A few weeks ago, I had an interesting exchange with Amit about Salesforce cleanup.
One point by Amit Asthana really resonated with me:
"Innovation is usually constrained by accumulated friction rather than a lack of ideas."
After 15+ years working on Salesforce implementations, CRM transformations, and enterprise programs, he has seen the same pattern over and over again.
The backlog is full of good ideas:
Agentforce initiatives
AI & Copilot use cases
Customer portals
Process automation
Data quality improvements
But they never take off because the runway is congested.
The biggest obstacles are rarely a lack of budget or imagination.
They're things like:
- Legacy automation
- Validation rule sprawl
- Approval bottlenecks
- Excessive manual testing
- Security complexity
- Unclear ownership
Some of the highest ROI projects he has ever seen were not new implementations, they were focused cleanup initiatives.
Not years-long transformation programs.
Just removing enough friction so the organization could deliver faster again.
Before funding the next big Salesforce initiative, ask: What is slowing down delivery today?
Cleanup first. Innovation follows!
Credit to Amit Asthana for the original discussion and the excellent infographic that inspired this reflection.
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