Salesforce Admin vs Salesforce Developer- Why You Need Both to Succeed as a Salesforce Organization

Salesforce is one of the most powerful and dynamic business solutions in the world.  Managing this growing platform takes more than one role and skill set in your organization.

As an end user, the resources you need to start looking for are Salesforce developers and administrators. The roles and responsibilities of a Salesforce developer and administrator crossover to some extent, but you need them to work hand in hand to bring out the best results from your Salesforce investment. 

By the end of this blog, you will understand the role of a Salesforce developer and administrator and how you can hire them depending on your business requirements. 

Who is a Salesforce Administrator?

An administrator manages your Salesforce instance to ensure flawless operations and  customizes and builds out various functions for your business. Essentially what that means is an administrator will gather requirements from the stakeholders and understand how to customize Salesforce to  fit your company’s unique needs. They make use of declarative tools available within the Salesforce platform depending on the products and licenses that you buy from Salesforce.

When Do You Need a Salesforce Administrator?

• You need a point of contact within the business to understand support requirements and process improvement requests.
• Your implementation partner has now completed your Salesforce project and you need a knowledgeable person to drive day-to-day operations.

Benefits of Hiring a Salesforce Administrator

Salesforce administrators are champions who can efficiently manage the entire Salesforce org.  They know their org and are aware of how to create the ‘Salesforce impact’ across all departments. Hence they play an important role in taking care of the business side of your Salesforce organization. 

• They act as the key drivers in aligning all departments to new initiatives. For example Salesforce releases new features three times a year and it is important to understand whether these features are relevant to your existing process. Salesforce admins delegate this information to the right people at the right time. 
• They will act as the primary point of contact for your business and your stakeholders to better streamline your operations. 
• They are quick on their feet to solve any user problems, even if it’s a simple case of forgetting a Salesforce password. 

Various Titles Under Salesforce Administrator

• Salesforce Support Analyst
• Salesforce Functional Analyst
• Salesforce Analyst

Expected Certifications From a Salesforce Administrator

• Salesforce Certified Administrator
• Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator
• Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder

Who is a Salesforce Developer 

A deeply knowledgeable administrator will be able to solve 9 out of 10 business use cases using point and click tools on Salesforce and without writing a single line of code. However the remaining 1 percent may still require some custom code. This can be complex and time consuming. This is where a Salesforce developer comes into the picture. A Salesforce developer integrates Salesforce with other systems and works on customizations according to requirements. They require a broad understanding of various development areas such as data modeling, platform development, Salesforce app customization, Apex programming, Visualforce basics, lightning framework and so on.

When Do you Need a Salesforce Developer

• Your environment requires complex customization 
• Integration is becoming super important for your org’s next stage of growth. 

Benefits of Hiring a Salesforce Developer

• A Salesforce developer effectively customizes Salesforce features and functionalities to make it an intuitive platform as per user requirements. 
• Salesforce developers help extend the power of Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud and other modules of Salesforce to deliver best business results. 
• A development pro can answer all tech related questions posed by non-technical departments, It reduces the time spent on team onboarding, creating documentation and even helps in creating better sales pipelines.

Various Titles under Salesforce Developer

• Salesforce Technical Consultant
• Salesforce Engineer
• Salesforce Programmer

Expected Certifications From a Salesforce Developer

• Salesforce Platform Developer I
• Salesforce Platform Developer II

Would you like to discover more opportunities with Salesforce? Talk to us  and we will make the best Salesforce Admin and Developer service available to you.

References:

https://talent-hub.com.au/first-salesforce-employee-roles-responsibilities/
https://www.salesforceben.com/5-key-questions-about-hiring-a-salesforce-admin/