The Product Mindset: Driving Continuous Innovation and Value Realization on the Salesforce Platform

In today’s fast-moving digital landscape, organizations can no longer afford to treat Salesforce as a static, one-time implementation. To truly maximize the value of their Salesforce investment, leading enterprises are embracing a product mindset—an approach that treats Salesforce as a living, evolving product with an ongoing roadmap, regular releases, and measurable business outcomes. This shift is essential for transformation leaders, product owners, and IT strategists who are responsible for sustaining and amplifying business impact in a world where customer expectations and market dynamics are constantly changing.

Moving Beyond Implementation: Salesforce as a Living Product

Salesforce is renowned for its robust, out-of-the-box capabilities and frequent feature releases. However, the real differentiator for organizations lies in how they leverage the platform’s flexibility and extensibility to meet ever-changing business needs. Rather than viewing Salesforce as a finished project, the product mindset positions it as a dynamic product—one that evolves in lockstep with business strategy, customer expectations, and technological advancements.

This approach is rooted in several key principles:

Continuous Value Delivery: Success is measured by business metrics such as user adoption, customer engagement, and revenue or cost savings generated per feature—not just by technical completion.
Ongoing Roadmap: A product mindset requires a clear, prioritized roadmap of value-driving initiatives, with regular releases that deliver incremental improvements and innovation.
Outcome-Based Prioritization: Features and enhancements are prioritized based on their potential to drive measurable business outcomes, ensuring that every investment in the platform delivers real value.

The Salesforce Maturity Curve: Inform, Predict, Prescribe

To guide organizations on their journey to Salesforce maturity, Publicis Sapient leverages a proven framework that moves clients up the value curve:

1. Inform

At this foundational stage, organizations focus on establishing trustworthy data, standard reporting, and basic data visualization. The goal is to ensure that decision-makers have access to accurate, timely information that supports day-to-day operations.

2. Predict

With reliable data in place, the next step is to leverage informed data analysis, forecasting, and predictive modeling. This enables organizations to anticipate trends, identify opportunities, and make proactive decisions that drive business growth.

3. Prescribe

At the highest level of maturity, organizations harness optimization techniques and machine learning to prescribe the best possible actions. Capabilities such as Next Best Action, predictive selling, and intelligent automation empower teams to deliver highly personalized, efficient, and impactful customer experiences.

By progressing through these stages, companies can unlock the full potential of Salesforce—not just as a CRM, but as a strategic engine for innovation and competitive advantage.

Practical Frameworks for Continuous Improvement

A product mindset is underpinned by agile delivery practices. Publicis Sapient partners with clients to establish cross-functional teams that work in iterative sprints, delivering new features and enhancements at a rapid pace. This approach ensures that:

Business and IT stakeholders are aligned on priorities and outcomes.
Feedback loops are short, enabling quick course corrections and continuous improvement.
The platform remains responsive to changing market conditions and business needs.

Value pools are used to prioritize use cases by business value. This involves:

Identifying experience gaps (e.g., frustration during the returns experience).
Assigning value to the gap—such as high, medium, or low, or a specific dollar value for revenue gains or cost savings.
Organizing related experience gaps into a value pool, representing a specific customer or employee pain point and its associated economic benefit.
Defining the value stream—the specific activities users will undertake during their journey.

This disciplined approach to value realization ensures that Salesforce investments are always aligned with business goals and deliver ongoing ROI.

Real-World Impact: How Publicis Sapient Partners for Long-Term Success

Publicis Sapient is uniquely positioned to help organizations adopt and sustain a product mindset on the Salesforce platform. Our approach combines:

Strategic Advisory: Helping clients define their vision, build a business case, and create a roadmap for continuous innovation.
Salesforce Expertise: Deep experience across all Salesforce clouds and industry verticals, delivering best-in-class solutions tailored to your needs.
Agile Engineering: Cross-functional teams drive rapid, iterative delivery, ensuring that your Salesforce platform evolves in step with your business.
Ongoing Partnership: Providing ongoing support, optimization, and innovation services to ensure that your Salesforce investment continues to deliver value long after go-live.

Examples of Value Realization

Customer 360 and Data Cloud: By unifying customer data across channels, organizations can deliver seamless, personalized experiences that drive loyalty and revenue.
AI and Automation: Leveraging Salesforce’s AI capabilities, such as Einstein and Copilot, enables predictive insights and intelligent automation, reducing manual effort and improving decision quality.
Industry-Specific Solutions: From financial services to retail and healthcare, tailored Salesforce solutions help organizations address unique challenges, streamline operations, and differentiate in the market.

Measurable Outcomes

A multinational automotive manufacturer achieved a 75% improvement in key metrics.
A global CPG company processed over 2 billion transactions, delivering €25M in value.
An American bank saw a 56% increase in adoption and a 31% improvement in process efficiency.

Ready to Maximize Your Salesforce Investment?

Adopting a product mindset is the key to unlocking continuous innovation and value realization on the Salesforce platform. Whether you’re just starting your journey or looking to accelerate your maturity, Publicis Sapient is your trusted partner for long-term success. Let’s work together to transform Salesforce from a static tool into a dynamic engine for growth, agility, and competitive advantage.