Case Study
From Frustration to Full Transformation: Rescuing a Salesforce Implementation
A national manufacturing and services organization was struggling mid-way through a greenfield Salesforce implementation. M&S Consulting stepped in to rescue the project, stabilize delivery, and bring it across the finish line.
2 min read
Rescued
Mid-flight delivery
Stabilized
In 90 days
On Track
Delivery resumed
Full
Implementation completed
Client
National Manufacturing Organization
Engagement
Salesforce Implementation Rescue
Technologies
Salesforce, Project Recovery, Change Management
01THE CHALLENGE
A greenfield Salesforce implementation was failing. The business had already invested too much to walk away.
The organization had engaged a Salesforce implementation partner and invested significant time, budget, and internal resources into a greenfield build. Halfway through the program, it was clear something had gone wrong: deliverables were late, quality was inconsistent, the team had lost confidence in the delivery model, and business stakeholders were beginning to question whether Salesforce was the right choice at all.
The actual problem wasn't Salesforce. It was the implementation. The build had drifted from the business requirements. Technical decisions made early in the engagement were creating downstream complexity. The delivery governance wasn't catching these issues early enough.
M&S Consulting was brought in to do an objective assessment: find out what was actually wrong, determine what was salvageable, and provide an honest recommendation on the path forward.
02THE SOLUTION
Assess, stabilize, then deliver, in that order.
The M&S Consulting team spent the first three weeks doing nothing but listening and reviewing: code reviews, requirements walkthroughs, stakeholder interviews, and a full gap analysis between what had been built and what the business actually needed. The output was a frank assessment, what worked, what needed to be rebuilt, and what the remaining scope actually required.
Stabilization came next. High-risk components were reworked before the delivery engine was restarted. A new delivery governance model was established, with shorter milestone cycles, clearer sign-off requirements, and an escalation path that gave business stakeholders real-time visibility into delivery status.
Objective assessment
Full code review and requirements gap analysis before any changes were made, no assumptions, no excuses.
Technical stabilization
High-risk components rebuilt before delivery resumed, eliminating the technical debt that was driving the delays.
New delivery governance
Shorter milestone cycles and real-time stakeholder visibility replaced the opaque waterfall model that had obscured the problems.
03THE RESULTS
Implementation rescued, stabilized, and delivered.
M&S Consulting stabilized the program within 90 days of taking over delivery leadership. The implementation was completed on a revised schedule that the business trusted, with full scope delivered and the quality issues from the original engagement resolved.
The engagement also gave the organization something the previous implementation had not: a clear understanding of their Salesforce environment, its limitations, and how to maintain it going forward.
90 days
Time to stabilization
The program was stabilized and delivery resumed within 90 days of M&S Consulting taking over.
Full scope
Delivered
All originally committed business capabilities delivered, none of the requirements were traded away in the rescue.
Rebuilt
High-risk components
Technical debt components that were driving failures rebuilt before delivery resumed.
On Track
Delivery resumed
Revised, credible delivery schedule established and maintained for the remainder of the program.
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