Uppercut Podcasts By Upperedge

Workday acquired Configure Price Quote (CPQ) software provider, Zimit, which will allow Workday to offer quote-to-cash process automation to companies in services industries. While Workday has been doing very well in their recent earnings and are continuing to build out their solution offerings, aggressive growth through acquisitions, hiring, partnerships, and geographic expansion, can make it difficult to maintain the corporate culture that has been so integral to their success thus far. Workday Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, discusses what customers should expect and keep in mind as Workday continues to grow and make acquisitions. He also shares how these growth activities can present opportunities for customers to negotiate improved commercial terms and course-correct areas of their Workday relationship if needed. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3A6KOXt

Microsoft recently announced they are going to be increasing many Office 365 suites as well as the all-in cloud bundle, Microsoft 365 E3 pricing. Beyond increasing the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), there are several other motivating factors driving Microsoft to make this decision. In this podcast, Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses why Microsoft is hitting their enterprise customers with this price increase and how customers need to start to prepare for what will be very challenging renewal discussions ahead. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Salesforce announced their FY22 Q2 earnings and they once again had another strong quarter, posting an impressive 23% revenue growth while also raising full year guidance by over $300M. On top of this, Salesforce once again reminded everyone how confident they are that they will hit $50B by FY26. Beyond the normal callouts to the strength of their product portfolio (the Customer 360) and the strong demand environment, each Salesforce executive made it a point to mention the very important role Slack is going to play in Salesforce’s success moving forward. In this podcast, Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where Salesforce will focus to accomplish these goals, including how they will position and use Slack as well as the tactics they will deploy to meet and exceed their $50B target. He also shares how enterprise customers can take advantage of some of these insights as they prepare for their upcoming Salesforce renewal negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Sales

Workday has received approval to sell their applications within the US Federal market and its Workday Government Cloud product is now listed on the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) marketplace. This is a huge opportunity for Workday who directly competes with Oracle in multiple areas. UpperEdge’s Workday Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, shares his thoughts on this significant milestone. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3fq96DV

Workday and Google announced a multi-year strategic partnership that will allow Workday applications to run on Google’s infrastructure. With both Workday and Google facing strong competition, this partnership and its joint go-to-market programs will create more sales and marketing channels that will help generate more opportunities and better position them to compete with the likes of Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, and AWS. In this podcast, Workday Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, discusses why this partnership makes sense (especially with Google Cloud under Thomas Kurian’s leadership) and how customers could benefit from the mash up. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3fq96DV

ServiceNow posted subscription revenue growth of 31%, beat previous guidance, and raised full year guidance. ServiceNow also increased the number of customers paying over $1M per year by 25%. Not only is ServiceNow clearly executing to their land and expand strategy, but they are also having success pushing more products into the portfolios of net new customers as well. In Q2, the average deal size for net new customers grew over 50%. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where ServiceNow will focus to accomplish their goal of growing from a $5B company to a $15B company. This includes a sales pitch tied to selling a solution made up of pieces of each of their workflows (e.g., IT Workflows, Customer & Employee Workflows, and Creator Workflows) and a new purchasing vehicle, the Now Buying Program. He also shares how customers could potentially take advantage of some of these key insights in their upcoming ServiceNow negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: h

Microsoft once again beat both top and bottom line expectations as well as prior business segment revenue guidance. It is clear that Microsoft’s overall success and ability to achieve $60B in profit, is being driven by the success of their Commercial Cloud. Moving forwards, customers will heavily rely on Commercial Cloud and the products that make it up (Office 365, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, LinkedIn, Azure, Power Platform, etc.). As covered by both Satya Nadella and Amy Hood during the earnings call, Microsoft is going to push the full “stack” of cloud offerings and pitch it as the only solution for today’s businesses. In this podcast, Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how Microsoft’s focus on selling customers as many pieces of their cloud as possible will provide an opportunity for customers to optimize their go-forward commercial relationship. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Oracle announced a new rewards program where customers who migrate or move their workloads over to Oracle’s Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) can receive a 25% reduction on their on-premise support costs. For example, if a customer consumes $1M in OCI credits, they will be discounted $250K towards their on-premise support costs. While this may sound great, there is a potential catch. Before enrolling, customers should ensure this is a program they can really take advantage of. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s Oracle practice leader, discusses the caveats to be aware of and gives more information on Oracle’s OCI discounting in this podcast. For more details, read the related blog, Oracle Support Rewards: 4 Caveats Every Customer Should Know, here: https://bit.ly/3zUXRvz Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p Related Blog: https://bit.ly/3yjYaPn

On June 9th, 2021, Oracle released its new Java Management Service (JMS). The free service is meant to help customers track, monitor, and optimize their Java usage across the entire enterprise. While it may sound great on the surface, using JMS could put customers at a greater risk of being audited by Oracle. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s Oracle Practice Leader, speaks more about Oracle’s JMS and the risks it poses in this podcast and in his blog, Java Management Service (JMS) – Beware of Oracle’s Trojan Horse Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p Related Blog: https://bit.ly/3rSV8iH

In their recent Q1 earnings call, Co-CEOs Chano Fernandez and Aneel Bhusri spent a good amount of time talking about Workday’s growth goals and where they are focusing their efforts. First, hey are looking to increase their global work force by more than 20% (2,500 new hires by the end of 2021). Second, and this is a longer-term goal, is to get to $10B in annual revenue; they are currently forcasting $4.5B for 2021. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s Workday Practice Leader, gives insight into why these focus areas are important to Workday, but more so, the impact it will have on Workday customers. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3A6KOXt Related Blog: https://bit.ly/3A7hUq9

Salesforce announced their Q1 FY22 earnings and they once again had another strong quarter. CEO, Mark Benioff, mentioned that they are not only raising FY22 revenue guidance to $26B, but that this $250M increase is the largest raise they have ever had. On top of this, Salesforce once again reminded everyone how confident they are that they will hit $50B by FY26. Salesforce’s “super strong” pipeline and ability to hit an all-time high in 7-figure-plus transactions with more than 4 clouds on average is driving Salesforce’s success. In this podcast, Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where Salesforce will focus to accomplish these goals and the tactics they will deploy to reach their $26B revenue target this year and $50B target four years from now. He also shares how enterprise customers could potentially take advantage of some of these key insights in their upcoming Salesforce negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Serv

Last week, ServiceNow held its virtual Financial Analyst Day event ahead of its annual Knowledge conference kick off. During it, ServiceNow laid out how they will grow from $5.5B in revenue at the end of 2021 to $15B in FY26. It all comes down to the tried-and-true SaaS vendor “land and expand” playbook. Beyond putting an emphasis on landing new customers, they are going to rely on growth, cross selling (i.e., pushing more products into customer portfolios) and upselling (i.e., pushing customers to the most robust and costly editions). In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where ServiceNow will focus to accomplish these goals and the tactics they will deploy to reach their $15B revenue target. He also shares how enterprise customers could potentially take advantage of some of these key insights in their upcoming ServiceNow negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

Workday has stated in earnings calls that it will be investing in accelerating pipeline growth and advancing their strategic product roadmaps. It will make investments in tuck-in acquisitions, enhancing development capabilities and in increasing marketing, branding, and sales campaigns. While customers could benefit from enhanced functionality on the product side, the investments in sales and marketing could create challenges for many customers while creating potential opportunities for others. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s Workday Practice Leader, discusses what he’s seeing in the market and how Workday’s investments can create leverage for some customers to negotiate more competitive pricing and better commercial terms. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/37crDix

ServiceNow had another strong quarter, exceeding high end revenue guidance and Wall Street estimates. On top of that, they now have over 1,100 customers paying over $1M per year, which represents an impressive 23% growth from last year. ServiceNow’s goal is clearly to expand customers’ portfolios and for net new customers to start out with as many products as possible from as many of their “workflows” as possible. This includes its IT Workflows product set (ITSM, ITOM, ITBM, GRC (now IRM), and Security Operations, etc.), their Customer & Employee Workflows (CSM, Field Service Management, HR Service Delivery, etc.) and their Creator Workflows. To accomplish this, they are using the “better together” solutions pitch which seems to be working. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where ServiceNow will focus moving forward and the tactics they will deploy to reach their $10B revenue target. He also shares how enterprise customers could potentially take advantage of

Microsoft had another strong quarter, beating both top and bottom line analyst estimates as well as prior revenue guidance. Microsoft continues to rely heavily ramping adoption of the products within Microsoft’s commercial cloud technology stack (e.g., Microsoft 365, Azure, Power Platform, Dynamics 365, LinkedIn, etc.) and has proven to be successful in doing so. Microsoft’s Commercial Cloud revenue came in at $17.7B for the quarter, which represented an astounding 33% growth. What does this mean for customers? In this podcast, Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where Microsoft is focusing specifically such as moving more enterprises to the most robust all-in cloud bundle, Microsoft 365 E5, and pushing customers to utilize as many Microsoft products as possible through an “industry solution” approach (e.g., Microsoft Cloud for Retail, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Financial Services and Non-Profit). He also shares how enterprise customers could potentially take advantage of key insights fro

We’re seeing a new twist on the dynamic of Oracle audits which has long been a source of fear and frustration among customers. As Oracle pushes their clients to adopt its more profitable cloud software solutions such as Fusion ERP and Autonomous Database, they are increasingly auditing existing software to find out-of-compliance situations and initiate a sales cycle to push cloud software packages as a way to remedy their customers’ “predicaments”. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdges’s Oracle Practice Leader, discusses the uptick we’ve seen in Oracle audits, how Oracle customers can prepare for them, and who likely is and isn’t at a risk of an audit in the near future. For more on this topic, read An Oracle Audit is a Sales Exercise in Disguise. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p Related Blog: https://bit.ly/3A16VhR

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 ye

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