Insights for IT Negotiations

Nearly every enterprise has at least one relationship with a SaaS cloud provider. Unfortunately, cloud vendors such as Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, Microsoft, etc., often take actions or communicate in ways that frustrate enterprise cloud customers and potentially even harm the relationship. In this podcast, Practice Leader Adam Mansfield, discusses the complaints he most often hears from IT, Line of Business and Procurement executives at enterprises paying for SaaS cloud subscriptions.

Oracle’s Q3 FY’21 earnings call made headlines after Larry Ellison touted cloud growth while making a dig at SAP. He stated that over 100 new customers who either fully or partially moved to Oracle’s cloud products had switched over from SAP. He went on to say that SAP’s customers are “up-for-grabs” because SAP has not rewritten any of its software for the cloud, essentially saying they are not a true cloud provider. In this podcast, Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s Oracle Practice Leader, goes into more detail about the significance of Ellison’s comments and what the results of the earnings call means for Oracle and its customers. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

Salesforce had yet another strong quarter and a strong year despite the challenges the pandemic presented. With 24% growth in full year revenue, Salesforce achieved its longtime goal to become a $21B company. In the earnings call, Benioff talked about how they were set up ahead of the pandemic and how relying on their own products, enabled them to be successful. They also posted an impressive 40% growth for their biggest driver of revenue, “Salesforce platform and Other”. The earnings call presented a lot that customers need to pay attention to moving forward such as the fact that Salesforce is raising its full year 2022 revenue guidance by 200M, projecting they are going to see 21% growth to become a $25.75B company this time next year (which includes closing the Slack deal). Once the Slack merger is approved, they are going to continue to build Slack into more of their products. They also raised their FY22 Q1 guidance by $170M. Overall, Salesforce’s pipeline is strong and built on top itself over the year. Salesforce will continue to invest in building out its sales team to keep up with demand. In this podcast, Practice Leader Adam Mansfield, discusses the key takeaways customers should be aware of and how they can start preparing for Salesforce’s inevitably aggressive sales push of Customer 360, especially as Salesforce works to justify their record-breaking $27.7B acquisition of Slack, as well as the earlier acquisitions of Tableau and Mulesoft. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/37hFkMV

Workday is looking to fill out their product portfolio through acquisitions as opposed to going out and buying market share which is a strategy Oracle once used back in the early 2000s. Peakon will allow Workday to gather data on employee engagement, diversity & inclusion, health & wellbeing, as well as company culture. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s Practice Leader for Workday, discusses more about this $700M acquisition and how it ties into Workday’s VIBE Central dashboard which launched in 2020. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/37crDix

If you are considering Oracle and you begin to evaluate an Oracle Fusion HCM proposal, it is important that you insist on full pricing transparency.  This will enable you to conduct your due diligence, build out some financial modeling, and evaluate different pricing scenarios. UpperEdge's Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, discusses three key terms to review in this podcast. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

ServiceNow had another strong quarter and year, beating expectations and landing even more customers spending over $1M per year. While ServiceNow’s revenue is still heavily coming from its IT Workflows solutions (ITSM, ITOM, ITBM, GRC (now IRM), and Security Operations, etc.), ServiceNow continues to gain adoption of Customer Workflows (CSM, Field Service Management) and Employee Workflows (HR Service Delivery). They have also seen significant growth in Creator Workflows (Now Platform App Engine and IntegrationHub). In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where ServiceNow will focus moving forward and the pitches he expects them to make as they work to reach their $10B revenue target. He also shares how enterprise customers could potentially take advantage of key insights from the earnings call in their upcoming ServiceNow negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

Microsoft had a strong Q2, crushing revenue expectations, while continuing to rely heavily on its commercial cloud offerings (e.g., Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, LinkedIn, etc.). Commercial Cloud revenue ($167B) was up 34%. In this podcast, Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where Microsoft is focusing specifically such as ramping Azure consumption, moving more enterprise customers to the most robust all-in cloud bundle, Microsoft 365 E5, and selling more Dynamics 365 solutions centered around the value derived not just from the Dynamics 365 business application but the complete Microsoft commercial cloud offering that can be leveraged. He also shares how enterprise customers could potentially take advantage of key insights from the earnings call in their upcoming Microsoft year-end (June) negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Many Microsoft enterprise customers are about to embark on their first renewal negotiation since adopting the all-in cloud bundle, Microsoft 365. Many will be faced with significant challenges as the appropriate contractual and commercial arrangement, including pricing, was not previously put in place. The good news is, there is still a path forward that can result in an optimized and improved go-forward contractual and commercial relationship with Microsoft. In this podcast, Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, covers the common challenges enterprises face in their Microsoft 365 renewal negotiations and how best to overcome them. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX Related Blog: https://bit.ly/3foRDLR

Justin Parker, UpperEdge's Practice Director discusses how to best identify, assess and analyze potential IT cost optimization opportunities. Earlier this year Justin co-hosted a webcast: “Driving Effective Cost Reduction: It’s All-Hands-on-Deck!" where he covers this topic in-depth; this podcast is an excerpt from that webcast. Host: Justin Parker: https://bit.ly/3C895y4 IT Cost Optimization Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3s1fTcl

Justin Parker, UpperEdge's Practice Director, discusses the importance of an IT cost optimization framework. To truly be successful at optimizing your IT costs, your efforts cannot be seen as one-time events, it's what you have to do on ongoing basis—thus making a framework for your programs exceedingly important. Host: Justin Parker: https://bit.ly/3C895y4 IT Cost Optimization Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3s1fTcl