| Status | |
| Owner | |
| Stakeholders |
Issue
Syensqo is embarking on a full greenfield Salesforce implementation, which means that no legacy Salesforce org, configuration, or data model will be reused. This fresh start offers important advantages—such as the freedom to design a clean architecture, adopt best practices from the beginning, and avoid technical debt—but it also introduces a fundamental question: which Salesforce Cloud(s) should be selected as the foundation of the solution?
Choosing the right Salesforce Cloud is a critical architectural decision because each cloud comes with its own functional coverage, licensing implications, data model assumptions, and extensibility boundaries. The selection must be driven first and foremost by the business capabilities required by the client: process automation, customer engagement, case management, lead-to-cash workflows, partner interactions, service operations, and more. However, this capability matching cannot be done in isolation. It must be balanced with strategic principles such as prioritizing standard features over heavy customization, maximizing long-term maintainability, and controlling both licensing cost and implementation cost.
The challenge lies in navigating the trade-offs between clouds that provide strong native support for certain business processes and alternative clouds that would require extensive customization to deliver similar outcomes. An inappropriate cloud selection could lead to unnecessary complexity, higher total cost of ownership, duplicated capabilities, or a solution that drifts too far from Salesforce best practices. Therefore, a structured evaluation is needed to align the client’s required capabilities with the intrinsic strengths of each Salesforce Cloud, ensuring that the chosen foundation supports a scalable, cost-efficient, and future-proof architecture.
Recommendation
In response to the current limitations of Syensqo’s fragmented CRM architecture, there exists a powerful opportunity to transform business operations by adopting a unified Salesforce platform strategy. This approach involves transitioning away from bespoke, legacy, and siloed solutions toward a centrally managed suite of Salesforce standard modules, each natively supported and strategically aligned with the Salesforce product roadmap. Below is the recommendation:
AS IS | TO BE |
Sales Cloud | Manufacturing Cloud for Sales |
Custom CPQ | Revenue Cloud |
Sales Cloud (used for Service) | Service Cloud |
CloudCraze + 5 Portals | B2B Commerce + 1 Unified Portal |
Pardot | Marketing Cloud Next |
Standard SF Reporting | Standard SF Reporting + Tableau Next |
By embracing above cloud recommendations, Syensqo positions itself to realize both immediate and long-term benefits like:
Platform Unification and Consistency
Adopting standard Salesforce modules establishes a single source of truth for customer, product, and transactional data across the organization. This unified data model and security framework eliminate inconsistencies, strengthen compliance, and improve cross-functional visibility—empowering teams to deliver more cohesive and data-driven customer experiences.
Simplified Maintenance and Improved Reliability
Standard modules benefit from Salesforce’s enterprise-grade support, ongoing feature enhancements, and robust documentation. Relying on natively supported capabilities dramatically reduces the time, effort, and cost associated with maintaining custom code or outdated integrations. This shift streamlines upgrades, minimizes downtime, and allows in-house teams to focus on supporting business growth rather than firefighting technical issues.
Accelerated Innovation and Business Agility
With a modular, future-proofed environment, Syensqo can rapidly deploy new Salesforce innovations—such as AI-powered insights, process automation, and sophisticated analytics—without the traditional hurdles of retrofitting custom solutions. Capabilities like Agentforce and Data Cloud can be harnessed more effectively, unlocking real-time data unification and intelligent service delivery. As Salesforce continues its investment in emerging technologies, Syensqo’s ecosystem will remain at the forefront of customer engagement and operational excellence.
Cost Optimization and Efficient Scaling
Streamlining to standard Salesforce solutions will significantly lower the total cost of ownership (TCO). Reduced customization means fewer resources spent on bespoke development, testing, and ongoing support. System upgrades become simpler and less risky, and governance is easier to maintain. Syensqo can also onboard new business units, geographies, or products rapidly by replicating proven Salesforce modules instead of reinventing the wheel for each new initiative.
Readiness for Strategic Growth and Change
This approach is not merely about technology transformation; it is about equipping Syensqo with a scalable and adaptable digital foundation. As business priorities, regulatory environments, or customer expectations shift, Syensqo will be better positioned to quickly pivot, add new capabilities, and expand into new markets, all while maintaining strong platform governance and data integrity.
Leverage Salesforce’s Ecosystem and Continuous Innovation
By aligning with Salesforce’s product roadmap, Syensqo ensures ongoing access to latest features, security improvements, and ecosystem integrations (including AppExchange, partner solutions, and industry accelerators). This reduces risk of obsolescence and supports a continuous improvement culture within the enterprise.
Background & Context
Following the strategic separation from Solvay and the establishment of Syensqo as an independent entity, the organization inherited a complex CRM environment shaped by years of growth, acquisitions, and adaptation to diverse business needs. This landscape, while functional, reflects a history of siloed decision-making, varied business models across Global Business Units (GBUs), and a reliance on custom and legacy processes that were often designed to meet immediate tactical demands rather than enabling long-term strategic goals.
See below two links for existing integration landscape:
Core CRM interface provider.pdf
Core CRM interfaces consumer.pdf
Today, Syensqo’s CRM systems are characterized by:
- Multiple legacy solutions and custom-built components resulting from historical mergers and region- or unit-specific requirements.
- Fragmented data models and process inconsistencies across Sales, Service, Commerce, Marketing, and Revenue Management functions.
- Siloed GBUs, each often operating with separate workflows, limited data sharing, and differing standards for customer engagement, reporting, and compliance.
- High maintenance overhead due to aging integrations, duplicated effort, and manual workarounds.
- Reactive rather than proactive innovation, where complex change management and technical debt inhibit adoption of new features or industry best practices.
This patchwork approach has, over time, created increasing challenges around growth, efficiency, and the ability to deliver a seamless customer and employee experience.
The decision to go to a Greenfield approach building a new CRM solution cross GBUs has been taken in the following KDD: KDD040 - CRM Platform Approach
Assumptions
- Business Requirements : The assessment has been done based on the collected input from the different CRM workshops. If critical business or technical information changes, recommendations and analysis may need to be revisited.
- No Major Business Model Shifts: There won’t be disruptive changes in Syensqo’s business model or regulatory environment before or during the cloud selection.
- Salesforce Capabilities: Evaluation has been done based on the current salesforce available capabilities.
- Standardization: There is a shared organizational preference for maximizing standard (out-of-the-box) solution usage, with customizations being justified case by case.
- CLM capabilities of Revenue Cloud is not considered as part of this KDD due to ongoing discussion (Revenue Cloud vs Icertis)
- Salesforce License: Syensqo is responsible for managing the License provisioning and negotiations terms with Vendor Salesforce.
Constraints
In making the cloud platform decision, Syensqo should be mindful of the following constraints:
- Customization Capabilities: Not all clouds offer the same level of configurable features or support for bespoke enhancements—potential limitations for unique GBU or regional requirements.
- License and Contract Terms: Each Salesforce Cloud module usually comes with a license cost to be considered in order to take the final decision
- Salesforce Roadmap and Support: Future support, upgrades, and innovation depend on the platform’s product roadmap and the Salesforce’s commitment to specific clouds. Therefore decision should not be taken base on eventual future Salesforce roadmap
- Change Management: Adoption challenges may differ if the chosen cloud represents a substantial shift from current tools or business processes.
Impacts
Selecting the most appropriate cloud platform (e.g., Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, or alternatives) will have important, strategic consequences for Syensqo’s business transformation:
- Speed to Value: Standard modules and accelerators available in each cloud may determine how quickly new capabilities can be rolled out to business users and with limited customization efforts.
- Change Management: Given the green field nature of the new CRM and the selection of Clouds not already used by the business, change management will be key to get the adoption.
- License Costs: Leveraging specialized cloud will come with extra cost but should decrease the implementation TCO and enable a future proof architecture.
Business Rules
At this stage, specific business rules are not defined within this document. Platform and cloud selection will be based on high-level business requirements and anticipated rules complexity. Detailed business logic, validations, and approval processes will be captured and validated during subsequent Detailed Design Phase.
Salesforce Cloud Options
Manufacturing Cloud for Sales
Objective: To leverage Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud for managing long-term sales commitments, optimizing sales performance, and streamlining commercial operations within manufacturing organizations, rather than building custom solutions on Sales Cloud.
Option A: Manufacturing Cloud for Sales
Manufacturing Cloud offers a specialized, out-of-the-box solution tailored specifically for the complex sales and account management needs for companies such as Syensqo, providing industry-specific features like Sales Agreements and forecasting.
Key Advantages:
- Sales Agreement Management: Consolidates long-term sales commitments, enabling tracking of planned vs. actual revenue and quantity metrics, automatic performance updates, and a single source of truth for renewals and operational planning.
- Performance Management: Allows account managers and sales representatives to monitor actual order volumes against planned quantities for accurate sales process oversight.
- Price Change Notification: Facilitates sending price change documents to customers within the Sales Agreement when updates occur after the initial order.
- Rebate Management: Supports defining and tracking rebate programs associated with products, quantities, and amounts over specific periods; integrates rebate details at the quote level with SAP S/4 HANA.
- Visit Management: Enables field representatives to efficiently plan and execute on-site interactions using mobile access to action plan templates, location details, and task history, ensuring coverage of mandatory actions and capturing key performance metrics.
- Extension of Salesforce Core: Specifically designed for manufacturing organizations, Manufacturing Cloud extends Sales Cloud functionality to better align sales, planning, and operations with advanced features, reducing implementation effort and technical debt.
- Future-Ready: Leveraging standard features ensures access to future product updates and innovations without the need for custom development.
- Support for Complex Scenarios: Built to support multi-tier partner management and indirect sales channels, enabling organizations to capture and analyze partner performance, manage channel programs, and optimize incentives.
- Ecosystem Growth: Facilitates growth through extended partner ecosystems while maintaining visibility and control over indirect sales activities.
Key Challenges:
- Transitioning from custom-built solutions in Sales Cloud to standard features in Manufacturing Cloud may require process adjustments and change management.
- Integrating rebate management with external systems such as SAP S/4 HANA could present technical and operational complexities.
- Ensuring accurate and consistent data entry for sales agreements, rebate programs, and visit management to maintain a reliable single source of truth.
- Adapting existing workflows to new features like Sales Agreements and Visit Management may require additional training for account managers and field representatives.
- Managing price changes and communicating updates effectively within the Sales Agreement framework.
- Aligning commercial operations across sales, planning, and operations teams to fully leverage Manufacturing Cloud’s advanced capabilities.
- Managing complex manufacturing scenarios, such as multi-tier partner management and indirect sales channels, may require additional configuration and oversight.
See below the key capabilities from Manufacturing Cloud identified for Syensqo:
| Manufacturing Cloud for Sales Features* | Description (TBD) | High Level Fit | Explanation of the Fit | Next Steps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visit Management | Schedule, plan, and track visits to strengthen relationships and assess performance | Medium |
| |
| Sales Agreement | Align sales and operations through greater visibility into your run-rate business | High | ||
Advanced Account Forecasting | Create a unified and accurate sales forecast for your business | Medium | test test |
|
Account Manager Targets | Convert your organization’s growth plans into measurable targets | Low | ||
Program-based business | Offers suppliers full visibility into their operations, enabling detailed insights into customer forecasts. | Medium |
|
|
Rebates | Low | Only 1 relevant use cases: Getting a view on how rebates impact the margin | TBD | |
Non functional requirements |
| High |
| |
Other Relevant capabilities |
| Medium |
Option B: Leverage Sales Cloud and Build Custom on Top
This approach uses the highly flexible core Sales Cloud platform and requires additional custom development to build and maintain the specific manufacturing-related features needed to meet unique business requirements
Key Advantages:
- Maximum Flexibility & Control: Offers the freedom to design and build a solution that precisely matches every unique and specific manufacturing business requirement and existing process.
Key Challenges:
- Higher TCO: Requires ongoing investment in development resources for building, maintaining, testing, and updating the custom code with every Salesforce platform release.
Evaluation
| Criteria | Option A: Manufacturing Cloud for Sales | Option B: Leverage Sales Cloud and Build Custom on Top |
|---|---|---|
| Alignment with "Simplification and Standardization principles" |  Manufacturing Cloud offers out of the box processes such as Sales Agreements and Advanced Account forecasting which will allow to standardize process and will bring simplification staying out of the box as much as possible. |  All the processes not standards in Sales Cloud will have to be customized |
| User Adoption and Experience | Capabilities such as Sales Agreement offer Excel like capabilities increasing and improving User Experience | Building custom opens up the possibility to provide flexibility in building something custom but this will have a significative cost impact. |
| Scalability & Future-Proofing | Salesforce handles continuous maintenance, security updates, and regular feature innovation, ensuring the platform automatically evolves with technology and industry standards without incurring constant internal development costs | Building customization on the top of the platform is not allowing to benefit of future upgrade/ extract capabilities that would be provided by the platform in the future. |
| Feature Fit | List the features (Medium and High) | |
| Implementation Cost (Merge with above row) | Full leverage on Manufacturing Cloud out of the box capabilities reducing the implementation cost | Higher cost of implementation in order to build the capabilities needed to covered by Sales Cloud |
| Licenses/Subscription Cost | Manufacturing Cloud for Sales cost to be foreseen | Cheaper License Cost |
(Recommended)Revenue Cloud
Objective: To unify and optimize product management and pricing processes by leveraging Salesforce Revenue Cloud, enabling structured, automated, and scalable configuration, pricing, and quoting, and replacing manual, fragmented approaches with a future-ready, integrated solution.
Option A: Revenue Cloud
Leverage Revenue Cloud CPQ solution in order to standardized and simplify the CPQ implementation.
Key Advantages:
- Centralized Product Catalog Management: Dynamic, integrated product data from MDM (yet to be decided for Release 3). Advanced bundling and configuration rules for complex combinations. Streamlined Catalog management for product administrators.
- Guided Selling: Step-by-step configuration flows for sales reps. Dynamic product recommendations based on rules and sales history. Reduced errors and increased conversion rates.
- Structured Price List Management: Attribute-driven pricing for scalability and consistency. Flexible customer-specific pricing. Improved accuracy and reduced redundancy.
- Price Deviation Tracking: Price waterfall analysis for transparency. Automated flagging of unusual discounts or markups. Proactive monitoring of margin leaks and price fluctuations.
- Native Salesforce Integration: Seamless interoperability with Sales, Manufacturing, and Service Clouds. Unified data and simplified upgrades. Enhanced scalability and maintainability.
- Automated Processes: Automated approvals, guided selling, and quote-to-cash workflows. Reduced manual intervention and improved compliance.
- Future-Readiness: Ongoing access to new features and automation capabilities. Simplified upgrades and scalable adoption.
Key Challenges:
- Learning Curve & Complexity: The implementation and maintenance of complex product rules and pricing constraints requires specialized knowledge and may have functional limits.
- UX Experience: Revenue Cloud is a package and comes with predefined UI and User Experience bringing less flexibility to adapt.
Capability Map:
The below table is the CPQ Capability map for Syensqo requirements highlighting the out of the box capabilities of Revenue Cloud:
Business sub-process | Key Optimizations | Business Benefits & Impacts |
Product catalog |
|
|
Guided selling |
|
|
Price list management |
|
|
Price deviation tracking |
|
|
Revenue Cloud License Type:
EXPLAIN IF GROWTH OR FULL LICENSE IS NEEDED
Option B: Custom Build CPQ
Build the new CPQ fully custom not leveraging any Salesforce Cloud
Key Advantages:
- Perfect Functional Fit: Allows for the exact replication of existing, highly complex, or proprietary quoting and pricing logic without any out-of-the-box constraints.
Key Challenges:
- Technical Debt & Maintenance: Syensqo is fully responsible for all bug fixes, security updates, and ensuring the custom code remains compatible after every Salesforce platform release.
Evaluation
| Criteria | Option A: Revenue Cloud | Option B: Custom Build CPQ |
|---|---|---|
| Alignment with "Simplification and Standardization principles" | Revenue Cloud is the CPQ solution recommended by Salesforce having a clear focus and investment in the future Salesforce roadmap. The solution is covering most Syensqo processes (Except for price setup) | Huge customization which will make the solution complex to maintain. |
| User Adoption and Experience | Standardization of the user experience which might introduce limitation or extra customization in case a business expectations deviating from this standard experience. | Building custom opens up the possibility to provide flexibility in building something custom but this will have a significative cost impact. |
| Scalability & Future-Proofing | Salesforce handles continuous maintenance, security updates, and regular feature innovation, ensuring the platform automatically evolves with technology and industry standards without incurring constant internal development costs | Building customization on the top of the platform is not allowing to benefit of future upgrade/ extract capabilities that would be provided by the platform in the future. |
| Implementation Cost | Full leverage on Revenue Cloud out of the box capabilities reducing the implementation cost | Very High cost of implementation in order to build the capabilities needed to covered. CPQ solution are usually product and cannot be easily rebuild from scratch keep a certain level of flexibiliy. |
| Licenses/Subscription Cost | Revenue Cloud for Sales cost to be foreseen | No additional License Cost |
Service Cloud
Objective: To transition existing service functionalities currently managed through Salesforce Sales Cloud to Salesforce Service Cloud, enabling access to advanced service capabilities, improved efficiency, and scalable support for complex service operations.
Option A: Service Cloud
Fully leverage the service cloud capabilities of Salesforce in order to bring value to Syensqo.
Key Capability Value (Applicable Regardless of License Tier)
Salesforce natively supports Case Management as part of the Sales Cloud license, meaning that the organization can already track and process complaints and requests within Salesforce without requiring Service Cloud licenses. This includes:
- Basic case creation from Accounts and Contacts
- Routing to queues and teams
- Status tracking and ownership for accountability
- Linking cases to Opportunities, Orders, or Products for traceability
When Service Cloud Adds Clear Value
Service Cloud licensing becomes beneficial if the service operating model requires more structured service processes, higher throughput, or multi-channel interaction. This includes scenarios such as:
- Advanced Omni-Channel routing across email, web, phone, and portals to balance workload and ensure SLA coverage.
- Guided workflows, automated SLAs, entitlement rules, and escalations to support regulated complaint handling or high-volume service environments.
- Knowledge Base, Macros, and Screen Flows for agent efficiency and consistency of response.
- Additional Licensing Costs: Transitioning to Service Cloud requires purchasing Service Cloud licenses, increasing overall costs.
- Potential Overhead for Simple Needs: If service requirements remain basic, Service Cloud may introduce unnecessary complexity and features beyond current needs.
Capability Map:
Option B: Sales Cloud leveraging service capabilities
Key Advantages:
- No extra license costs: Avoid paying any extra license cost for service agents.
Key Challenges:
- Legal/Commercial: While technically Sales Cloud licenses provides access to some Service cloud capabilities, there is a risk of not being commercial compliant. This should be discussed with Salesforce during license negotiations.
- Future Locks: This will prevent to easily onboard extra Service Cloud capabilities (not needed today) and license will have to be renegotiated with Salesforce.
Evaluation
| Criteria | Option A: Service Cloud | Option B: Sales Cloud leveraging service capabilities |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | Service Cloud provides a set of extra capabilities such a SLA management which have been identified as Syensqo business need. Those extra capabilities as currently not used (AS IS) but it might bring extra value to implement those capabilities | Extra capabilities offered by Service Cloud are not available and business will not be able to leverage those extra feature staying in the AS IS situation from a Service perspective. |
| Legal/Commercial | Fully compliant with Salesforce positioning. | While technically Sales Cloud licenses provides access to some Service cloud capabilities, there is a risk of not being commercially compliant. This should be discussed with Salesforce during license negotiations. |
| License Cost | Extra License Cost | Reduce the license cost |
B2B Commerce Cloud (LWR) for one single customer portal
Objective: To improve customer experience, streamline operations, and align with Salesforce’s strategic roadmap, we recommend Syensqo consolidate its multiple portals into a single, unified portal built on Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud. This transition will provide a scalable, future-proof, and fully supported e-commerce platform.
Key Advantages:
Unified Platform and Branding: Replaced four legacy solutions with a single, unified platform for a simplified customer journey and easier maintenance (one login, catalog, order, and document experience).
Enhanced Customer Autonomy & Efficiency:
Embedded a capable AI agent (e.g., populating carts from POs, guiding search, retrieving documents).
Extended self-service capabilities (e.g., samples, documents, order tracking), freeing up frontline time.
Drove Growth and Broader Sales: Enabled customers to seamlessly buy a wider range of products through guided search, fast quote requests, and effortless ordering.
Centralized and Consistent Data Management: Unified and standardized data across systems, creating a single source of truth for customers, products, pricing, and orders.
Modern, Scalable, and Future-Proof Architecture: Built on a cloud-native platform (Salesforce) that supports future innovations (like predictive ordering) and ensures simplified maintenance and ongoing upgrades.
Key Challenges:
- Some components can be leveraged OOTB, other will be extended. Some features will have to be custom. Tracked in column R Requirements & estimations.xlsx
Business Endorsements
- The Portal user will benefit from a Cross-GBU Portal experience (“One Syensqo” UX/UI)
- Target audience: Key Accounts, Critical Accounts, Standard Accounts, Key Distributors, Standard Distributors and SCP.
- The portal will consume the Account hierarchy stored in Salesforce: The contact/user will be linked to a child account (sold to). Some contacts (e.g. SCP) will be linked to more than 1 child account to order across GBU (Ship to).
- Commerce will leverage the product hierarchy from MDM (replicated in the Product Catalog of CPQ) to create entitlement policies. However, the SAP Category hierarchy will not be displayed in the catalogue for the customers/distributors.
- Commerce will use the SAP Market Segmentation (GBU, Market, Region, Country) to drive the product visibility per Account -> general rules. Exception rules will be handled via specific entitlement policies (& related buyer group).
- Only commercialized version of a product will be available in the portal for the user to request an order, a quote or a sample.
- The user will never be blocked from requesting an order. Besides, all orders placed by the child account (sold-to) should be accessible in MyOrder (i.e. not only the ones placed in the Portal). if the Financial or GTS checks fail, the user will be sent a notification, and a failed order would appear in My Order section
- Sample & Quote are requests (cases) sent to SF backend with assignment rules & managed by the CSR/Account Managers.
Evaluation
- The decision to exclusively pursue Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud (on Lightning) is a necessity because the prior solution, CloudCraze, is considered a legacy platform with a limited future. Salesforce has redirected all innovation and support efforts to the new, native B2B Commerce on the Lightning platform. Continuing with the CloudCraze architecture would mean operating on an unsupported system that receives no new features, limited security updates, and is not natively integrated with modern Salesforce capabilities like AI, Experience Cloud, or the latest UX/UI. This shift guarantees long-term sustainability, better performance, and seamless integration with the rest of the Salesforce Customer 360 platform.
- Salesforce has been named a Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce for the 10th Consecutive Year (November, 2025) https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/gartner-magic-quadrant-digital-commerce-2025/
The rebranding of Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud to Agentforce Commerce directly supports the Syensqo Portal's strategic need for enhanced self-service capabilities beyond simple transactions. Salesforce Announces New Agentforce Commerce Capabilities - Salesforce
This shift focuses on leveraging embedded AI Agents to transform the portal experience from a manual, commercial storefront into an autonomous, guided experience:
Self-Service Automation: The "Agentforce" name signifies the introduction of "digital labor"—AI agents that automate and execute complex customer workflows, aligning perfectly with the goal of increased self-service for Syensoq users.
Agentic Guidance: Instead of forcing users to navigate through menus, Agentforce Commerce utilizes AI for Guided Shopping. This means buyers can use conversational tools to define their needs (e.g., "I need a specific widget") and the AI agent will autonomously find and recommend the correct products, moving far beyond basic search.
Autonomous Workflow Execution: The Agentic Enterprise platform allows AI agents to assist in or even execute core customer workflows autonomously, such as managing complex Order Routing or handling Merchandising Actions. This reduces the administrative burden on Syensoq's internal teams while providing instant, automated service to the customer.
Magic Quadrant
Marketing Cloud Next
Objective: To align with Salesforce’s platform-first strategy and ensure long-term scalability, it is recommended to transition from Pardot (Account Engagement) to Marketing Cloud Next (On Core).
Option A: Marketing Cloud Next
Key Advantages:
- Natively built on the core Salesforce platform, enabling direct connection to CRM data and eliminating the need for data syncing.
- Supports real-time customer engagement across multiple channels, not limited to email.
- Simplifies system setup and reduces operational headaches associated with separate data environments.
- Unlocks powerful Flow automation and leverages Data Cloud for unified customer segmentation.
- Provides AI-driven personalization and event-triggered journeys based on any Salesforce object, allowing for tailored experiences throughout the customer lifecycle.
- Ensures consistent messaging, easier governance, and stronger collaboration between Marketing, Sales, and Service teams through native integration and multichannel capabilities.
- Keeps the organization future-ready and aligned with Salesforce’s ongoing investments in AI, automation, and data unification.
- Avoids the limitations of Pardot, which would require additional integration efforts and restrict access to new innovations.
Key Challenges:
- << To be filled by the workstream leads>>
Option B: Pardot
Key Advantages:
- << To be filled by the workstream leads>>
Key Challenges:
- << To be filled by the workstream leads>>
Marketing Cloud Capability Map:
Evaluation
Marketing Cloud Next represents Salesforce’s next-generation marketing solution, natively built on the core Salesforce platform. Unlike Pardot, which only supports email as a channel and operates as a separate data environment, Marketing Cloud Next connects straight to your CRM data. This means no more syncing headaches, a simpler system setup, and the ability to engage customers in real time across multiple channels — not just email.
With Marketing Cloud Next, your marketing teams can unlock powerful Flow automation and leverage Data Cloud for unified customer segmentation. Plus, it offers AI-driven personalization and event-triggered journeys based on any Salesforce object, delivering truly tailored experiences at every stage of the customer lifecycle.
Thanks to its native integration and multichannel reach, Marketing Cloud Next ensures consistent messaging, easier governance, and stronger collaboration between Marketing, Sales, and Service teams.
By adopting Marketing Cloud Next, the organization ensures it remains future-ready and aligned with Salesforce’s ongoing investments in AI, automation, and data unification. Continuing with Pardot would increasingly limit access to these innovations and require additional integration effort to maintain parity with Salesforce’s strategic direction.
The decision to recommend Marketing Cloud Engagement (often referred to as Marketing Cloud Next) over Pardot (now Marketing Cloud Account Engagement) is driven by the need for a truly omnichannel, high-volume, and future-ready engagement platform. While Pardot remains Salesforce's B2B marketing automation solution, its architecture is inherently focused on lead nurturing and email, relying on a connector for deep CRM data. Marketing Cloud Engagement, however, is built for complex, multi-channel customer journeys across email, mobile, social, and web, offering a modular, enterprise-grade framework that better leverages advanced features like Journey Builder, native AI (Einstein), and large-scale data segmentation. Opting for the more advanced Marketing Cloud Engagement future-proofs the investment by aligning with the long-term vision of a unified, data-driven customer experience platform, which is essential for scaling complex, personalized communications beyond just the lead-to-opportunity pipeline.
| Criteria | Option A: Marketing Cloud Next | Option B: Pardot |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities |
|
|
| Scalability & Future Proofing |
|
|
| XXXX |
Tableau Next
Objective: Tableau Next moves beyond the static, object-based reporting of standard Salesforce by using Agentic AI and a unified data layer (Data Cloud) to deliver personalized, contextual, and actionable insights to users across the business, directly in their workflow.
Option A: CRM Reporting Done with a combination of Standard Reporting and Tableau Next
Key Advantages:
- << To be filled by the workstream leads>>
Key Challenges:
- << To be filled by the workstream leads>>
Option B: CRM Reporting Done with Standard Reporting only
Key Advantages:
- << To be filled by the workstream leads>>
Key Challenges:
- << To be filled by the workstream leads>>
Evaluation
| Criteria | Option A: Standard Reporting & Tableau Next | Option B: Standard Reporting only |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities |
|
|
| User Experience |
|
|
| XXXX |
See also
Insert links and references to other documents which are relevant when trying to understand this decision and its implications. Other decisions are often impacted, so it's good to list them here with links. Attachments are also possible but dangerous as they are static documents and not updated by their authors.
