Insights for IT Negotiations

ServiceNow’s FY24 Q3 subscription revenue came in at $2.72B, representing 23% growth year-over-year while, once again, beating guidance and analyst expectations. ServiceNow also raised their full year FY24 subscription revenue guidance, now expecting somewhere between $10.65B and $10.66B, about a 23% growth. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow over the course of the upcoming year as the vendor does everything it can to enhance their position as a leader in the highly competitive GenAI and “AI Agents” space.  More specifically, ServiceNow will continue to be focused on ramping upgrades and adoption of “Pro Plus” while also continuing to upsell and cross sell their current customers and adding net new logos. Adam also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow’s clear goals tied to particular industries and product adoptions during their upcoming ServiceNow negotiations and renewals. For more innovative IT sourcing and risk mitigation insights, subscribe to the UpperEdge newsletter and follow UpperEdge on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Welcome to Insights for IT Negotiations, a podcast by UpperEdge, a leading IT sourcing, negotiation, and project execution advisory firm. Join John Belden, UpperEdge’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, and Kylie Chisholm, UpperEdge’s Marketing Manager, every other week as they share valuable insights to help you maximize the value of your key IT relationships. This week, John and Kylie are talking with UpperEdge’s expert Workday advisors, Jeff Lazarto and Erwann Couesbot, about the ways you can strategically elevate your Workday negotiations to maximize success. Jeff and Erwann discuss Workday licensing basics, key financial and commercial terms, and how Gen AI could impact your Workday negotiation strategy moving forward. Resources: ON-DEMAND WEBINAR – Elevate Your Workday Negotiations to Maximize Success BLOG – Evaluating Workday’s LDP: Critical Insights for Small & Mid-Sized Businesses COMPLIMENTARY ASSESSMENT – SmartDeal by UpperEdge For a more tailored conversation around your Workday relationship and goals, explore our Workday Advisory Services to see how UpperEdge can help. For more innovative IT sourcing and risk mitigation insights, subscribe to the UpperEdge newsletter and follow UpperEdge on LinkedIn and Twitter.

In this discussion, Adam Mansfield, a Salesforce expert advisor, reveals insights from the recent Dreamforce conference and the game's new player: Agentforce. He explains how this AI-powered feature can enhance productivity by automating routine tasks. The conversation also dives into pricing strategies, highlighting the shift towards consumption-based models and their implications for client negotiations. Adam emphasizes the importance of understanding these dynamics as businesses approach Salesforce renewals, ensuring they optimize their investments while navigating the evolving landscape.

Welcome to Insights for IT Negotiations, a podcast by UpperEdge, a leading IT sourcing, negotiation, and project execution advisory firm. Join John Belden, UpperEdge’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, and Kylie Chisholm, UpperEdge’s Marketing Manager, every other week as they share valuable insights to help you maximize the value of your key IT relationships. This week, John and Kylie are taking a deep dive into the various Generative AI platforms, specifically AWS SageMaker, Microsoft Azure AI and Nvidia AI Enterprise. John breaks down what each of these platforms offer, how they compare to and differ from one another, and the pricing structure for each platform to help you make the most informed decision in your evaluations. Resources: PODCAST –9 Predictions for Generative AI in ERP Implementations ON-DEMAND WEBINAR –Vendor AI-Enabled Delivery Models: Extracting Value from Your IT Suppliers BLOG – Generative AI: Reshaping SI Engagements and the Client Advantage For a more tailored conversation around your organization’s AI challenges and goals, reach out today to chat with our expert advisors. For more innovative IT sourcing and risk mitigation insights, subscribe to the UpperEdge newsletter and follow UpperEdge on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Salesforce’s Q1 FY25 total revenue came in at $9.325B, representing an 8% growth year-over-year. This came in slightly above the $9.225B expected by analysts. Operating Margin came in at 33.7%, beating the analyst expected 31.94%. While Salesforce did raise their FY25 operating margin guidance to 32.8%, they also maintained their expected single digit (8%-9%) revenue guidance for FY25, citing a predicted deceleration in license revenue growth for the back half of the year. In addition to revenue numbers, it was also announced during the earnings call that CFO Amy Weaver will be stepping down. It is clear from the earnings call that CEO Marc Benioff and COO Brian Millham will push their sales organization to get customers to start using their Agentforce AI offerings once it becomes available. Agentforce AI, along with Salesforce’s Data Cloud solution, will be aggressively pushed on customers to help Salesforce meet their revenue goals. In this podcast, Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what Salesforce’s earnings mean for customers and what customers should expect from Salesforce as they push through their upcoming negotiations and prepare for Dreamforce. In addition, Adam provides his perspective on how best to prepare for Salesforce’s aggressive push to get customers to adopt their AI solutions and Data Cloud. For more innovative IT sourcing and risk mitigation insights, subscribe to the UpperEdge newsletter and follow UpperEdge on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Welcome to Insights for IT Negotiations, a podcast by ⁠UpperEdge⁠, a leading IT sourcing, negotiation, and project execution advisory firm. Join John Belden, UpperEdge’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, and Kylie Chisholm, UpperEdge’s Marketing Manager, every other week as they share valuable insights to help you maximize the value of your key IT relationships. This week, John and Kylie chatted with ⁠Sam Bayaa, the Practice Leader for UpperEdge's Project Execution Advisory Services, to discuss how digital transformation implementation methods are affected by GenerativeAI. Sam speaks to the risks associated with implementing digital transformations in the age of AI, how companies can successfully mitigate those risks, and how leaders can manager these implementations effectively to ensure success. Resources Mentioned: PODCAST - Predictions for Generative AI’s Impact on ERP Implementations – A Mid-Year Update BLOG –⁠ Don’t Become an ERP Horror Story – Implement Solid Risk Management BLOG - Fear of Premature Escalation (FPE): Diagnose and Treat this Silent ERP Program Killer ON-DEMAND WEBINAR – ⁠Digital Transformations: Exposing and Mitigating Program Risks Other Resources: UPCOMING WEBINAR – Elevate Your Workday Negotiations to Maximize Success Explore our ⁠Project Execution Advisory Services ⁠to see how we help our clients optimize their Oracle deals. For a more tailored conversation around your organization’s Oracle relationship and goals, ⁠reach out today⁠ to chat with our expert advisors. For more innovative IT sourcing and risk mitigation insights, ⁠subscribe⁠ to the UpperEdge newsletter and follow UpperEdge on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ and ⁠Twitter⁠.

Microsoft announced their FY24 Q4 earnings recently, and the total Q4 revenue was reported as $64.7B, better than the $64.39B analysts were expecting. The critically important Microsoft Cloud revenue, which includes Azure, O365 Commercial, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, and other cloud product, came in at $36.8B, representing a 21% increase year-over-year. Microsoft’s go-forward success and revenue growth (ARPU growth) will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft’s ability get more customers to adopt their AI solutions (Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Service, GitHub Copilot, and Azure OpenAI) and increase volume over time. It is also heavily tied to Microsoft customers migrating to the costly all-in Microsoft 365 E5 suite.  Microsoft also must continue to focus on getting customers to accelerate their Azure consumption and, at the very least, maintain current Unified Support. In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how enterprise customers can take advantage of Microsoft’s needs and focus areas to ensure the right deal is struck at the negotiation table. He also covers what enterprise customers should expect from Microsoft as they prepare for their renewal negotiations. For more innovative IT sourcing and risk mitigation insights, subscribe to the UpperEdge newsletter and follow UpperEdge on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Welcome to Insights for IT Negotiations, a podcast by ⁠UpperEdge⁠, a leading IT sourcing, negotiation, and project execution advisory firm. Join John Belden, UpperEdge’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, and Kylie Chisholm, UpperEdge’s Marketing Manager, every other week as they share valuable insights to help you maximize the value of your key IT relationships. This week, John and Kylie reflected on some predictions John made at the beginning of 2024 regarding how Generative AI would impact ERP implementations. John provides critical insights into data privacy, recent litigation, and SI delivery models and shares how your top IT suppliers may be using AI to win your business. Resources Mentioned: PODCAST –⁠9 Predictions for Generative AI in ERP Implementations SAPPHIRE CONTENT - Sapphire 2024: What We Learned from SAP's Annual Conference Other Resources: ON-DEMAND WEBINAR - Vendor AI-Enabled Delivery Models: Extracting Value from Your IT Suppliers⁠⁠ BLOG - Generative AI: Reshaping SI Engagements and the Client Advantage For a more tailored conversation around your organization’s AI challenges and goals, ⁠reach out today⁠ to chat with our expert advisors. For more innovative IT sourcing and risk mitigation insights, ⁠subscribe⁠ to the UpperEdge newsletter and follow UpperEdge on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ and ⁠Twitter⁠.

Welcome to Insights for IT Negotiations, a podcast by UpperEdge, a leading IT sourcing, negotiation, and project execution advisory firm. Join John Belden, UpperEdge’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, and Kylie Chisholm, UpperEdge’s Marketing Manager, every other week as they share valuable insights to help you maximize the value of your key IT relationships. This week, John and Kylie chatted with Shane Griffin, one of UpperEdge’s Oracle advisors, to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Oracle's Universal Credits model. These licensing models are notoriously tricky to unravel, but understand the key components of the services can help you effectively evaluate and negotiate with Oracle. This episode gives you the strategies you need to better understand and leverage these models. Resources Mentioned: UPCOMING WEBINAR – Vendor AI-Enabled Delivery Models: Extracting Value from Your IT Suppliers ON-DEMAND WEBINAR – Unraveling Oracle’s OCI and Universal Credit Model Other Resources: BLOG POST – 5 Tips for Negotiating with Oracle PODCAST – Oracle Q4 FY24 Earnings: How Customers Can Navigate OCI Growth Opportunities Explore our Oracle Advisory Services to see how we help our clients optimize their Oracle deals. For a more tailored conversation around your organization’s Oracle relationship and goals, reach out today to chat with our expert advisors. For more innovative IT sourcing and risk mitigation insights, subscribe to the UpperEdge newsletter and follow UpperEdge on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Welcome to Insights for IT Negotiations, a podcast by UpperEdge, a leading IT sourcing, negotiation, and project execution advisory firm. Join John Belden, UpperEdge’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, and Kylie Chisholm, UpperEdge’s Marketing Manager, every other week as they share valuable insights to help you maximize the value of your key IT relationships. This week, John and Kylie chatted with Michael Wesseler, one of UpperEdge's SAP advisors, to discuss what we learned at SAP Sapphire this year. Michael discusses SAP's RISE and AI strategy, some of the questions customers still have after the conference, and ways to leverage what you learned at the negotiation table. Resources Mentioned: UPCOMING WEBINAR - Vendor AI-Enabled Delivery Models: Extracting Value from Your IT Suppliers ON-DEMAND WEBINAR - Unraveling Oracle's OCI and Universal Credit Model Other Resources: LINKEDIN NEWSLETTER - Pre-Sapphire Insights LINKEDIN NEWSLETTER - Post-Sapphire Insights ON-DEMAND WEBINAR - Navigating the Inevitable Journey to SAP RISE Explore our SAP Advisory Services to see how we help our clients optimize their SAP deals. For a more tailored conversation around your organization's SAP relationship and goals, reach out today to chat with our expert advisors.