Salesforce + Heroku: The Dual Engine Architecture for Digital Transformation

Organizations that achieve digital excellence are doing so by leveraging two types of digital technology:

1. Off-the shelf software, which is typically internal-facing
2. Proprietary software, which is typically customer-facing

In this modern digital era, it is table stakes for a company to excel in both of these software types. For example, a company needs to be able to offer engaging customer experiences (e.g. websites, apps, portals, etc.) while empowering its internal teams to manage customers and the business with off-the-shelf technology like CRM, Service, and Marketing Automation.

Synchronization Challenges

For many organizations, keeping off-the-shelf software in-sync with proprietary software is a dream state. For example, as customers interact with a proprietary mobile app, the data should flow through to a CRM so that the customer service agent can see a full picture of the customer.

This is usually a “dream state” because data sync is a notoriously difficult technical problem that often requires too much budget to justify the development.

Dual Engines

Salesforce has created a platform where both off-the-shelf needs and proprietary development needs are met with best-in-class solutions. These platforms stay in sync through a bi-directional, real-time syncing engine called Heroku Connect.

Salesforce.com: The Off-the-shelf Technology Powerhouse

Salesforce is one of the most robust off-the-shelf software platforms in the world. The “No Code” philosophy enables administrators to create software in a point-and-click environment. This means that anyone in the organization — not just engineers — can create software for internal teammates.

The Salesforce ecosystem is enormous. Its core products include everything from CRM, Ticketing, and Chat to Marketing Automation, eCommerce, and Artificial Intelligence. The AppExchange ecosystem includes thousands of additional products ready to solve an unthinkable number of business challenges.

This powerhouse of off-the-shelf technology is truly a one-stop-shop for solving almost any internal-facing business challenge.

Heroku: The Best Platform for Proprietary Software Development

For organizations striving to improve their digital customer experience, Heroku is the platform of choice. Built on top of AWS, Heroku enables developers to bring to market web and mobile apps 2x faster.

By abstracting infrastructure management, developers no longer need to spend countless hours tinkering with server setups and can instead focus on what actually matters: building and iterating on critical web and mobile experiences.

Further, the huge ecosystem of Heroku Add Ons make spinning up a complex environment simple. This powers innovation and experimentation that otherwise would not be possible in organizations cemented in infrastructure management.

Heroku Connect

The bi-directional, real-time syncing provided by Heroku Connect makes it dead simple to move data between Salesforce and Heroku. As customers interact with the proprietary mobile or web app, data flows seamlessly into Salesforce where employees can develop powerful internal applications on the same dataset. Further, employees can manage the data administratively in Salesforce, with customers receiving these updates in near real-time in the proprietary web or mobile app.

Outcomes

This “Dual Engine” architecture drives the following business outcomes:

• Faster time-to-market and subsequent iteration of proprietary software
• Improved customer experience, which can drive both retention and revenue
• Increased employee productivity as manual work is automated
• Fewer data discrepancies/errors with real-time data sync
• Better customer support as agents have a 360-degree view of the customer
• Robust security across both internal and customer-facing technologies
• Better reporting and insights as business-driven and customer-driven data can be combined into a single Data Warehouse