Folding an acquired Salesforce org into the master org, in a month

What was going on

IRIS was running a £2 million programme to consolidate 50 CRM and ERP systems into a single Salesforce and NetSuite solution. After it acquired an HR business with its own Salesforce implementation, all that data and those files needed to move into a new master org.

The legacy org was close to renewal with a two-year minimum term. To avoid unnecessary cost, the business chose to finish the migration within a month.

What I was asked to do

Lead the migration project from analysis to a ready-to-load target.

• Run a full business analysis of the acquired org, covering architecture, data inventory and key processes
• Design a solution to configure the target Salesforce and NetSuite environments for the new data
• Write a data migration plan and risk assessment and get approvals from stakeholders and the technical design authority
• Configure the target systems so the migration team could transfer everything

What I did

I documented the acquired org and mapped its data and processes to the target schema, then worked with stakeholders and technical authorities on the design. I configured the target org, added fields and adjusted page layouts, and made sure it worked with NetSuite. I cleansed the data, set up the migration tools and ran several sandbox test cycles to check data integrity, performance and sales workflows. I finished by training users and writing documentation.

What changed

More than ten years of historical records, 1TB of data, moved within the month, and the costly renewal was avoided.

• Sales processes from the acquired business consolidated into one org
• Reporting became uniform across the group
• Decommissioning the legacy org contributed to the programme’s £2M savings goal
• Senior management commended the delivery for efficient execution and risk mitigation

Doing it responsibly

I put strict access controls and encryption in place for the transfers, ran a risk assessment for data loss or corruption, and audited regularly for accuracy and completeness. After the migration I reviewed compliance with GDPR and local data protection law.