Author: David Masri Founder & CEO

When I started Gluon, I knew there was not enough Salesforce data talent on the market, in fact there’s not enough Salesforce or Data talent on the market. My plan was always to develop the talent that my clients need and be personally involved in that development. Not just training, but coaching. This has always been my style of management, and the truth is, I quite enjoy it.

But building great talent is not enough, for us (Gluon) to do great things for our clients, we need to build a great team, who understands Data and Salesforce. Who can work as a unit, help each other out, trade ideas, learn from each other, cover for each other when someone has and emergency (or just needs a day off), and become friends.

This proved to be harder than I anticipated, for a few reasons, but primarily:

• As a small company it takes time before you can reach a critical mass of employees.
• To really become friendly with others and build solid working relationships, people need to, on occasion, be in the same room as them. Now I’m not saying this can’t be done working from home, its just much harder. Having a local office to go to, should you choose, is important.
• Having a local manager who understands the culture and can act as an intermediary has huge benefits.

I figured this out early last year, as I was struggling to build my team, so I decided to change strategy. Rather than build from the ground up, I would partner with a firm that has a critical mass of employees, local offices, a caring manager, and I would build a team within that firm that I could hold to my high standards and train them in all the best practices I have learned over the years (and outlined in my book).

I’m proud to announce that I have found that partner in VFG Consulting and manager in Guzmán Furtado! I have been working with Guzmán and VFG for nearly a year now, and I’m thrilled to take this relationship to the next level. I have joined them as a Partner/Strategic advisor to help them build out their Azure, Data and Analytics Practice – in addition to building out my team of Salesforce data experts.

I have seen a huge uptick in the need for everything Azure (SQL Data warehouse, Data factory, Logic Apps, etc.) combined with Salesforce. This is absolutely a huge win for our (Gluon’s) existing and future clients, as we help them tackle the most complex Salesforce data projects.