The Cost of a Shaky Foundation

If your data is inaccurate or unreliable, your systems will be too.

That may sound obvious, but it’s one of the most common issues we see with companies investing in Salesforce and digital commerce platforms. Leaders often invest in automation, AI, and analytics—but overlook the condition of the data those systems rely on first.

And when the foundation is shaky, the cracks start to show—fast.
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Data Should Accelerate Growth—Not Hold You Back

Think about everything that powers your commerce operation:

• Product catalogs
  
  
• Pricing tiers and discount logic
  
  
• Customer and account hierarchies
  
  
• Inventory, fulfillment, and order status
  
  
• Marketing and personalization data
  
  

When this data is fragmented, outdated, or spread across disconnected systems, it becomes a blocker—not a catalyst. Even the best technology stack can’t overcome messy data. In fact, it tends to magnify the problems.
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Not Sure Where You Stand? Start Here.

Before you roll out a new capability or double down on AI, take time to assess your current state. Here are a few hard questions we recommend asking:

• Where does our data live today—and who owns it?
  
  
• How confident are we in its accuracy?
  
  
• What parts of the business rely on this data to make decisions?
  
  
• Are we cleaning, deduplicating, or enriching our data regularly?
  
  
• What happens when a product is updated or retired—does that change cascade everywhere it should?
  
  
• Do we know which systems are out of sync—and what that’s costing us?
  
  
• Are we maintaining taxonomy and structure across teams?
  
  

Even getting 60–70% clarity on these questions can shift your approach.
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What Good Data Looks Like

Companies that want to move from reactive to strategic should be working toward a data foundation that is:

• Clean – No duplicate SKUs, no conflicting customer records, no outdated pricing.
  
  
• Available – Data is accessible across the right teams and systems.
  
  
• Accurate – Continuously validated, not just reviewed once and assumed correct.
  
  
• Organized – Governed and structured in a way that enables growth.
  
  
• Connected – Synced across ERP, Salesforce, OMS, and commerce platforms.
  
  

You don’t need perfection overnight. But you do need a plan.
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From Medium Readiness to Market Readiness

If you landed in the "medium" range on our Data Readiness survey, that means your business isn’t broken—but it’s not ready to scale, either. You likely have untapped value sitting in your systems—and without some strategic cleanup, future projects (like AI, Agentforce, or personalization) are going to stall or underperform.

Now’s the time to course-correct.
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Where Saltbox Comes In

We help Salesforce customers get their data house in order—before they bet big on the next thing. That can include:

• Data cleanup and deduplication
  
  
• Taxonomy design and product structuring
  
  
• ERP and Salesforce harmonization
  
  
• Strategy and governance playbooks
  
  
• Readiness for AI and Agentforce initiatives
  
  

You don’t need to rebuild from scratch. You just need the right plan and the right partner.
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Your data should be a growth engine—not a liability.

Let’s figure out where to start.

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