How does one run an enterprise-wide digital transformation in the middle of a pandemic? This IBM experience report focuses on providing insights from one of the largest Salesforce CRM transformations executed in the world. The objective of this program is to simplify the sales processes and increase IBM’s seller time in front of clients. From an execution standpoint, the program required Salesforce platform customization, architecture design, environment setup, data integration, and frequent tooling effort following an agile mindset. All of this, including the people ecosystem embracing work-from-home, had to come together to handle an aggressive timeline for global rollout. This report deep dives into uncovering elements from a program management framework adopted precisely for such fast-track delivery. It sheds light on social elements, such as team set-up, culture, and governance as well as technical elements involving agile process-based delivery, architecture, and engineering practices.

Ashay is a Product Owner at IBM, where he leads the development of enterprise-wide CRM platform that has won multiple international awards for product management and customer engagement. He is a PMI certified associate in project management (CAPM) and an IBM enterprise design thinking practitioner, with skills in agile methodologies, product ownership, and software project management.

He holds a Doctorate in Information Systems from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, with a focus on agile practices in distributed software teams. He has conducted case studies at global MNCs, such as Intel, GE, Mindtree & Thoughtworks, and published several journal articles, book chapters as well as conference papers on the topic. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge and insights on agile leadership, transformation, and innovation at various industry and academic forums, such as Australasian Conference on Information Systems, ACM Computers & People Research Conference, Agile India, Agile Leadership Summit, Agility Today Unconference, Global Inclusion Online Forum, India Agile Week and Software Product Management Summit.