Insights for IT Negotiations

Oracle reported a great quarter, with their stock price up over 13%. A significant amount of their growth this quarter was cloud related, with their cloud revenue up over 23%. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) revenue was also up 53%. Going forward, Oracle forecasts a tremendous amount of increase, including OCI growth at over 50% and total revenue growth at a double-digit rate. In this podcast, our Oracle Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, highlights some key growth opportunities for Oracle, including AI and cloud opportunities. He also breaks down how Oracle customers can use the vendor's clear goals as leverage in their upcoming negotiations. For a more in depth discussion on how to evaluate and negotiate OCI, register for next week's webinar here > https://upperedge.com/knowledge-center/webinars/event/unraveling-oracles-oci-and-universal-credit-model/ Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

Workday reported a strong quarter, with their revenue up 17% from the prior quarter and 18% year-over-year. However, this revenue is still down from the 20% growth they were experiencing in prior years. As a result, they have lowered their projection numbers for the remainder of the year. Workday is citing scrutiny on how money is being allocated for net new deals, something we are seeing happening across all software vendors. Customers are weary to take on larger transformation project and larger investments, especially when there is a lot of uncertainty in the market. Headcount growth was also cited as a reason for their lowered projection numbers. In this podcast, Workday Practice Leader Jeff Lazarto gives a high-level overview of the recent earnings results. He also maps out what to expect from Workday in the coming quarters as they try to accelerate revenue growth, especially for those clients in the public services, healthcare, and financial services industries. Lastly, he covers how customers can prepare for their upcoming Workday negotiations and renewals given this information. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3A6KOXt

Salesforce's Q1 FY25 total revenue came in at $9.13B, representing an 11% growth year-over-year. This was on the lower end of their guided range and came up short of the analyst expected $9.17B. Salesforce now expects their FY25 subscription and support revenue growth to come in slightly below 10% (Salesforce's better way of saying single digit). Elongated deal cycles, deal compression, and high levels of budget scrutiny have been cited as the driving factors to the slowed growth. It is clear from the earnings call that Salesforce, and the Salesforce account executives, need to turn things around; your Saleforce reps will be focused on getting customers to adopt Data Cloud and their GenAI offering, Einstein Copilot. They will also be leaning on price and packaging changes to drive revenue growth as well. 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, whether in term or at renewal. In addition, Adam provides his perspective on how best to prepare for Salesforce's aggressive push to upsell and cross sell their current customers. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Microsoft announced their FY24 Q3 earnings yesterday. Total revenue was reported as $61.9B, better than the $60.9B analysts were expecting. The critically important Microsoft Cloud revenue, which includes Azure, O365 Commercial, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365 and other cloud products, came in at $35.1B, representing a 23% increase year-over-year. Microsoft's Azure revenue grew 31% in the quarter, which is an acceleration from the prior quarter with 7 points coming from Microsoft's AI services. Microsoft's go-forward success and revenue growth will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft's ability to get more customers to adopt cloud products, AI solutions (Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Service, GitHub Copilot, and Azure OpenAI) and migrate to the costly all-in Microsoft 365 E5 suite. In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how 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 in-term (“early renewal”) or renewal negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

ServiceNow's Q1 FY24 subscription revenue came in at $2.523B, representing 25% growth year-over-year while also beating guidance and analyst expectations. ServiceNow also slightly raised their full year FY24 subscription revenue guidance, now expecting somewhere between $10.56B and $10.575B, which would represent 21.5 to 22% growth. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow over the course of the upcoming year as ServiceNow does everything it can to accelerate their GenAI product adoption (specifically ramping upgrades and adoption of “Pro Plus”) while also continuing to upsell and cross sell their current customers and adding net new logos. He also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow's clear goals during their upcoming ServiceNow negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

Oracle's Q3 2024 earnings call was released earlier this week, and it should come as no surprise that they continue to be laser-focused on the cloud. If you're an existing or prospective Oracle customer, you can benefit from Oracle's priorities in your upcoming negotiations. In this podcast, Oracle Practice Manager Shane Griffin gives a high-level overview of the recent earnings results and covers how customers can prepare for their upcoming Oracle negotiations and renewals given this information. Host: Shane Griffin: https://bit.ly/43ADl2V Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

Workday's FY24 revenue saw an impressive increase, with total revenue reaching $1.90 billion and marking a 17% year-over-year growth. This growth was slightly ahead of Workday's target and supported by an increase in net-new customers, ongoing focus on the healthcare sector and early renewals. In this podcast, Workday Practice Manager Erwann Couesbot gives a high-level overview of the recent earnings results. He also maps out what to expect from Workday in the coming year as they continue to accelerate growth internally and in the healthcare, higher education, and government sectors. Lastly, he covers how customers can prepare for their upcoming Workday negotiations and renewals given this information. Host: Erwann Couesbot: https://bit.ly/2WIKJdX Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2TTLjEO

Salesforce's FY24 total revenue came in at $34.9B, representing an 11% growth year-over-year. However, this did come in much lower than the 18% growth posted in FY23. Salesforce's FY25 guidance also represents a continued decline in growth, as the midpoint of Salesforce's forecasted revenue would represent roughly 8.6% growth. It is clear from the earnings call that Salesforce, and the Salesforce account executives, will be focused on getting customers to adopt both Data Cloud and the newly released Einstein Copilot. Salesforce will be pushing Einstein Copilot either as an add-on to the current Sales Cloud and/or Service Cloud subscriptions or an upgrade to the most robust and expensive “Einstein 1” edition (formerly “Unlimited Plus”). An “Einstein 1” adoption or upgrade also inevitably comes with Data Cloud adoption. 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, whether in term or at renewal. In addition, Adam provides his perspective on how best to prepare for Salesforce's aggressive push to upsell and cross sell their current customers. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Microsoft announced their FY24 Q2 earnings yesterday. Total revenue was reported as $62B, better than the $61.1B analysts were expecting. The critically important Microsoft Cloud revenue, which includes Azure, O365 Commercial, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365 and other cloud product, came in at $33.7B, representing a 24% increase year-over-year. Microsoft's go-forward success and revenue growth will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft's ability get more customers to adopt cloud products, adopt AI solutions (Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Service, GitHub Copilot, and Azure OpenAI) and migrate to the costly all-in Microsoft 365 E5 suite. 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. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

ServiceNow's Q4 subscription revenue came in at $2.37B, representing 27% growth year-over-year while also beating guidance and analyst expectations. ServiceNow also raised their full year FY24 subscription revenue guidance by $165M, now expecting somewhere between $10.56B and $10.58B, which would represent 21.5 to 22% growth. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow over the course of the upcoming year as ServiceNow does everything it can to accelerate their Gen AI product adoption (specifically their “Pro Plus” SKU), while also continuing to upsell and cross sell their current customers and adding net new logos. He also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow's clear goals during their upcoming ServiceNow negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

Microsoft made some pretty big announcements tied to their Copilot for Microsoft 365 offering. In this podcast, Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, shares his thoughts on each announcement and what customers need to be thinking about as they consider adopting Copilot for Microsoft 365. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Salesforce's Q3 subscription and support revenue came in at $8.14B, representing 13% growth year-over-year, but fairly flat revenue growth when compared to other quarters in FY24. It also represents significantly lower growth when compared against the 18% growth posted last Q3. During the earnings call, CEO, Marc Benioff, made it clear that he and Salesforce are focused on: (1) Increasing profitability (2) Being the #1 AI CRM (3) Getting sales executives to be able to tell the stories of AI success (4) Delivering new products and new technologies (Unlimited Edition Plus, Data Cloud, Einstein GPT Copilot…etc.) (5) Delivering great implementations and making sure customers are successful (6) The Ohana 2.0 culture. 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 renewal negotiations. In addition, Adam provides his perspective on how best to prepare for Salesforce's aggressive push to upsell and cross sell their current customers. He also shares how customers can leverage Salesforce's clear goals and areas of focus during their upcoming negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Salesforce's Q2 FY24 total revenue came in at $8.6B, beating analysts expected $8.53B, and represented 11% growth year-over-year. Salesforce raised their full year FY24 revenue guidance from $34.7B to $34.8B, which would represent 11% growth year-over-year and beat the expected guidance of $34.65B. They stated recent price increases were accounted for in these numbers, but the increases did not have a significant influence on what they are now expecting for revenue. Elongated sales cycles, additional deal approval layers and deal compression were also factored into Salesforce's revenue guidance. It was made abundantly clear that Salesforce is going to be heavily pushing Data Cloud and AI solutions, like AI CRM, onto their customer base. Both are seen as significant revenue and cloud expansion drivers for Benioff's modern version of Salesforce: “AI + Data + CRM + Trust.” In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from Salesforce leading up to their year-end and beyond. He also shares how customers should approach Salesforce and how best to leverage Salesforce's clear goals during their upcoming negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Salesforce announced that they will be increasing list prices by an average of 9% across Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Industries and Tableau products. Salesforce's last list price increase was over seven years ago, so it was only a matter of time. As further justification for the price increases, Salesforce also cited the fact that they have delivered 22 new releases, thousands of new features, including recent generative AI innovations, over the last seven years. In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, shares insights into the specific price increases and the products these increases will affect. He also shares his thoughts on what this means for Salesforce customers, including what customers should do to get ahead of their challenging renewal negotiations with Salesforce. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Oracle had an exceptionally strong quarter in FY23 Q4, showing considerable revenue growth across their Cloud Fusion (up 47%), ERP (up 28%), and NetSuite (up 24%) offerings. Over the past several quarters, Oracle has maintained steady growth numbers, especially for their cloud offerings, proving that they have caught up with competitors like Workday in the cloud market. The growth they are seeing in their cloud business is now outpacing the decline of on-premise environments as customers migrate to Oracle cloud. In this podcast, our Oracle Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, discusses how Oracle has been able to achieve such substantial growth and how their new Customer Success Service (CSS) offering could help them maintain that growth through value realization, higher renewal rates and portfolio expansions. Plus, he highlights some of the ways AI is being integrated into Oracle's products. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

Workday had another solid quarter in FY24 Q1. They announced a 23% growth in revenue, beating market expectations and their 20% target. However, with upcoming changes in leadership at the C-Suite level and an uncertain macroeconomic environment that's causing elongated sales cycles, it will be critical for Workday to maintain the growth momentum they have built over the last several quarters. In this podcast, our Workday Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, highlights the key takeaways from the earnings call and ways customers can leverage Workday's goals to achieve a more competitive deal, especially for Healthcare, Financial Services, and High Education customers which Workday's sales reps continue to aggressively target. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3A6KOXt

Salesforce released their Q1 FY24 earnings, and while they did beat their previously forecasted revenue target, they reported their slowest revenue growth since 2010 and stated they expect this slowed growth to continue. Salesforce's total revenue for the quarter was $8.25B, up 11%. Salesforce also reiterated full year FY24 total revenue guidance of $34.5B to $34.7B, which would represent 10% growth. In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what to expect from Salesforce as they navigate customer sales cycles and renewal negotiations. Salesforce is going to be focused on pushing customers to adopt more products through aggressive sales pitches that bring together logical product portfolios for the customer to adopt. This will likely include a strong pitch centered around Salesforce's “AI + Data + CRM” strategy and Industry Cloud adoption. He also shares his thoughts on what customers should do to appropriately prepare for Salesforce's playbook and approach to ensure they don't leave anything on the table at the end of their negotiations with Salesforce.

ServiceNow's FY23 Q1 subscription revenue came in at $2.024B, representing 24% growth year-over-year and beating the $1.996B analysts were expecting. ServiceNow also raised full year FY23 subscription revenue guidance, citing a pipeline that continues to look robust for the remainder of the year. ServiceNow closed 66 transactions in the quarter with over $1M in net-new ACV. This was up 27% year-over-year. ServiceNow also mentioned that 85% of its net-new ACV still comes from existing customers. In this podcast, UpperEdge's ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow over the course of the upcoming year as it works to upsell and cross sell its current customers while adding net new logos. He also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow's clear goals during their upcoming negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

Microsoft's FY23 Q3 earnings were published yesterday, and total revenue was reported as $52.9B, better than the $51.02B analysts were expecting. Most importantly, Microsoft Cloud revenue (which includes Azure, O365 Commercial, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365 and other cloud products) was reported at $28.5B, representing a 22% increase year-over-year and coming in slightly ahead of expectations. However, Cloud revenue growth has slowed, especially when you consider it was 32% back in FY22 Q3. Microsoft's go-forward success will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft's ability get more customers to adopt Microsoft's Cloud products. CEO Satya Nadella not only lead off his opening remarks with covering the Microsoft Cloud revenue growth but he also said one of the priorities Microsoft is going to focus on is “Helping customers use the breadth and depth of Microsoft Cloud to get the most value out of their digital spend.” In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how enterprise customers can take advantage of Microsoft's focus on helping customers realize more value from their spend. He also covers what enterprise customers should expect from Microsoft in the coming quarters as they try to accelerate Microsoft Cloud growth.

Oracle closed out another strong quarter with the following highlights from their FY23 Q3 earnings call: • Cloud growth was up 45% • SaaS offerings like FusionERP and NetSuite showed increases of 20% and 26%, respectively. • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure's consumption rate was up 86% • IaaS revenue was up 57% With numbers going up across the board, Oracle's continued cloud growth reflects the current industry trends, and their numbers withstand a tough macroeconomic environment. As Oracle continues to think strategically about their revenue and consumption growth, Oracle customers need to have a firm understanding of this strategy so they can leverage it at the negotiation table. In this podcast, our Oracle Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, maps out some of Oracle's goals that customers can use in their negotiation strategy. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

Workday fell short of expectations in their most recent FY23 Q4 earnings call, but their revenue was still posted as a 20% increase year-over-year and their overall growth projections throughout the next FY remain accurate. These numbers are a direct result of elongated sales cycles in an economic downturn, but Workday continues to leverage their current customer base to increase renewal rates. In this podcast, Workday Practice Leader Jeff Lazarto gives a high-level overview of the recent earnings results. He also maps out what to expect from Workday in the coming year as they continue to accelerate growth as well as how customers can prepare for their upcoming Workday negotiations and renewals given this information. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3A6KOXt

Salesforce's Q4 FY23 revenue came in at $8.38B, up 14% year-over-year and beating guidance ($7.93B - $8.03B) and analyst expectations ($7.99B / 9.2% growth). Salesforce's full year FY23 revenue came in at $31.B, higher than guidance ($30.9B - $31B) and represented 18% growth year-over-year. Salesforce also provided full year FY24 revenue guidance of $34.5B - $34.7B that beat what analysts were expecting, but still showed a slowing growth of around 10%. During the earnings call, Salesforce, specifically CEO Marc Benioff, made it very clear that improving profitability is Salesforce's highest priority. The goal is to make Salesforce the largest and most profitable software company in the world. In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from Salesforce during the year ahead and beyond. He also shares how customers should approach Salesforce and how best to leverage Salesforce's clear goals during their upcoming negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Workday announced a 3% layoff of its workforce earlier this week. While these layoffs are significantly smaller than what we have seen from other major tech companies recently, there are still some important insights to gather from this reduction to their global workforce. These layoffs primarily affected the product and technology division, but Workday mentioned their plans to hire in their marketing and sales organizations and stated they do not plan to lay off more of their workforce in the immediate future. In this podcast, our Workday Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, discusses what these changes mean for customers in terms of where their product dollars are going, where Workday's current focus is, and how to navigate Workday's inevitably aggressive sales tactics following these layoffs. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3A6KOXt

ServiceNow's Q4 subscription revenue came in at $1.86B, representing 22% growth year-over-year even though cRPO fell short of guidance. ServiceNow pointed out during the earnings call that cRPO (revenue that will be recognized in next 12 months) was impacted by fewer early 2023 renewals than is typical in Q4. ServiceNow mentioned that they outperformed their Net New ACV and renewal ACV targets for the contracts that were expiring in Q4. ServiceNow's full year FY22 subscription revenue also beat guidance, coming in at $6.89B, up 24% year-over-year. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow over the course of the upcoming year as ServiceNow works to upsell and cross sell their current customers while adding net new logos. He also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow's clear goals during their upcoming ServiceNow negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

Microsoft's FY23 Q2 earnings came out, and total revenue was reported as $52.7B, lower than what analysts were expecting ($52.9B). This revenue represented only 2% growth year-over-year, the slowest rate of growth since 2016 . Microsoft's net income was also down 12%. Most importantly, Microsoft Cloud revenue was reported at $27.1B, representing a 22% increase year-over-year. While the associated gross margin increased from 70% to 72%, their Cloud growth rate has been slowing. Microsoft Cloud revenue growth was 32% in FY22 Q2 and 24% in FY23 Q1. Microsoft's go-forward success will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft Cloud, which includes Azure, Office365, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, Power Apps, and other cloud solutions. In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how enterprise customers can take advantage of Microsoft's focus on helping customers realize more value from their spend. He also covers what enterprise customers should expect from Microsoft in the coming quarters as they try to accelerate cloud growth. Host: Adam Mansfield: bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: bit.ly/2V78ADX

Several key executives are leaving Salesforce, including Co-CEO Bret Taylor, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, Tableau CEO Mark Nelson and Chief Strategy Office Gavin Patterson. This substantial executive level exodus is certainly catching the attention of investors, Salesforce competitors and customers. In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, shares his thoughts on the executive departures and provides insights on what customers should do to get ahead of any impact they may have on their relied upon Salesforce solutions. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Salesforce's Q3 FY23 total revenue came in at $7.84B, slightly higher than the expected $7.82B, and represented 14% growth year-over-year. However, Salesforce provided Q4 FY23 revenue guidance that came up short of what was previously expected, while also mentioning they were not yet ready to give FY24 guidance. Additionally, it was announced that Salesforce's co-CEO, Bret Taylor, will be stepping down at the end of January 2023 (Salesforce's year-end), stating that he wants to return to his "entrepreneurial roots.” In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from Salesforce leading up to their year-end and beyond. He also shares how customers should approach Salesforce and how best to leverage Salesforce's clear goals during their upcoming negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

ServiceNow's Q3 subscription revenue came in at $1.742B, representing 22% growth year-over-year but lower than the expected $1.85B. ServiceNow also lowered their full year subscription revenue guidance from a midpoint of $6.92B to a midpoint of $6.86B, while maintaining an expected subscription gross margin of 86%. ServiceNow now has 1,530 customers paying them over $1M per year, with the average annual spend among that group coming in at $4M. Eighteen of the top 20 deals in the quarter contained 5 or more products, which is another key metric for ServiceNow because it demonstrates their ability to sell a wide set of solutions to their customers, especially solutions outside of the core Technology Workflows product set like Employee, Customer and Creator. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow as ServiceNow's year-end fast approaches. He also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow's clear goals during their upcoming ServiceNow renewal negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

In their most recent earnings call, Microsoft beat revenue expectations but posted the lowest rate of revenue growth in five (5) years. Microsoft's FY23 Q1 total revenue was $50.1B, up 11%. Microsoft Cloud revenue grew 24% to $25.7B, and for the first time exceeded 50% of Microsoft's overall company revenue. Their go-forward success will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft Cloud, which includes Azure, Office365, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, Power Apps, and other cloud solutions. In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how customers can leverage Microsoft's clear focus on getting more adoption and utilization of Microsoft's cloud, security solutions, Teams, Dynamics 365, and LinkedIn. He also explains why more customers should push for the more costly all-in cloud bundle, Microsoft 365 E5. Lastly, he covers what customers need to do to ensure they appropriately prepare for their upcoming renewal negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Salesforce's Dreamforce Conference is a massive event filled with celebrity appearances, sessions, dinners, and hallway meetups. But for many attendees, it can be an overwhelming experience. In this video, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, shares his thoughts on how attendees and the companies they represent can get the most out of their time at Dreamforce while also using the event as an opportunity to gain leverage during the next Salesforce renewal negotiation. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/37hFkMV Related Blog: https://bit.ly/3d7xDj2

Salesforce reported Q2 FY23 earnings and, once again, beat revenue expected by analysts. Salesforce's total revenue for the quarter was $7.72B, up 22%, while analysts were expecting $7.69B. Despite this continued growth, Salesforce also lowered full year revenue guidance again. They are now expecting $30.9B-$31B, which would represent 17% growth year-over-year, but previously forecasted $31.7B-$31.8B. Salesforce cited foreign exchange headwind as well as customers becoming more measured in the way that they buy as reasons for the lowered guidance. Customers buying habits include stretching sales cycles, executives scrutinizing purchasing decisions, and deal compression. In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what to expect from Salesforce as they navigate customer sales cycles and renewal negotiations leading up to Salesforce's year-end in January. Based on comments made during the earnings call, not only is Salesforce going to try to pull in as much net-new product adoption and growth as they can from their customer base, but they are also building plans to make up for any deal compression over the customer's upcoming term. He also shares his thoughts on what customers should do to appropriately prepare for Salesforce's playbook and approach to ensure they have the right deal in place before pen goes to paper. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Oracle laid off part of its U.S. staff earlier this week as part of its plan to layoff thousands in the U.S., Canada, India, and Europe. These layoffs were primarily concentrated in marketing and the customer experience (CX) department. Oracle's CX solutions include CRM products which compete with Salesforce, the leader in this space. Oracle Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, discusses what this may mean for this department moving forward. He also shares why he expects to see more layoffs tied to the massive, $28B acquisition of Cerner which was closed in June of this year. These layoffs come after talk of Oracle planning to announce an increase in support fees which would go into effect after December 1st, 2022. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

ServiceNow's Q2 subscription revenue came in at $1.658B, representing 25% growth Year-over-Year. However, RPO (Remaining Performance Obligations) came up short of expectations primarily due to longer sales cycles and FX headwinds. ServiceNow closed 54 transactions in the quarter with over $1M in new Annual Contract Value (ACV). ServiceNow now has 1,463 customers paying them over $1M per year, with the average annual spend among that group coming in at $3.9M. They also surpassed 100 customers that are paying over $10M per year. This increased customer spend can be directly attributed to the success expanding customer footprints - in Q2, 16 of the top 20 deals contained five or more products. In this podcast, our ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow over the course of the upcoming year as they work towards pulling in deals that may have slipped out and getting more products adopted as part of year-end renewals. He also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow's clear goals during their upcoming ServiceNow negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

Microsoft missed on the top and bottom lines and posted their lowest earnings growth in two years according to their recent Q4 earnings call. Microsoft's FY22 Q4 total revenue was $51.9B, which was up 12% but lower than what Wall Street expected ($52.4B) and lower than the high end of their adjusted revenue guidance ($52.6B). Microsoft Cloud eclipsed $25B in the quarter, representing a 28% increase year-over-year. Their go-forward success will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft Cloud, which includes Azure, Office365, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, Power Apps, and other cloud solutions. In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how customers can leverage Microsoft's clear need to show success in taking market share (Azure, Teams, Dynamics 365, Security, etc.), moving customers to “E5,” specifically the all-in cloud bundle Microsoft 365 E5, and accelerated revenue growth beyond the conservative guidance given. He also covers what enterprise customers should expect as they approach their upcoming renewals as well as how to prepare for Microsoft's plan of attack. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

There has been recent talk about Oracle getting ready to announce an increase in support fees. While we haven't yet seen Oracle documentation confirming this increase, we have heard directly from Oracle customers who received messaging about a change in support fees and an increase in Oracle's support fee cap. UpperEdge Oracle Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, discusses what we know so far. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

ServiceNow rolled out the new solution, Impact, earlier this year. If you are a ServiceNow customer, you have likely been pitched it and experienced an aggressive push to get it into your renewal. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, covers: • What is ServiceNow Impact • Why Impact is so important to ServiceNow • What comes with each of the four (4) available packages • How it is priced • What concessions and commercial terms (discounting, protections, etc.) should be addressed Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

Workday recently reported their FY23 Q1 earnings, and while it reported a good quarter, Workday did experience some challenges and deals being pushed to the second half of FY23. Organizations are responding to the looming economic uncertainty and resulting turnover at the executive level by tapping the breaks on engagements. While Workday still saw a subscription revenue growth of 23%, it was clear during the earnings call that there is some pressure because of organizations' postponing deals out to the latter half of the year. In this podcast, Workday Practice Leader Jeffrey Lazarto discusses how Workday will continue towards its goal of reaching $10B in revenue and more than 20% subscription revenue growth despite these added pressures as well as how customers can position themselves so they are negotiating in a buyers' market. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3A6KOXt

Salesforce reported Q1 FY23 earnings, and once again posted a strong total revenue growth of 24% while beating top- and bottom-line expectations. During the earnings call, Salesforce Co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor pointed towards the increased relevancy of Salesforce's Customer 360 platform as a driving force behind their revenue growth. They also pointed to the amplified Customer 360 value proposition that comes from recent acquisitions like Tableau, Mulesoft and Slack as a contributing factor to that growth. Despite this growth, Salesforce lowered full year revenue guidance by $300M, citing an increase in foreign exchange volatility. In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what to expect from Salesforce as they work to ensure their “really strong” pipeline turns into booked revenue in FY23. He also shares his thoughts on what customers should do to appropriately prepare for Salesforce's adjusted selling strategy aimed at achieving their goals during a tougher economic environment. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

ServiceNow held its annual Financial Analyst Day ahead of Knowledge '22 this week, and there many key takeaways that current and new customers need to be aware of. ServiceNow is focused on expanding customer portfolios to include as many products within their 4 workflows (Technology, Customer, Employee and Creator) as they can. Their goal is to further entrench their solutions while also increasing customers' annual spend. In this podcast, our ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow as they push forward to become a $11B+ company by 2024. He also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow's clear goals during their upcoming negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

It's Day 1 of SAPPHIRE and Chip Hanna, UpperEdge's SAP Practice Director, has a few important insights to share regarding SAP's announcement of a new strategic partnership with McKinsey. Anyone who is considering SAP RISE will find important information in this relevant and timely podcast and will get some reading-between-the-lines from the SAP/McKinsey announcement. Host: Chip Hanna: https://bit.ly/37gknCk SAP RISE Resource Center: https://bit.ly/3yv81VM SAP Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3yjImwb

ServiceNow's FY22 is off to a strong start, with a Q1 subscription revenue of $1.63B representing 26% growth year-over-year. ServiceNow closed 52 transactions in the quarter with over $1M in new annual contract value, an increase of 41%. ServiceNow has over 1,400 customers paying them over $1M per year, with the average annual spend among that group coming in at $3.9M. ServiceNow continues to leverage the “stickiness” of their customer base to expand their portfolios to include more products across their various workflows - Creator, Customer, Employee and Technology (formerly IT). In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow over the course of the upcoming year as ServiceNow works towards their goal of becoming a $15B plus company by 2026. He also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow's clear goals during their upcoming ServiceNow negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

Microsoft beat expectations on the top and bottom lines, posting FY22 Q3 total revenue of $49.4B. It is clear that the continued success is directly tied to Microsoft Cloud, which includes Azure, Office365, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, Power Apps, and other cloud solutions. Microsoft Cloud eclipsed $23B in the quarter, representing a 32% increase year-over-year. In this podcast, Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how Microsoft needs to move more customers to their most robust “E5” offering and, in particular, the all-in-cloud bundle Microsoft 365 E5. This is especially important given the fact that Microsoft has not yet moved as many customers as they would have expected onto the bundle. In light of this, he also covers what enterprise customers should expect as they approach their upcoming renewals as well as how to prepare for Microsoft's plan of attack. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Salesforce reported FY22 Q4 earnings, and once again posted strong revenue growth of 26%. They also posted 25% revenue growth for the full year while raising FY23 revenue guidance by $300M. It was very clear that Slack will be a focus for Salesforce moving forward as they expect turn it into a $1.5B business by the end of FY23. In this podcast, Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what to expect from Salesforce as they lean on their customer base to reach their FY23 revenue target of $32B. He also shares his thoughts on what customers should do to appropriately prepare for Salesforce's tactics to achieve their goals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

ServiceNow had another strong quarter and year, with subscription revenue of $1.52B in Q4 and $5.57B for the full year, representing 29% and 30% growth respectively. ServiceNow also now has 1,359 customers that pay over $1M per year, with the average annual spend being $3.8M. ServiceNow is able to do this through organic growth and executing to a strategy that has resulted in successfully getting more of their Workflow (IT, Customer, Employee, and Creator) products adopted as part of net-new deals and renewals. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where ServiceNow will focus to accomplish their goal of growing from a $5.57B company to a $15B company and what customers should expect from ServiceNow over the course of the upcoming year. He also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow's clear goals during their upcoming ServiceNow negotiations and renewals. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

Microsoft once again beat analyst expectations, posting FY22 Q2 total revenue of $51.7B. Their success is being driven by the Microsoft Cloud (which includes Azure, O365, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, Power Apps, and other cloud solutions). When selling their cloud solutions to enterprise customers, Microsoft will continue to pitch a “One Microsoft' approach with the ultimate goal of getting them to use as many pieces of the Microsoft Cloud as possible. It is also clear that Microsoft will remain focused on leveraging their premium security, compliance, voice, and analytics solutions to get enterprise customers to move to the more robust (and costly) M365 E5. In this podcast, Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how Microsoft's focus on selling as many pieces of the Microsoft Cloud as possible will provide an opportunity for customers to optimize their go-forward commercial relationship and overcome Microsoft price increases coming in March 2022. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

There is a direct correlation between SAP system implementation failures and how companies approach the SI selection process. The traditional procurement approach is flawed and fails to account for the complexities of an enterprise SAP SI selection today. The demand for SI services in strategic industries is accelerating as companies come out of the pandemic and shift from a “preserve and protect” mindset to an “expand and grow” mindset. In this podcast, Director of IT Services, Greg Hall, discusses what new challenges companies face when selecting an SI for their SAP project and shares four critical success factors for making SI evaluations in today's competitive and evolving environment. Host: Greg Hall: https://bit.ly/3CcaELp IT Services: https://bit.ly/3A5Hcov Related Blog: https://bit.ly/3rHgGkc

Salesforce reported FY22 Q3 earnings this week and, once again, Salesforce posted a strong revenue growth of 27% while also raising full year guidance. Additionally, Salesforce now has two (2) business units or “clouds,” that being Service Cloud and Sales Cloud, that have an annual run rate of $6B. It was also announced that Bret Taylor will work with Marc Benioff as the co-CEO of Salesforce. Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where Salesforce will focus and what tactics they will deploy to reach their FY22 revenue target of $26.4B, as well as their FY23 revenue target of $31B. He also shares his thoughts on Bret Taylor's promotion to the co-CEO role and what it could mean for Salesforce customers moving forward. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

This is the third podcast in our three-part series covering SAP Support Model Case Studies. Listen to part one on SAP RISE here bit.ly/3k0SGEe and part two on the “Do It for Me” model here https://bit.ly/3mMGFnB SAP customers migrating their SAP workload to the cloud have four primary support models to choose from. These include the “Do It Yourself” model, the “Do It for Me” model, the professional model, and SAP RISE. In this case study, a client chose the “Do It Yourself” model to move their SAP hosting services, infrastructure services, and infrastructure to the cloud leveraging their own internal resources. This was an existing ECC customer who had some hyperscaler relationships within pockets of their organization. In their situation, it was appropriate, manageable, and scalable to select this support model because they had the in-house expertise to successfully do so. They chose to lift and shift their SAP on-premise relationship and existing cloud relationships into a single instance on the hyperscaler. There was a focus on hyperscaler optimization and the hyperscaler strategy drove a lot of their decision making. In this podcast, IT Sourcing & Commercial Advisory Practice Director, Chip Hanna, discusses the benefits of the DIY model as well as some key considerations for anyone interested in this option. For more details on all four models and client examples for each, download our on-demand webcast, Defining Your SAP Cloud Strategy: Azure, AWS, GCP and RISE Compared bit.ly/3pQp40a Host: Chip Hanna: bit.ly/37gknCk SAP Commercial Advisory Services: bit.ly/3yjImwb

This is the second podcast in our three-part series covering SAP Support Model Case Studies. Listen to part one on SAP RISE here https://bit.ly/3k0SGEe SAP customers migrating their SAP workload to the cloud have four primary support models to choose from. These include the “Do It Yourself” model, the “Do It for Me” model, the professional model, and SAP RISE. In this case study, a client who was focused on their existing on-premise SAP ECC migration to S/4HANA chose the “Do It for Me” model, where they leveraged a 3rd party who takes care of the SAP hosting services and infrastructure services specific to SAP and sits on top of a hyperscaler of their choice. This particular customer managed their applications themselves and had a highly customized environment with many 3rd party integrations. They wanted to move to S/4HANA in the cloud but since the RISE application stack excludes customizations, extensions, and 3rd party applications, RISE would have created challenges and was not the best support model for their ECC to S/4 transformation. In this podcast, IT Sourcing & Commercial Advisory Practice Director, Chip Hanna, discusses why this client chose to leverage a hyperscaler and the “Do It for Me” model and the benefits of doing so in their situation. For more details on all four models and client examples for each, download our on-demand webcast, Defining Your SAP Cloud Strategy: Azure, AWS, GCP and RISE Compared https://bit.ly/3pQp40a Host: Chip Hanna: https://bit.ly/37gknCk SAP Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3yjImwb

ServiceNow once again posted subscription revenue growth of 31%, beat previous guidance, and raised full-year guidance. ServiceNow also now has 1,266 customers paying over $1M per year with an average annual spend of $3.6M. ServiceNow is so confident in their ability to execute to their land and expand strategy that they continued to reinforce the fact that they are on a clear path to achieve $15B by 2026. 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 as many products within each of their workflows (e.g., IT workflows, customer workflows, employee workflows, and creator workflows) as possible. 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: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

This is the first podcast in our three-part series covering SAP Support Model Case Studies. SAP customers migrating their SAP workload to the cloud have four primary support models to choose from. These include the “Do It Yourself” model, the “Do It for Me” model, the professional model, and SAP RISE. In this case study, a client chose the SAP RISE model where they were able to choose the hyperscaler but everything else is managed under contract through SAP with a single agreement. This particular company had different ERP systems through acquisitions and divestitures, but they wanted SAP ECC to be their platform for the future. This was going to be a greenfield deployment for SAP and did not have a lot of 3rd party applications within the scope of RISE. However, even in completely greenfield deployments, companies need to approach SAP with a high degree of sophistication because of the nuances, traps, and hidden costs inside RISE. In this podcast, IT Sourcing & Commercial Advisory Practice Director, Chip Hanna, discusses why this client chose SAP RISE, the benefits of doing so in their situation, and what companies who select this support model should do to avoid the many challenges of moving to RISE. For more details on all four models and client examples for each, download our on-demand webcast, Defining Your SAP Cloud Strategy: Azure, AWS, GCP and RISE Compared. https://bit.ly/3pQp40a Host: Chip Hanna https://bit.ly/37gknCk SAP Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3yjImwb Related Blog: https://bit.ly/3CvSQKV