AI is accelerating the need to revisit their Salesforce strategy. Leaders want smarter insights, more personalized engagement and more efficient customer operations. But many quickly discover that their CRM environment is not ready. Salesforce may be underused, customer information may be scattered across systems, or everyday processes may no longer reflect how teams sell, serve and support customers.
AI-enabled CRM depends on trusted customer data, clear ownership and privacy-first governance — all areas buyers should assess before comparing platforms or expanding capabilities.1
CRM modernization creates a reliable operating model for customer engagement. That means understanding what is already in place, identifying what is not working and building a practical path toward a more connected Salesforce environment.
90%
of organizations recognize CRM data as the cornerstone of their operations, yet 76% say less than half of their CRM data is accurate and complete.2
Maximizing the potential of CRM can help organizations:
- Create a shared customer view across sales, service, marketing and operations
- Improve adoption by aligning Salesforce workflows to the way teams actually work
- Reduce tool sprawl by consolidating disconnected systems and processes
- Strengthen data quality, governance and integration for AI-enabled use cases
- Improve customer experience with more consistent, personalized engagement
- Increase the value of Salesforce investments by optimizing licenses, features and workflows
Gartner’s 2026 Technology Trends report points to an AI-powered hyperconnected environment where organizations must balance responsible innovation, operational excellence and digital trust.3
Defining Terms With Modern CRM
Salesforce is the foundation bringing customer profiles, automation, AI-enabled capabilities and performance insights into a more unified environment. That foundation supports a 360° customer view, giving sales, service, marketing and operations teams shared visibility into customer relationships, interactions and needs.
Salesforce environments may include:
Sales Cloud — Helps teams manage leads, accounts, opportunities, forecasting and sales activity, giving sellers and managers clearer pipeline visibility and more consistent sales processes.
Service Cloud — Supports case management, knowledge, service workflows and contact center experiences so teams can resolve issues faster and give agents better customer context.
Marketing Cloud — Enhances audience engagement, campaign execution, journey orchestration and personalization to help marketing teams deliver more relevant communications and better align with sales and service.
Data Cloud — Unifies customer data from multiple sources to support customer profiles, segmentation, automation, personalization and AI-ready CRM use cases.
Agentforce — Extends Salesforce with AI agents that can support tasks, workflows and customer interactions. These capabilities depend on the quality of the data, processes and governance behind them, which makes CRM readiness especially important.
MuleSoft — Helps connect Salesforce with other enterprise systems, applications, data sources and workflows so customer information and processes can move more consistently across the organization.
Tableau — Helps teams analyze data, visualize performance and turn insights into action across sales, service, marketing and operational priorities.
Building the Right Foundation: Assessment and Preparation
CRM initiatives succeed when organizations understand their current state before expanding, optimizing or migrating. A Salesforce health check can help identify what has been implemented, what is being used, what is underused and what no longer aligns to business goals.
For some organizations, Salesforce may have grown over time without a clear roadmap. For others, the challenge may be a legacy CRM, multiple point tools or disconnected systems that make it difficult to create a shared customer view. In both cases, the first step is understanding what is in place today and what needs to change.
Start With Business Goals and Use Cases
Begin by defining what the CRM environment needs to support. That may include improving sales productivity, increasing service efficiency, strengthening marketing personalization, expanding into new teams or preparing for AI-enabled workflows. Clear goals help teams prioritize what to fix, what to build and what to measure.
Evaluate Current Salesforce Usage
Many organizations own more Salesforce capability than they actively use. Others may have customizations, licenses or workflows that no longer fit the business. A practical assessment should look at adoption, configuration, user experience, license mix, reporting, automation and feature utilization.
Map the Customer Information Ecosystem
Customer information often lives across CRM, marketing platforms, service systems, ERP, commerce tools, spreadsheets, databases and support applications. Mapping those sources helps reveal duplicate records, inconsistent fields, missing connections and reporting gaps that can limit personalization, automation and AI readiness.
Review Workflows and Ownership
CRM ownership is often split across sales, marketing, IT and operations. Without shared governance, teams may define processes differently or optimize for their own needs instead of the full customer lifecycle. A strong assessment should clarify roles, decision rights and cross-functional workflows.
Assess Security, Governance and Technical Readiness
Because CRM touches more than the Salesforce environment, this review should also account for the surrounding ecosystem: identity, access, connectivity, data platforms, integration patterns, network performance, endpoint experience, security controls and ongoing support requirements.
Identify Consolidation and Migration Needs
Some organizations may need to consolidate legacy CRMs, retire point tools or migrate processes into Salesforce. Others may need to integrate Salesforce more effectively with existing platforms. A roadmap should account for dependencies, data migration, process redesign and change management.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
- Treating CRM as a software project instead of a business transformation initiative
- Adding AI before data quality, governance and workflows are ready
- Underestimating integration across ERP, marketing, service and operational systems
- Keeping legacy processes that no longer match business needs
- Allowing unclear ownership between IT, sales, marketing and operations
- Over-customizing without a clear long-term support model
- Failing to train users and manage adoption after launch
- Measuring success only by deployment instead of business outcomes
What a Thorough Assessment Should Deliver
A practical assessment phase should result in:
✓ A current-state view of Salesforce configuration, adoption, workflows and technical gaps
✓ A clear understanding of business priorities and customer engagement goals
✓ A data and integration map showing where customer information lives and how it flows
✓ License and feature utilization findings that identify underused or missing capabilities
✓ Governance, security and support recommendations
✓ A prioritized roadmap that sequences quick wins, foundational fixes and future-state capabilities
✓ A delivery plan that aligns stakeholders, timelines, resources and dependencies
Why CDW for Salesforce CRM
Once you understand the current state, the next step is turning CRM goals into an executable roadmap. CDW helps organizations plan, implement, integrate and optimize Salesforce in a way that reflects how their business actually works — not just how the platform is configured.
That matters because no two CRM environments are the same. A successful Salesforce strategy needs to account for existing systems, data maturity, user workflows, governance, security requirements, customer engagement goals and the broader IT foundation around it. CDW helps organizations tailor Salesforce around those realities while keeping the bigger picture in view.
CDW brings together expertise across Salesforce, applications, data, infrastructure, networking, connectivity, security and managed services. This broader perspective helps organizations make CRM decisions that fit the business today and support how it needs to grow tomorrow.
CDW supports Salesforce services across new implementations, legacy CRM migrations, custom enhancements, integrations, optimization, and core and industry cloud use cases — helping organizations improve how customer data, teams and processes work together across the enterprise.
1. Start With Business Priorities, Not Platform Assumptions
CDW works with stakeholders across IT, sales, marketing, service, operations and business leadership to define priorities, clarify use cases and connect CRM decisions to measurable outcomes. This helps ensure Salesforce investments support the organization’s customer engagement model, operating goals and growth strategy.
2. Understand What Makes the Environment Unique
CDW can help evaluate Salesforce usage, configuration, workflows, license mix, data quality, integrations and adoption. This phase identifies what is working, what is underused and what may be blocking value while helping buyers understand whether they need optimization, expansion, integration or migration support.
3. Build a Roadmap That Fits the Organization
A CRM roadmap should move beyond findings. CDW helps translate the current state into a sequenced plan that accounts for business priorities, technical dependencies, governance, change management and resource needs. The roadmap can include quick wins, foundational improvements and longer-term capabilities based on what will create the most value.
4. Tailor Salesforce Without Overcomplicating It
CDW supports Salesforce implementations and enhancements across solutions such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Data Cloud, Agentforce, MuleSoft and Tableau. This work may include configuration, customization, workflow design, automation, reporting, user experience improvements and platform remediation — with an emphasis on practical improvements that support the way teams actually work.
5. Connect Salesforce to the Broader Ecosystem
CRM value depends on integration. CDW helps connect Salesforce with enterprise applications, data platforms, identity systems, marketing tools, service platforms, ERP, commerce, collaboration tools and other business-critical systems. CDW’s broader technical teams can also account for the infrastructure, network, connectivity and security considerations that influence performance, scalability and long-term flexibility.
6. Strengthen the Data Foundation for AI and Automation
Better predictability starts with a stronger customer information foundation. CDW helps organizations identify the sources, connections, standards and quality improvements needed to support reporting, personalization, automation and AI-enabled Salesforce use cases. This helps teams move from AI interest to practical readiness.
7. Support Adoption as CRM Needs Evolve
Salesforce value depends on how consistently people use it and how well it adapts as the business changes. CDW can help organizations support training, change management, governance and ongoing optimization so CRM capabilities continue to evolve with user needs, business priorities and customer expectations.
Seven Ways Salesforce and CDW Help CRM Deliver More Value
With the right Salesforce foundation in place, organizations can move from disconnected customer processes to a more unified operating model. Salesforce provides the platform capabilities while CDW helps assess the current environment, design the roadmap, integrate the ecosystem and support long-term adoption. The result is a CRM strategy built to improve customer engagement, operational efficiency and business value.
A More Unified Customer View
Clean customer information, integrated systems and connected processes help teams see relationships more clearly across sales, service, marketing and operations. This shared visibility supports better handoffs, more relevant engagement and stronger decision-making.
Higher Adoption and Better User Experience
When Salesforce reflects how teams actually work, users are more likely to engage with it consistently. CDW helps align workflows, automation, dashboards and enablement to the needs of the people using the platform every day.
Stronger Return on Salesforce Investments
Organizations may already own capabilities they are not using. CDW helps identify underused licenses, features and workflows, then builds a plan to increase value from the existing investment or expand strategically where new capabilities are needed.
Less Tool Sprawl and Operational Complexity
CRM modernization can help reduce reliance on disconnected tools, manual processes and inconsistent data sources. CDW helps organizations determine what to consolidate, what to integrate and what to retire.
More Personalized Customer Engagement
A stronger data foundation helps teams tailor sales, service and marketing interactions based on customer needs, history and behavior. With the right Salesforce capabilities in place, organizations can deliver more relevant experiences across the customer lifecycle.
Better Insight Into Performance
Connected CRM data and reporting help leaders understand pipeline, service performance, campaign effectiveness, customer health and operational trends. Tools such as Tableau can help teams translate data into insights they can act on.
A Practical Foundation for AI-Enabled CRM
AI can help teams work faster and engage customers more effectively, but it depends on trusted customer information, well-defined processes and the right controls. CDW helps organizations prepare the Salesforce environment so AI use cases can be applied responsibly and at scale.
Sources:
1 CX Today, “CRM Trends 2026: The Customer Data, AI and Governance Shifts,” March 2026
2 Validity, “State of CRM Data Management in 2025,” July 2025
3 Gartner, “Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2026,” October 2025
Turn Your CRM Strategy Into Customer Value
Ready to get more from Salesforce? Talk to an expert to assess your current CRM environment, identify gaps and opportunities, and build a practical roadmap for more connected customer experiences.