Salesforce is one of the largest customer relationship management (CRM) platform providers, with more than 150,000 customers worldwide across various industries. Along with the growing utilization of Salesforce comes volumes of important Salesforce data and metadata, which you cannot afford to lose. While Salesforce offers native backup capabilities, they simply may not be comprehensive enough to support your unique business needs – which is why many organizations look to third-party Salesforce backup solutions.
However, picking the wrong Salesforce backup vendor might do more harm than good – with the consequences going beyond simply losing money.
When You Pick the Wrong Salesforce Backup Vendor
By understanding these risks, you can make more informed decisions to ensure your Salesforce data remains secure, available, and recoverable when it matters most.
Here are some hidden costs of picking the wrong Salesforce backup vendor.
Prolonged Downtime
Without regular and proper Salesforce data backups, businesses are vulnerable to operational disruptions.
In the event of a data loss or an outage, not having proper or regular backups can lead to time-consuming data restoration efforts — if the data can still be restored at all – and cause severe business disruption. For example, the inability to access customer data on Salesforce could hinder sales activities, customer engagement, and order processing. And sadly, prolonged downtime is only the tip of the iceberg.
Damaged Reputation
Downtime and data loss incidents can damage a company’s reputation; customers and investors may perceive it as a sign of poor operational management or inadequate data protection practices. If a company’s backup vendor lacks proper security measures, it increases the risk of data breaches and losses.
Depending on the scale of impact on business operations, failure to have proper backup leading to downtime and loss of data could result in negative publicity, social media backlash, and a loss of credibility.
“Losing that data would be a big problem because customers trust us to keep their information secure and have it when they need it,” said Vip Thong, Senior Systems Administrator at Vision Australia.
A leading national provider of blindness and low vision services in Australia, Vision Australia had 330 GB of data in Salesforce, which they have recently started using as their main CRM platform. To ensure the organization protects their client relationship on Salesforce, Vision Australia turned to AvePoint. According to Thong, “With AvePoint, I don’t have to wonder if it’s going to exist a few years from now.” Learn more about Vision Australia’s Salesforce backup story by reading our case study.
Compliance Risks
Many industries are subject to regulatory requirements regarding data retention, privacy, and security. Specific sectors have set regulations for storing information, especially on cloud platforms, including Salesforce.
For example, accounting firms are required to keep records related to audits and reviews for seven years. Failure to comply with these regulations due to a lack of data backup or poor backup solutions leading to data loss can result in legal consequences and/or hefty fines.
If you are a public sector agency, check if your Salesforce backup provider is FedRAMP authorized. This will ensure they meet high security standards and provide you with a solution that is robust, resilient, and safe enough for sensitive information.
Poor Data Integrity
When a company makes changes or updates to datasets, and the backup solution fails to capture the latest backup accurately, it compromises the integrity of company data. In worse cases, a wrong backup vendor can cause data corruption during a backup or restoration process. In effect, it can undermine the company’s ability to provide accurate information to customers and make informed business decisions.
Make sure you check if your Salesforce backup vendor possesses sufficient expertise and resources to implement robust backup processes. And if you customize your production environment in any capacity, make sure the Salesforce backup vendor can implement both data and metadata restores properly.
IT Support Overload
Unlike other CRM tools that are confined within the limits of either the Sales or Support team, Salesforce is a far-reaching solution that’s deeply rooted across organizations that use it. IDC found that Salesforce customers also deploy the solution to various departments, not just Sales teams.
Interestingly, at least 50% of non-Sales and non-IT teams also use Salesforce, including Customer Support, Finance, and Operations. And when all these departments require quick restore capabilities, they could potentially flood the IT team with tickets, placing additional burden onto already overloaded admins.
That is, unless your Salesforce backup vendor empowers end-users to restore data they accidentally delete – a feature that not all vendors can provide.
Stunted Growth Initiatives
While Salesforce is primarily leveraged as a customer-facing tool, IDC also found that users deploy it to advance various areas of the business:
- 30% for customer relationship
- 25% for operational improvement
- 23% for employee productivity
- 22% for R&D and product development
So, if you use a Salesforce sandbox for testing and training – or anything outside of standard CRM workflows – make sure the Salesforce backup vendor you choose supports the backup of multiple orgs and sandboxes.
Ensuring you have the right Salesforce backup vendor and approach, therefore, improves customer relations and helps organizations to pursue growth by applying continuous improvement initiatives across departments. And in today’s unpredictable business landscape focused on profitable growth, this makes Salesforce backup vendor selection even more crucial.
To learn more on what you should look for in a Salesforce backup and restore vendor, explore our free checklist now:
AvePoint: Your Best-in-Class Salesforce Data Backup Partner
Potential risks of losing your essential Salesforce data and metadata underscore how selecting a reputable and reliable Salesforce data backup vendor is vital to ensure comprehensive data protection, seamless operations, and the business’s overall success.
To ensure your Salesforce data is backed up properly, AvePoint’s Cloud Backup for Salesforce provides a comprehensive backup of your Salesforce data and metadata. With Cloud Backup for Salesforce, you can:
- Prevent Salesforce data loss. Have automated backups once a day, plus the option to schedule additional backups. The backup process automatically begins as soon as you log in to AvePoint.
- Ensure comprehensive recovery. Utilize granular data and metadata restores at the organization, object, record, and field levels, or even entire sandboxes, while keeping the “parent” and “child” relationships intact.
- Shorten downtime. In the event of downtimes, efficiently capture data and metadata for faster recovery, fully exporting data in minutes.
- Meet regulatory compliance requirements. Gain access to search and export functions that allow you to simplify information-gathering requests to meet regulatory policies.
Discover why AvePoint is your best partner for protecting your Salesforce data today. Visit our product page for more information.
