Podcasts about icertis

Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn   https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com When most of us hear the word “lifecycle,” we normally assume they are talking about the Software Development Lifecycle. Today, we are going to vary that concept and discuss the Contract Lifecycle and its management. It has been recognized as a part of systems management, so it has developed its own abbreviation: Contract Lifecycle Management, or CLM. Our guest is Ryan Donley from Icertis. He highlights the shift from traditional methods like Excel spreadsheets to modern digital platforms. Much like software, the CLM can be divided into pre-award, post-award, compliance, and closeout areas. Every agency oversees this sequence in a unique manner. Ryan Donley points out that some organizations still use Excel spreadsheets for this task. He recommends that people realize that antiquated processes can limit your ability to have accurate information and can cause reporting to be delayed. Further, when a system is automated, coordination between departments is accelerated, and issues like compliance can be acted upon quickly. Icertis operates on a single-tenant GCC high cloud with Microsoft, ensuring security and compliance.

What if contracts could do more than sit in a drawer gathering dust? In today's episode, I sit down with Monish Darda, CTO and Co-founder of Icertis, to explore how AI is transforming contracts into powerful, active business assets. Monish shares how Icertis has evolved from early machine learning models to leveraging large language models like GPT to extract information and true intent from contracts. This breakthrough allows organizations to optimize business relationships, enforce commitments such as sustainability goals, and significantly reduce revenue leakage, often reclaiming up to 9% of contract value. During our conversation, Monish explains how contracts become first-class enterprise objects actively participating in workflows, shaping how commerce operates at scale. We dive into real-world examples, including how a global pharmaceutical company saves over $70 million annually by optimizing supplier pricing across multiple countries and languages. Monish also highlights Humana's success in cutting operating expenses by over $125 million by embedding contract intelligence into core processes. We also unpack the importance of data quality in building trustworthy AI systems. Monish looks at how Icertis ensures clean, actionable contract data through a standard data model, human-in-the-loop verification, and hundreds of thousands of built-in validation rules. As the world rapidly embraces AI, he shares his vision for a future where AI agents are constrained by the "rules of business" defined within contracts, ensuring responsible and reliable decision-making. Monish rounds off our discussion with an inspiring nod to Isaac Asimov and the power of storytelling in shaping our understanding of technology's future. If you ever thought contracts were just static documents, this conversation will change how you see them and reveal how AI is reshaping the foundations of enterprise operations. How is your organization preparing for a future where contracts guide and drive business outcomes?

In today's Tech3 episode, we unpack the government's new Rs 1,500 crore UPI incentive and its impact on Fintech, Google's record-breaking $32 billion acquisition of cloud security startup Wiz and how it is making waves, ONDC's rise, AI-powered tools from Adobe, plus  Icertis' fresh funding round. Tune in for all this and more, every Monday to Friday.

On this episode of CLOC Talk, recorded live from CGI 2024 in Las Vegas, Jenn chats with Bernadette Bulacan from Icertis, our awesome Diamond-Level sponsor. They tackle the tricky world of contract lifecycle management! Jenn and Bernadette explore why it's important for everyone to understand contract processes, not just the legal team. Bernadette breaks down how different teams play a role and why it's smart to segment contracts, especially those high-volume, low-risk ones like non-disclosure agreements. They also get into best practices for contract automation and making data-driven decisions. Get ready for a great conversation about how legal, finance, and tax teams can work better together!

In this episode of Retail Therapy, host Andrew Smith of ThinkUncommon welcomes retail experts Brandon Rael (Kyndryl) and Carol Spieckerman to discuss the ever-evolving landscape of grocery retail. From AI-driven innovations to the rise of private labels and sustainability initiatives, we dive into the trends driving change in the grocery industry. Join us as we explore how VusionGroup, Icertis, and Logicbroker are transforming grocery shopping through cutting-edge technology and unified commerce strategies.

Laura Bloom started as as a contracts manager for an air cargo company. In a dramatic switch she moved to accounting, then finance and FP&A at top companies including Dotmatics, Salesforce Comcast, and is now senior finance manager at Icertis, a SaaS platform for AI-powered contract intelligence. In 2023 she founded Impact FP&A specializing in Go-To-Market (GTM) finance strategy for companies. In this episode she reveals the importance of flexibility in her career and joining the dots in your story: “For example, with contracts management, you wouldn't think that would translate into finance and accounting. However, as part of that role I was working with sales to build the sales bids for new business. I was also working very closely with accounting to give them revenue expectations for commercial contracts and OPEX expenses for our commercial properties.” In this episode: My passion for bringing order from chaos in finance Examples from my FP&A including calculating the obsolescence reserve for almost a billion dollars worth of inventory on a biannual basis Building a new model and updating assumptions (transforming the process from 6 months to 60 days and releasing $5m back to the balance sheet) The importance of data minimalism Monte Carlo analysis giving you a wider range of possible outcomes  Tableau as a data visualization tool and digging into commissions Importance of flexibility in a finance and FP&A   Most important FP&A Skill?  The ladder of abstraction The most vital go-to-market finance metrics  Connect with Laura on LinkedIn or email her at contact@impactfpna.com

In this episode of Retailer Tech Tips, host Andrew Smith is joined by Kayla Babin Broussard, U.S. Chief Technology Officer - Consumer & Travel Market at Kyndryl, and Phil Barry, Global Industry Advisor for the Retail & Consumer Goods Industry Vertical at Icertis, to explore how cutting-edge data platforms are revolutionizing retail management. From workforce optimization to enhanced category management and streamlined order processing, discover the tools and strategies that are driving retail success today.

Today Jenn welcomes Katrina Gowans, Director of Legal Operations & Senior Legal Counsel at IFM Investors, and Anna Golovsky, Executive Manager of Legal and Company Secretariat Operations at IAG … both of whom lead the CLOC Australia chapter. The three CLOC leaders sit down to discuss their point of view on the current state of legal operations Down Under. And if you are wondering why they have an audience, this conversation kicked off our live programming from the CLOC Talk stage at our 2024 Global Institute in Las Vegas. We chatted about all of the greatest hits of legal operations, like knowledge management, matter management, CLM, and the adoption of new technologies, and yes, we even touched on the prevailing topic, generative AI. I can't wait to see these two powerhouses again next month when I travel to the CLOC APAC Summit, happening on August 20-21st in Sydney. See you there!!Special thanks to Icertis for sponsoring this episode.

"Loyalty is the name of the game, and brands are pulling out all the stops to capture and retain their customers." - Andrea K. Leigh During #Shoptalk 2024, we had the pleasure of having Andrea K. Leigh, Michael Kline, Liza Amlani, and Neil Saunders on the Retail Therapy podcast! This episode, we chatted about everything happening in the athletic retail space! From Nike's AI footprint to Lululemon's partnerships, Adidas' innovation, and so much more, these guests cover everything you need to know about fitness brands in a changing climate. Huge thanks to Blue Yonder and our other RCA members at Adobe, Icertis, and Microsoft for sponsoring this episode of Retail Therapy

Have you ever wondered what propels an enterprise to the pinnacle of success in the bustling realm of artificial intelligence? Today on Tech Talks Daily, we invite you into a conversation with Deanne Lanier, Chief Strategy Officer at Icertis, a trailblazer in AI and the first contract lifecycle management (CLM) company to achieve a valuation of over a billion dollars. As we navigate through the burgeoning AI landscape of 2024, Deanne sheds light on a pivotal distinction: the chasm between innovation and imitation. In an era where digital mimicry seems pervasive, with tales reminiscent of Snapchat's features replicated by giants like Facebook, we delve into the crux of what truly separates the frontrunners from the followers in AI.  Icertis, with its extensive portfolio managing over 10 million contracts across 93 countries, stands as a testament to what innovative foresight coupled with strategic agility can accomplish. Partnering with heavyweights such as Microsoft, SAP, and Salesforce, Icertis has not just navigated but set new standards in the AI domain. Deanne will unravel the trends that are shaping the AI arena in 2024, emphasizing the critical need for enterprises to architect their unique AI strategies. Beyond the horizon of mere competition, she envisions a future where AI innovators outpace the imitators by not just a step, but a leap.  From leveraging a massive dataset of contracts to fuel AI-driven insights to pioneering in autonomous contracting with the integration of AI, machine learning, and blockchain, Icertis's journey is one of relentless innovation. As we explore the symbiosis between AI and CLM, Deanne provides an intriguing perspective on how contracts, often seen as mere legal formalities, can be transformed into dynamic assets that drive enterprise-wide intelligence and efficiency. The conversation promises to be an enlightening exploration of how AI is not just reshaping industries but also redefining the paradigms of competition and innovation. What new standards are we setting today to pioneer the AI-driven enterprises of tomorrow? After listening to our discussion with Deanne Lanier, we invite you to share your thoughts on how AI innovation can further revolutionize the way we do business.

Our confidence levels can change over time. They can also be influenced by "life events": the stuff that happens outside of our career that we have no control over. Despite her years of experience, today's guest, Deanna Lanier, CSO of Icertis, doesn't feel confident all the time.Deanna began her career in technology in sales. When she moved into a leadership role, she would often find that she was the only woman in the room. This can be an isolating experience for anyone, and Deanna acknowledges that it can create a confidence barrier for early-career women.Indeed, Deanna is active in her support for early-career women. She has said that: “Newly hired women CSOs have the opportunity and important responsibility to support and advance other women in pursuing leadership roles like the CSO title.” Icertis is a contract management company that has been leveraging AI for its clients since 2018.Join us for every episode with hosts Suchi Srinivasan & Kamila Rakhimova from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, business, and technology.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Governments must adapt to more digital, efficient and transparent contracting processes in an era where digital advancements are reshaping our work. However, integration with existing federal systems can be a significant challenge in government contracting. Sean Garcia, director of professional services for the public sector at Icertis, sheds light on the challenges and opportunities faced by federal IT leaders in adopting more efficient and transparent contracting processes. Guest: Sean Garcia, Director of Professional Services, Public Sector, Icertis Host: Wyatt Kash, SVP Content Strategy, Scoop News Group

Today, I am joined by Monish Darda, the CTO and Co-founder of Icertis, in a riveting discussion about the intersection of technology and sustainability. As businesses grapple with the complexities of environmental responsibility, Monish brings his rich experience in using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to the forefront, discussing how these technologies are revolutionizing supply chain management and contract intelligence. The conversation begins with an exploration of how AI is being used to quantify and mitigate the environmental impact of supply chain partners. This topic is particularly relevant in light of the recent EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directives and the UK's Sustainable Disclosure Requirements, reshaping the landscape of corporate responsibility. Monish offers insights into how AI ensuresensures compliance with these new regulations and helps companies navigate this changing terrain. We discuss the transformative role of machine learning in analyzing millions of contracts. This technology ensures that businesses and their suppliers uphold their environmental commitments. Monish shares how Icertis leads this charge, helping companies align with sustainability requirements and manage contractual obligations. A critical part of their discussion centers on the role of AI in combating greenwashing and promoting genuine sustainability practices. They explore the evolving role of AI in environmental sustainability and the importance of regulation in this domain, highlighting how AI can address complex sustainability challenges. The conversation also touches on the practical applications and challenges in this field. Monish shares insights from his work at iSotis, discussing the hurdles organizations face in reducing their climate footprint and how technology can offer solutions. He emphasizes the importance of viewing regulatory changes not as obstacles but as opportunities for innovation and improvement. Adding a personal touch to the discussion, Monish shares his experiences transforming businesses through technology. He recounts a humorous anecdote from a sales presentation with a German car company, providing a glimpse into the lighter side of the tech world. This episode is a deep dive into how AI and ML are not just shaping the future of business but also steering it toward greater environmental responsibility. Our conversation is a blend of technical insights, regulatory perspectives, and real-world experiences, making it a must-listen for anyone keen on understanding the role of technology in fostering sustainable business practices.

Alex Kelly is not just the host of the In-House Outliers Podcast, he is also COO and Co-Founder at Brightflag and one of our favorite guests at CLOC Talk. In this state of the legal ops podcast scene, Jenn and Alex connect and discuss all of their favorite topics at the CLOC Talk Podcast Lounge at this year's EMEA Summit. Thank you to our friends at Icertis for sponsoring this episode.

In this week's episode, Jenn is joined by the Chief Evangelist at Icertis Bernadette Bulacan. The two legal tech innovators, get skeptical together about generative AI. They wonder, did attorneys ever really get on board with classic AI? Find out what they think and more on this episode of CLOC Talk. Thank you to Icertis for sponsoring this episode.

In this episode, we're going to the main stage of our 2023 CLOC EMEA Summit in London. Jenn is joined by Bernadette Bulacan Starin, Chief Evangelist at ICERTIS, Aine Lyons, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of VMware, and CLOC Board member, and Andrew Perlman, Dean at Suffolk University Law School.This is the episode to catch if you are having EMEA FOMO. It's full of juicy debates on the world's newest rockstar technology Generative AI.

Welcome to Retail Therapy, a RETHINK Retail exclusive Podcast series where we examine retailers that have a unique history, are making innovative changes to their business model, or are overcoming challenges in order to stay relevant in this highly competitive landscape. In this episode, host Ian Scott is joined by RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencers Jeff Roberts and Jack Stratten to discuss John Lewis, an over 100-year-old department store giant that grew tremendously over the 20th century with the addition of new retail formats, brick-and-mortar stores, and product lines. With the help of an employee-owned cooperative model, this retailer has gained a reputation by doing things differently while always striving to do better for their customers and employees. This episode of Retail Therapy was brought to you by the Retail Cloud Alliance, Cognizant, and Icertis. To see how Cognizant and Icertis can help transform your retail business, visit them at cognizant.com/us/en/industries/retail-technology-solutions and icertis.com

On this episode of LawNext, we're taking you to the conference floor of the CLOC Global Institute, the annual conference of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium that was held May 15-18 in Las Vegas, for a series of brief interviews with 22 of the legal tech companies that exhibited there.  Since the first CLOC Global Institute in 2016, this conference has become a leading event for legal operations professionals and for anybody who works in corporate legal. For that reason, its exhibit hall draws many of the leading legal tech companies that cater to corporate legal, including an abundance of companies offering some flavor of contracts tech, as well as legal services providers, e-discovery providers, and others.  LawNext's producer Ben Ambrogi attended the conference, where he ventured into the exhibit hall, mic in hand, and interviewed a cross-section of the companies he met there, garnering brief introductions to what they do and any news they were announcing. Together, the interviews offer a snapshot of what you might have seen had you attended CLOC, or maybe of what you missed even if you were there.  Companies interviewed in this episode are: AO Docs, Axiom, Bigfork Tech, Casepoint, Cobblestone, ContractPodAI, ContractSafe, eBrevia, ECFX, Epiq, Exigent, Hanzo, Icertis, Ironclad, LexCheck, LinkSquares, Paragon, Robin AI, SimpliContract, SpotDraft, WeLocalize, and Zycus.  Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.  Nota, the online business banking platform designed specifically for solo and small law firms.  Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Sage Timeslips, trusted by solo and small firms for nearly four decades, offers robust functionality, customizable reports, and the ability to capture time and expenses on the go.   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

In this podcast, the final of five sessions on Digital Contracting for Net Zero, CLI's Distinguished Fellow, Natalia Crnomarkovic was joined by Bernadette Bulacan Starin to explore how emerging technologies are shaping the future of Climate Contracting and how leading organisations are looking to blockchain and other emerging technologies as key Net Zero enablers. Bernadette Bulacan Starin is Chief Evangelist at Icertis, a Gartner Magic Quadrant CLM vendor, and 2021 Fellow of the World Commerce and Contracting organisation. Topics covered in this session included: Digital contracting as a key enabler for Climate aligned contracting Contract Lifecycle maturity – the state of play and recent market shifts Key challenges in driving Net Zero across supply chains and how blockchain-enabled CLM technology promises to transform these challenges into a competitive advantage  Top tips for organisations seeking to accelerate NetZero through supply chains using digital contracting  You'll find information about the other episodes in this series in the Digital Contracting for Net Zero Report here. If you would prefer to watch rather than listen to this episode, you'll find the video in our CLI-Collaborate (CLIC) free Resource Hub here.

On this episode of The Shape of Work, our guest talks about how employers can manage and engage employees to the organization's advantage."Choose strategies that adapt to organizational changes, can handle growth, consider market conditions, and consider employee feelings."We welcome Pranali Save, CHRO at Icertis – an IT services and consulting company/a contract intelligence company that pushes the boundaries of what's possible with contract lifecycle management.She has over 20 years of experience in Human Resources and has worked in a variety of industries, including IT, manufacturing, and construction, in various locations around the world. She has expertise in employee experience, open-source culture, leadership development, talent acquisition, post-M&A integration, and change management, and has a strong record of success in people management, change management, leadership, and business revitalization.Episode Highlights:What should HR leaders consider when improving employee experience for both remote and in-office workers?How can employers manage and engage employees to the organization's advantage?How can performance management strategies be effectively implemented?How can learning programs be adapted for remote and hybrid work environments?How can digitization help HR and improve their people operations?What should an organization prioritize as it adapts to the new world of work?Follow Pranali on LinkedinProduced by: Priya BhattPodcast Host:  Hashmita TarasinghaniAbout Springworks:Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organisation building tools and products to simplify recruitment, onboarding, employee engagement, and retention. The product stack from Springworks includes:SpringVerify— B2B verification platformEngageWith— employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company cultureTrivia — a suite of real-time, fun, and interactive games platforms for remote/hybrid team-buildingSpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, andSpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking system.Springworks prides itself on being an organisation focused on employee well-being and workplace culture, leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor

It was nearly 18 years ago that Icertis CFO Rajat Bahri stepped into the CFO office for the first time.   Thus began a stretch of time that Bahri, not unlike many of his CFO peers, has populated with various distinguished CFO career chapters ranging from 3 to 5 to 8 years in duration.    Still, for Bahri, "18 years" means more than this, as it also represents the amount of time he invested prior to receiving a CFO appointment, making it a worthy touchstone with regard to which we can seek out some thoughtful CFO reflection. Icertis's CFO doesn't disappoint us. It seems that back in 2004, after Bahri had turned the corner on 17 years with Kraft Foods, Inc., he found himself handicapping his CFO prospects for the top job. Certainly, such aspirations were in no way foolhardy on the part of Bahri, who had already served as CFO of Kraft's high-growth frozen pizza category as well as CFO of Kraft Canada, where he got to double down on his operations experience. However, Bahri explains, time began to weigh on him: “I could have stayed at Kraft for another 8 to 10 years and gotten the top job, but my thinking was that if I stayed and didn't get it, I could have become stale and it would have been tough to make job changes.” Of course, this is a quandary that many long-tenured finance executives face annually, not to mention that especially challenges the sense of responsibility of those executives who take pride in being loyal corporate soldiers.   Still, Bahri reports that his decision to exit Kraft was not only a hedge to mitigate the risk of his skill base growing stale but also a step that allowed him to check two new boxes. “In addition to allowing me to enter a different industry, joining Trimble put me with a publicly traded company,” remarks Bahri, referring to the technology firm that he joined following Kraft and where he would serve as CFO for the next 8½ years. Says Bahri: “It was a great win-win. Trimble got a guy who was strong operator, and I got my wish to learn IR and how to manage the Street and investors.” –Jack Sweeney 

In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the chance to speak with a well-known figure in the CLM space, Bernadette Bulacan. Bernadette is the Chief Evangelist at Icertis and has been working in legal tech for over 2 decades. During our discussion we touched on: How legal departments have evolved over the past 5-10 years, how can other departments in an organization benefit from a CLM tool, what Pitfalls to watch out for when starting a CLM implementation, how do you handle extracting and migrating data when moving to a new contract management tool and so much more!

“Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” ~Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEOThe Guiding Voice is pleased to launch a special episode in recognition and support of all the great work done by the Edurigo team in the LearnTech SpaceCongratulations to @edurigo on your 2nd anniversary!!Tune into The Guiding Voice #TGV270 for Naveen Samala's conversation with Nikesh Jain for insights on "Pros and Cons of Joining a Startup"In this EPISODE, we will dive into how to decide between working at a startup vs a corporate company based on a variety of factors such as benefits, leadership opportunities, growth tracks, and overall job satisfaction.0:00:00 Introduction and Context Setting0:02:00 Toughest lessons learned as an entrepreneur by Nikesh0:06:00 Pros and Cons of joining a startup, how to choose a startup job - what kind of research one must to before joining a startup?0:09:00 Salary vs Stock Options - how to balance?0:12:00 What do MNCs offer compared to Startups?0:18:00 Approaching for VC funding0:22:00 Vesting Options0:29:00 How to Exercise Stock Options0:34:00 Tax implications0:39:00 Exit Opportunities0:42:00 Dealing with co-founders0:48:00 Witty answers to rapid-fire questions, his nickname, super strength vs invisibility, what success means to Nikesh0:50:10 Trivia about StartupsABOUT THE GUEST (Nikesh Jain, in his words):Building Edurigo a web 3.0 learning experience platform! Making corporate, sales, product, support, and academic learning fun, engaging, and measurable. Prior to Edurigo, I had,- 24 years of experience in developing complex software platforms, and building top-notch engineering teams at highly successful startups and world-class software companies.- Worked as Vice President/Head of Engineering - India at Apttus a quote to cash start-up.- Worked at Icertis a Seattle/Pune-based start-up as VP of Engineering and managed Icertis products on MS Azure cloud. - Worked at Ariba ( An SAP Company ) as Director of Engineering and managed engineering development for upstream (Sourcing, CLM, Spend Analysis) and downstream (Procure to Pay, Catalog) products on the Ariba commerce cloud.- Worked at Yahoo! as part of their cloud platform group. Owned and managed Y! Geo and Video transcoding platform.What gives me a kick - To make a difference (with a huge impact) to society in the area of education or healthcare or just anything which would make this world a better place for humanity.Connect with Nikesh on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikeshjain/Powered by Metaverse and Web 3.0 technology, Edurigo is a game-based interactive and experiential platform for sales-enablement, corporate, and academic learning.Edurigo Website:https://edurigo.com/CONNECT WITH THE HOST ON LINKEDIN:Naveen Samala: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naveensamalaFOLLOW ON TWITTER:@guidingvoice@naveensamala@s_nagandla#tgv is now available on Amazon Music, JioSaavn, Spotify, Gaana, Apple, Google Podcasts, and wherever you find podcasts!#theguidingvoice #career #startups #learntech Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, citing multiple factors including Russia's war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the Covid pandemic. Indian American entrepreneur-led Icertis, a contract LCM SaaS specialist, has tapped Infor's Deanna Lanier as chief strategy officer. And early-stage investor Nisarg Shah is seeking tech-led startups at Kettleborough VC. Notes: The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, citing multiple factors including Russia's war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the Covid pandemic, Associated Press reports. The 190-country lending agency on Tuesday pared its July estimate of 2.9 percent by 20 basis points to 2.7 percent. The IMF left unchanged its forecast for international growth this year — at 3.2 percent, almost at the half of last year's 6 percent expansion, according to AP. “The worst is yet to come,″ IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said. Three major economies — the United States, China and Europe — are stalling. Countries accounting for a third of global economic output will contract next year, and therefore 2023 “will feel like a recession″ to many around the world, he said, according to AP. India's IT services industry, one of the country's biggest exports sectors, sees the US, Britain and Europe as its biggest markets and top executives such as Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services are seeing clients engaging in scenario modelling more on the downside than on the upside, while demand currently remains strong. TCS yesterday missed some analyst estimates for its fiscal second-quarter revenue growth on a sequential basis. Icertis, a contract intelligence and management platform provider, has recruited Deanna Lanier as chief strategy officer, reporting to Chairman and CEO Samir Bodas. Lanier will help Icertis expand into new geographies, customer types, and industry verticals, according to a press release. Lanier joins Icertis from Infor, a leading provider of industry-specific cloud software, where she was most recently senior vice president of strategy, growth, and partnerships. Before Infor, Lanier held leadership roles at Adobe, McKinsey, Microsoft, and KMPG. She will be based at Icertis headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. Kettleborough VC, an early-stage venture capital firm led by seed investor, Nisarg Shah, has launched its first fund at $5 million to invest in technology-centric startups specifically led by serial entrepreneurs and domain experts, according to a press release. The firm was launched as a solo general partner fund by Shah in late 2021, according to the press release, but he has been active as an investor since 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile. So far, Kettleborough has backed five companies via this fund including Zippmat with Matrix Partners India and Zephyr Peacock, Zocket with Kalaari Capital, and Bytelearn with Leo and Chiratae, and is closing two more transactions with Infoedge Ventures and Kae Capital in the coming month. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Bloomberg Intelligence Technology Analyst Anurag Rana hosts Icertis Co-founder and CEO, Samir Bodas to discuss how the cloud, blockchain, automated intelligence (AI), machine learning and other emerging technologies are transforming contract lifecycle management (CLM), and how Icertis is leveraging these tools to lead in this landscape. We cover how Icertis provides value across critical categories from procurement and supply chain, to risk and compliance, and just how much room is left for CLM to run.

Start Smart When It Comes to Your CLM ImplementationExecuting your CLM implementation smart is the topic of this lively podcast. Listen in and hear how the CLM market has changed the world of corporate contracting. Join two of the industry's most knowledgeable resources, Bernadette Bulacan, Chief Evangelist at Icertis and Kami Paulsen, Managing Director at Elevate, for this conversation.01:25 Meet Bernadette and Kami.02:25 Legal ops teams cut their teeth on technology. Today those learnings are being applied to CLM implementaitons.04:56 CLM presents a great opportunity to introduce legal technology across the enterprise.06:03 Big bang or a phased an enterprise CLM implementation,what's the best approach? 07:12 Best practice includes stage gates, iterating, starting with a smaller universe of agreements and creating a team of champions.08:50 Readiness includes ensuring your contract templates in order - and knowing where they are. 09:50 Starting with a process like NDAs provides the experience to be applied to more complex processes.11:20 The SOW process forces customers to look at Big Bang while starting small has the benefit of establishing and testing processes for a larger rollout.13:42 The Elevate and Icertis SmartStart offering is front end loaded with harmonization for customers that don't have time for harmonization.15:35 Once you harmonize the content developing workflows and KPIs are less daunting.17:02 Capturing information in an organized way pays dividends.21:12 Prioritization and understanding organizational drivers including consolidation, and turnaround can direct the implementation.24:47 CLMs fail when the clients say, “This is our process, we have to do it this way” - and we give them a faster way to implement their bad process26:31 Challenging process is imperative, you have to be ready to take a look at contracts, actual physical documents and the process and the people that are working. 27:03 Technology is not a magic bullet, build a team of champions, have playbooks, be okay with iteration.30:56 Programs like StartSmart and overall industry maturity have slowed the 3-year cycle of rip and replace.31:39 Was it a training issue, or was it a change in management? what we've seen in development in the last few years is incredible, and companies that may have 10 years ago, now with everything being in the Cloud, it's opened up this entire new world of integrations33:25 We are all moving very fast, if we take time in the beginning to slow down and look at the processes, where they're broken - before we take that leap of faith into CLM we'll benefit by having the ability to move much faster with information and data that's reliable.

In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the good fortune to be able to sit down for a chat with renowned AI expert, Jim Chiang. Jim is the founder of My Legal Einstein, an AI-powered contract acceleration platform. He has been submerged in the contract management space for some time, catering mostly to the AI side of CLM. He was the head AI engineer for major names in the CLM industry such as Apttus and Icertis and brings a wealth of both experience and knowledge to improve the way AI interacts with contracts. His goal and the goal of My Legal Einstein is to investigate how AI can transform the way people work in the contract space.Our conversation with Jim touched on several aspects of the interaction between AI and contract management, exploring how the two can work together most effectively, the importance of honesty in technology, and the future of AI-based solutions as a whole in the world of contracts.

Hey Everyone, Welcome to the API design masterclass with our guest Deepak Patil, who works as a Principal Architect at iCertis (https://www.linkedin.com/in/01patilde...) and has decades of experience building and architecting mission critical experience. We talk about: Basic API Discussion 00:00 Introduction 03:50 What is an API? 07:10 Why do we want to implement APIs? 10:22 How do we plan to execute the API program? 14:45 Practical API Design 24:40 Dominant Styles of API Entity vs Behaviour oriented 31:50 Fine Grained vs Coarse grained APIs 43:45 Pagination I hope you enjoyed the discussion in the part-1, please do listen to part-2 for more advanced topics and more practical examples. Cheers, The GeekNarrator

Hey Everyone,  Welcome to the API design masterclass with our guest Deepak Patil, who works as a Principal Architect at iCertis and has decades of experience building and architecting mission critical experience.   This is the Part-2 of the masterclass and we are going to continue where we left and talk about more practical stuff.   00:00 Sync, Async, Bulk, Composite APIs  10:16 Timeouts, Retries and Idempotency  17:08 Structure of an API  21:00 Versioning  26:45 How to choose REST vs GraphQL vs gRPC  36:30 API Lifecycle and Governance  38:50 Security, Scalability, Availability, Fault Tolerance, performance and Monitoring   I hope you enjoyed the discussion in the two parts series and now know a lot about API Design.  Please like, share and subscribe to the channel for more content like these.    Cheers,  The GeekNarrator

A cyberattack in January on Okta, a company that provides network access to its customers, may have been more severe than it originally thought, BBC reports. Oxyzo Financial Services, a tech-enabled smart financing solution provider, has raised $200 million in Series A funding. Plus, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw has been named to Scotland's Royal Society of Edinburgh. A cyberattack in January on Okta, a company that provides network access to its customers, may have been more severe than it originally thought, BBC reports. Hundreds of organisations that rely on Okta to provide access to their networks may have been affected by the cyberattack by the gang called Lapsus$. Okta said the "worst-case" was 366 of its clients had been affected and their "data may have been viewed or acted upon." Its shares fell 9 percent on the news. Okta has more than 15,000 clients. Okta had initially said the attack involved a third-party contractor, a "sub-processor", and "the matter was investigated and contained”. Oxyzo Financial Services, a tech-enabled smart financing solution provider, has raised $200 million in Series A funding from investors including Alpha Wave and Matrix Partners India, Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners and Creation Investments. It has grown to an AuM of $350 million with 100 percent Y-o-Y growth while maintaining its GNPA at 1.2 percent, even through the Covid-19 period. Icertis, a cloud software provider for contract lifecycle management, has released an AI Studio, a self-serve, self-learning cognitive tool. AI Studio utilises artificial intelligence models to analyse large sets of documents and generate contract intelligence for real-time insights and decision making. AI Studio's availability coincides with the latest release of the company's ICI platform. The traditional PC market (Desktops, Notebooks, and Workstations) in the Asia/Pacific (including Japan and China) region posted a 15.9 percent year-over-year increase in 2021, reaching 120.3 million units, according to the International Data Corporation's Quarterly Personal Computing Devices Tracker, Q4 2021. PC shipments are expected to remain robust in 2022—following a strong 2021 that experienced better supply and solid demand for PCs, IDC said in a press release. Capco, a global management and technology consultancy, has announced it is undertaking a major recruitment drive in India to meet the rising demand for its services from locally-based global financial services institutions, the Wipro company said in a press release. As these clients continue to focus on optimising customer experiences, operating models and internal automation, Capco is looking to fill over 500 roles in the coming months in a broad range of specialist areas across consulting, data, digital and technology. The roles are variously based in Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, and Chennai. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairperson of Biocon and Biocon Biologics, has been elected as the Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's National Academy established in 1783, for the advancement of learning and useful knowledge, the company said in a press release. Kiran will be joining RSE's current Fellowship of around 1,700 Fellows who are recognised for their accomplishments in physical and life sciences, arts, humanities, social sciences, education, professions, industry, business and public life. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Q1: Software as a service space is booming, especially online players. Obviously, we have the traditional IT Services companies and they are looking at similar markets which you also look at abroad. What are the challenges that you face for the industry and companies like you in this space?  Ans: >Same clients but challenges are different >Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is an established category with a value proposition >Typical challenges are affordability, time-window and chances of failure >The challenge is getting value out of contract intelligences  Q2: How do you get over these challenges from the clients, when they say it is expensive, should I have it..? Ans: >Address affordability, value and execution time for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions  >Clients have very few options in terms of Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) >Cloud-native software is flexible, fast and affordable to implement than traditional SAP systems >Customers now look at CLM just like ERP Q3: What is the market size for this – if you look at globally? What kind of pole position do you have in this? Is it that none of the bigger players in the IT space are conspicuous by their absence? Or, are they also looking at this area and they will come in somewhere?  Ans:  >Eight years ago, Icertis had three competitors – IBM Emptoris, SAP Contracts and Oracle Contracts >Never lost a request for proposal (RFP) to any of the competitors >To stay competitive, the best opportunity for IT majors is to partner Icertis in CLM   >There is no function in an enterprise that contracts don't touch  >Contracts bind a business and its processes together, and help improve commerce  >Global CLM spend ranges between $2 bn to $3 bn, which includes unstructured spends Q4: Are you looking at a threshold of valuation where you feel comfortable to go public? Today you are a $5 bn company – which makes it one of the largest for a SaaS company in India. So is there any level which you are looking where you will be comfortable and say ok, we have arrived?  Ans: >After achieving $5 bn valuation, the next milestone to reach is $10 bn valuation >Icertis aims to reach a $100 bn valuation in the long run >In order to go public, clarity on why to take the IPO route is important instead of timing the market >With IPOs, cost of money is better compared to private equity >Go public for providing liquidity to investors, who may be looking for exits   Watch video

India signed a comprehensive free trade agreement with UAE last Friday, over a decade after it inked such a deal with Japan in 2011. This agreement will not only shed the perception that India is becoming too circumspect in entering into such contracts, it will also help in its pursuit to boost  exports to 1 trillion dollars-- both in merchandise as well as in services by 2030. So what does this trade agreement mean for New Delhi and what the government is planning to achieve through this? Just like India, a home-grown start-up is continuously expanding its footprints across the globe. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) start-up Icertis which helps giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple manage their contracts, has quietly come to dominate the contract life cycle management market. And it is now aiming even higher -- looking at a $50 billion valuation in the next five to seven years. In an interaction with Business Standard's Surajeet Das Gupta, the company's co-founder Monish Darda tells more about his plans and challenges posed by software bigwigs.  But there is a development which is increasingly threatening to derail the world economy. Global stocks slumped yesterday as Europe's eastern flank stood on the cusp of war between Russia and Ukraine. While benchmark indices in India have fallen about 2% so far this year, broader indices have tanked up to 13%, hurting retail investors the most. As markets brace for volatile days ahead amid the geo-political tensions, learn how retail investors can ride the tide. After the markets, let us move on to legacy issues plaguing the telecom sector. For over a decade now, the government and telecom majors are locked in a battle over payment of one-time spectrum charge -- which is now in the Supreme Court. But, during the last hearing, the government told the court that it was reviewing whether or not to continue with its appeal. It has come as a big reprieve to the debt-saddled telecom operators. Our next report tells more about this charge, why it was levied and its current status in this episode of the podcast.  Watch video

A tectonic shift is underway, from organisations to people and from profit to purpose, as 2021 draws to a close. With the changing dynamics of businesses, workers and employees, the world of work has transformed – for the better - offering the global leaders a never-before opportunity to reframe work, workforce and the workplace. Pranali Save, CHRO of Icertis joined us on this episode to discuss the different aspects of work in 2022 and those of getting back to the offices. She also cast lights on the future of hybrid working, as the new variant of COVID-19 that is the Omicron gives us a glaring look.

If you are a middle manager and felt stuck in your current position for a long time? This episode is a MUST TUNE FOR YOU! In this episode, Nikesh has shared a lot of tips from both employee and employer perspective on crafting a career path for middle level management. A good number of careers get stuck in middle management because of the comfort of solving low-quality problems efficiently. Middle manager who lose touch with technology are prone to become obsolete Organizations should create career progression path for technical roles too Pyramid structure of organizations forces them to have limited number of leaders at the top Captive organizations have less number of leadership roles offshore vs onshore People with strong technical knowledge coupled with business acumen will have a long lasting career Nikesh's Witty answers to rapid-fire questions 1 piece of advice to those aspiring to make BIG in their careers and LIVES Trivia about Social media platforms! ABOUT Nikesh Jain (in his words): - 24 years of experience in developing complex software platforms, and building top notch engineering teams at highly successful startups and world class software companies. - Worked as Vice President/Head of Engineering - India at Apttus a quote to cash start up. - Worked at Icertis a Seattle/Pune based start-up as VP Engineering and managed Icertis products on MS Azure cloud.   - Worked at Ariba ( An SAP Company ) as Director of Engineering and managed engineering development for upstream (Sourcing, CLM, Spend Analysis) and downstream (Procure to Pay, Catalog) products on Ariba commerce cloud. - Worked at Yahoo! as part of their cloud platform group. Owned and managed Y!Geo and Video transcoding platform. What gives me kick - To make a difference (with huge impact) to the society in the area of education or healthcare or just anything which would make this world a better place for humanity.   Connect with Nikesh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikeshjain/ His company website: https://edurigo.com/ Here is a chance to broadcast yourself

In this era of highly-competitive markets, the customer has quite rightly moved to the forefront of marketers' thoughts. For B2B marketers, where the sales cycle is long, with more than one decision-maker and multiple potential touchpoints, there are additional layers of complexity. So, what's the best way for marketers to overcome barriers and then create a customer-centric experience? I'm joined by experts from Yahoo, Rock Content, Web Insights and Icertis. Join us and check out webinsights.com for a free demo to learn how you can identify your website visitors. This episode is presented by Web Insights and produced by Trappe Digital. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ctrappe/message

Vincent and Ajay chat with Gretchen Eischen, Chief Marketing Officer at Icertis. They discuss strategy structure as well as technology that helps businesses use data. Ajay is delighted to continue season 2, and Vincent gets some new digs.

In this Episode, I (@Jivraj Singh Sachar) speak with Monish Darda, Co-founder & CTO of Icertis. Icertis is a global SaaS Company from India leading the Contract Lifecycle Management Ecosystem. It is valued at $3Bn, making it one of the most valuable SaaS companies from India, leading the market in its vertical. Through the Episode we discuss the following: 1. (2:25) : Understanding Monish's background & choice of coming back to India after post-graduate studies in the US 2. (5:55) : What Entrepreneurship & Building means for Monish? 3. (12:31) : What is the role of Experience in making the journey more wholesome? 4. (17:21) : Demystifying the rise of Indian Global SaaS 5. (26:05) : The Founding 0 to 1 Journey of Icertis! 6. (34:21) : Product Evolution at Icertis! From Product --> Platform --> Ecosystem 7. (44:53) : The emphasis of People at Icertis --> A masterclass on Culture & great People Practices 8. (54:03) : The Feeling of Building a Global SaaS Unicorn --> The Ability to Dream & Achieving It! 9. (56:52) : Monish's Founder Persona - What keeps him motivated in the short run? 10. (63:37) : What has helped Monish during the challenging times as a Founder? 11. (65:26) : Conclusion Hope you liked the 66th Episode of the Indian Silicon Valley Podcast - Building the Global CLM Ecosystem. That was it from this Episode, thanks again for tuning in! :) We're available on Instagram & Twitter. Feel free to drop in your feedback! Do not forget to Subscribe to our WhatsApp Newsletter. Do share the Episode with your friends if you liked the content :) I, Jivraj, am reachable on LinkedIn & Twitter! "If you never try, you never know" Stay Tuned, Keep Building.

Serial entrepreneur Shirish Nadkarni came to the U.S. as a teenager with $25 in his pocket. After graduating from Harvard Business School, he worked at Microsoft where he engineered the $400 million acquisition of Hotmail and launched MSN.com, the world's leading web portal.  Striking out on his own in 1999 at the height of the dot-com boom, he founded TeamOn Systems, an early pioneer of mobile email that was later acquired by BlackBerry before becoming BlackBerry Internet Email servicing over 50 million users at its peak. After a family trip to Spain rife with language barrier snafus, Shirish launched the first social language learning app Livemocha and grew it to over 15 million members in 200 different countries before it was acquired by Rosetta Stone. What makes a great startup idea?What are VCs looking for in a pitch? The ins and outs of the fundraising process How to sell your company or go public: the pros and cons of an IPO vs Direct Listing vs SPACsWhy the best startup opportunities occur when your industry is undergoing a dramatic transformationHow to develop a business model that extracts the most value for your business  How to establish a company culture in a post-COVID worldHow to hire and fire effectively, from junior positions to the CEOManaging downturns: Why you should be flexible with customers and transparent with employeesInspiring startup stories: Icertis, Snowflake, OfferUp, Apptio, UlPath, and more  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/success-made-to-last-legends--4302039/support.

In our weekly technology start-up podcast, analyst Elise Kennedy hosts King Goh, Principal at Headline.Headline (formerly known as e.ventures) is a global venture capital firm established in 1998 with offices in San Francisco, Germany, UK, France, Brazil, China and Japan, with investments across consumer and enterprise technology, including Segment, Farfetch, Sorare, Yeahka, Icertis, Scopely and Bumble.In this podcast, we discuss the company, the current innovation scene in San Francisco, trends in the industry, success stories and valuations

I have had my head down working on some big things, and it has been a while since you heard from me. Well, I'm getting back to it with a follow-up chat with Toby Bowers, the Leader of the Microsoft Bizapps ISV Program. I managed to catch him in his car, and got a great update on some new things happening in the ISV arena. Enjoy! Transcript Below: Toby: Hi, this is Toby. Steve: Hey Toby, Steve Mordue, how's it going? Toby: Hey, Steve. I'm doing well. Thanks. How are you? Steve: Not too bad. I catch you at a decent time? Toby: You've caught me at a fine time. I'm actually in the car at the moment. I'm just taking my team out for a little celebratory launch after our big Inspire event and also our Ready event earlier this week. So it's actually a good time. Let me just pull over so we can have a chat. Steve: It's Been a pretty frantic couple of weeks for you guys. Toby: Frantic, but good. Yeah. Yeah. We had a great showing at Inspire. We made some exciting announcements across the business applications business, but especially around our ISV program, ISV Connect, as you and I have chatted about before. So, it's been good. Steve: Well that's [crosstalk 00:00:50]- Toby: How about you [crosstalk 00:00:51]. Steve: [crosstalk 00:00:51] the reason for my call is to try and catch up on ISV Connect. We talked some time ago about some things that you kind of had just inherited this role from Googs who moved on and were kind of getting your feet wet. Now you've had a close to a year in this position, right? Toby: Yeah, that's right. That's right. I remember our initial chat and I think in fact I'm guilty, Steve, because we agreed to speak a little bit more often, but it's been an interesting year this past year, as we all know, but yeah, it's been almost a full year of execution since we last spoke and I even remember Steve, the nice article you wrote with some suggestions for me as I sort of took over. Toby: Yeah, I'd love to actually go back to that. We can talk about a little bit about some of the enhancements and announcements that we made last week. Steve: Yeah. I mean last week, I think for a lot of the ISV's that they weren't thrilled with some things as the program got launched, they were starting to kind of get their arms around it. But some of these announcements that I was hearing and hopefully we can talk about today, anything of course isn't NDA, I think should make the ISV community pretty happy. It's making me pretty happy. And really kind of throw some gas on that fire. Toby: Yeah. Well, absolutely. I'd love to reinforce it. I know, I know you get a lot of people listening to your impromptu calls here. So why don't I do this? Let me maybe just set a little bit of context, just kind of where we left off Steve, and then I can hit on the high notes of what we announced and then we can dive into any particular areas. That sound all right? Steve: Yeah. You are pulled over, right? Toby: I am pulled over now, yes. Steve: Okay. Toby: You got my full attention. Steve: All right sure, kind of hit some of the highlights. Toby: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, for those who don't know, we originally set out with the ISV Connect program a couple of years ago to attract ISV's to our platform, building and extending upon it. That platform being both Dynamics 365 and the power platform with a specific focus on partners who had great industry or vertical IP to enhance the portfolio and delivering better value to our joint customers. So through the program itself, it's a revenue share program and we reinvest back in the ecosystem in the form of platform benefits, go to market benefits, co-selling with our field. Toby: So when I sort of took over Steve, I wanted to sort of get a full year of execution in place. And in that first year we were pretty happy with the numbers. We have over 700 ISV's enrolled in the program. Now we use AppSource as sort of the cornerstone of the program. We have, we have 1400 apps or more certified in AppSource. But after that first year, I really with the team wanted to understand how things were landing, and I think your feedback was good Steve. We did a bunch of research. We do partner satisfaction surveys. I of course talked to a lot of partners in my travels. Steve: [crosstalk 00:03:59] in a year's time, you can kind of get a pretty good gauge on what was working well? What could work better? What wasn't working well? What do we need to just abandon? What do we need to step on? And I kind of got the feeling that was this readjustment that we just saw was kind of bringing some of those things to light. Toby: That's exactly right Steve. I mean, it's such a diverse ecosystem of emerging partners to large mature partners across a pretty vast portfolio. So, it was a diverse set of feedback, but you're spot on. We wanted to give it a little bit of time, but then check in and listen and make some adjustments. So that's what we did, based on a lot of the feedback we got. Toby: I'd sort of summarize what we changed in three big areas Steve, the first is that the business model itself, the fee structure, and we talked about this last time, but not only having an investible model where you can reinvest, but actually investing in the ecosystem, especially as it's growing like this business is growing. Toby: The second thing was a lot of feedback around the go to market, whether it was the marketing benefits, the co-selling with our field, really just getting that value proposition right Steve, and really delivering on the promise we made. We needed to balance that equation a little bit and equalize the effort. Toby: And then the third piece is really around the platform itself. And again, we've talked about this in the past, but just the platform, the tooling, dev test environments, app sources, and marketplace itself. Toby: So those were the three key areas that we sort of listened and got a lot of good feedback around. So with that in mind, what we actually announced at the event is that first of all, back on the business model we're significantly reducing the rev share fees down from 10 and 20%, which you might recall, we had a standard tier and a premium tier. So we were bringing those fees down from 10 and 20% to 3%, just a flat 3% going forward. Steve: That's across the board? Toby: That's across the board. And in fact, it was part of a broader announcement we made as Microsoft, Steve, where we're also bringing our commercial marketplace fees, so that's both Azure Marketplace and app sources. We get transact capabilities down to that same flat 3%. Steve: So what's the motivation behind that? I mean, what is it that they're hoping that will accomplish for Microsoft? Toby: Yeah, it's interesting. If you catch any of the sessions, even starting with Satya, he really talks about Microsoft wanting to be the platform for platform creators. And then if you parlay that into what Nick Parker said and Charlotte Marconi around being the best platform for partners to do business on, it really just came down to helping the partners keep more of their margin to invest in their growth. Toby: So it's not a P&L, a profit center for Microsoft. It's a way to deliver benefits. We think it's pretty differentiated in the market compared to some of our peers. And it was sort of interesting to see, because we were planning on bringing the fees down for ISV Connect specifically, and then we started to align across the organization and just thought, gosh, we should just do this in a very consistent way across the entire Microsoft Cloud with that one flat 3%. Steve: So the math equation had to work out something like, if we dropped this to 3%, that's going to grow that side of the business significantly, which is going to increase platform sales, right? There has to be an up for the down. And I guess maybe... I mean, not that the platform wasn't already growing by leaps and bounds, but somebody must've been thinking this thing can grow a lot faster if we get rid of some of these hurdles. Toby: You're exactly right. I mean, it's kind of what we've talked about in the past. Just the value that an ISV ecosystem brings to Microsoft with that, whether it's the industry relevance, industry specific IP, or just a growing ecosystem in general. I don't know if you'd caught what we just did, our earnings earlier this week, but Dynamics 365 is growing 43% year over year, we doubled our power apps customer base. And so to your point, the business is growing, the platform is growing, and we want the ecosystem to grow and we want to attract as many partners to do that as possible. Steve: So, I mean, you can't reduce fees and increase the benefit, you have to have taken some things away or maybe gotten rid of some things that weren't being utilized, or how did that kind of offset? Toby: Yeah. Great question. Yeah, so we are investing deliberately to build this out and kind of putting our money where our mouth is, but we did, you're spot on. We learned a lot around the benefits, the go to market benefits in particular, the second key thing we announced is that we are reducing just down to one tier at that flat 3%. So no more 10% and 20% or a standard and a premium tier. And we're reducing the thresholds within that one tier for partners to unlock those go to market benefits and those marketing benefits. And then what I heard, especially from partners, again, to my point around, you've got some mature partners and some emerging partners, it's not a one size fits all. And so we've got an option sort of an, a lA carte, option for partners to choose marketing benefits that make the most sense for their business. So we just tried to simplify things and streamline things a little bit. Steve: You know, I talked to a lot of partners. We're, kind of unique in that our application is free. So, the revenue shared didn't really come into play for what we were doing because there wasn't a fee for our app or any recurring services with it. But you know, a lot of these ISV's their business is significantly different. They've got revenue generating applications that run on top of your platform. Many of them that kind of told me in confidence that they just weren't paying the fees. They were getting the notice from Microsoft saying, "Hey, please do us a favor and tell us how much money you've made and what you owe us." And many of them were just kind of ignoring that. Steve: I guess if we're getting down into a 3% range, it'd probably make it a little easier for some people to be more honest about things too you think? Toby: Yeah. Well, yeah we hope so. Again, that was kind of my point around balancing the equation and making sure that we're delivering on the promise that we set out with the program itself. And I talked to a lot of partners as well, and there's definitely benefit being realized, whether it's from a marketing perspective or co-selling with our field, again, based on what's important to their business, but you're right, we do think by reducing it to this level and also just getting better at delivering the benefits in a consistent way, we'll have more partners participating in the program. Toby: The one thing I would say, Steve, that I was just going to close off on with this sort of consistency across Microsoft is we also realized that's our value proposition. If we can not only have a similar model with the 3% marketplace fee and ISV Connect fees across Microsoft, but a similar model to the way we deliver those benefits, to the way we engage with technical resources or engage from a co-selling perspective across Azure Teams and 365 Dynamics Power Platform, that's kind of how we differentiate ourselves versus, the rest of the players out in the market. Toby: So we made a bunch of enhancements and announcements across the business Azure teams, ISV Connect obviously, and you'll see us continue to sort of work towards a much more consistent approach from a Microsoft Cloud perspective, because obviously we'd love it if partners were integrating with Teams. We have over 250 million monthly active users with Teams now driving dynamics integrations all the way through to CDM and Dataverse and integration into Azure Synapse. Those are the partners we want to work with and the type of partners we want to support and go to market with. Steve: Well, I'll tell you, I think the 3% has probably eliminated a hurdle for a partner, certainly I remember at the time a lot of partners complaining about the 10 and 20 saying things like, "If it was like three." Okay, well it's three now, so shut up and move forward. Toby: Yeah. We've had a lot of- Steve: And it's interesting, because it's kind of the way we sell is I guess for an industry ISV who built something specifically for Dynamics 365, maybe they approach things a little different. Our approach is more, we really try and sell the potential of the platform because we've got a simple CRM. So we're up against a lot of competing simple CRMs. And when you open one of their CRMs and open, rapid start, for example, they look very similar and do very similar things. So for us, we really have to sell the value proposition of, hey, behind that little CRM that you're using from Acme Cloud CRM company is really nothing. You've got the extent of what you can do with that right there in front of you and there's nothing more that can be done, and we really lean in hard on the potential for things like integration with Teams, with things like integration with Azure. Steve: Obviously the integration with Microsoft 365, all of the pieces that are available in the power platform that we haven't enabled in our app that are there to be enabled, you like the forums and some of the AI stuff, it definitely seems to be a huge differentiator in that sales conversation. Toby: Yeah. Well, that's great to hear that's really what we're trying to get right and stitch together the teams if they exist across Microsoft and iron those out. I think your company is a great example of that Steve, and I know you talked to a bunch of our partners and sort of as an independent third party, we had a few partners join us at inspire. Icertis has been a longstanding partner of ours. They're a similar story from, from Azure Dynamics Teams really across the board, and getting more and more focused on industry solutions with their particular IP. Toby: And then we had more emerging partners like Karma, Frank at Karma talked to us about some of the benefits we're building into the platform, specifically license management, and now he's taken advantage of that. And we have big partners like Sycor, that's been working with us for a long time on the Azure side of the business and is doing some really interesting things now on the dynamic side and sees value in that co-sell motion. Toby: So I think that value prop is what we're trying to land, and then we're seeing lots of different types of partners take advantage of it in different ways, which is great to see. Steve: Yeah, it's not often that you see both a cost of participation come down and the value of the benefits go up. And when we talk about benefits, and before, you and I have talked about some of these go to market benefits, there's a segment of ISV's that could make use of those probably mostly new ISV's that don't really understand that system. Steve: But for a lot of the ISV's, they really didn't see value there, but in the meantime they're maintaining their own licensing systems and their own transaction systems and things like that, which as an ISV, that's just like a tax. You're building your solution to solve a particular problem, but you can't just stop after you built this wonderful solution, you got to protect it, you got to monetize it. So those things ended up being just kind of attacks. Steve: And, every ISV out there has had to kind of build their own system for licensing and transacting. And you guys coming through now recently here would be with the licensing capability we were in that pilot, and that thing's got some great potential, a couple of things left for them to do on that to get that really where it's going to solve a lot of problems that ISV's have had, even with their own licensing. Steve: Because with your own external licensing system, you can only do so much, but working with one that's on the platform, that's essentially the same one you guys are utilizing, is going to be huge for ISV's, and then we'll get to transactability, that's just going to close another piece that ISV's have had to deal with, especially when you talk about those startup ISV's, they know an industry and they can build an app, but when it comes to licensing and transacting, and if they can just tick a button and plug right into a couple of those things, that's going to lower the bar to entry and make it a lot easier for some of those folks to get in I think. Toby: Yeah, I hope that you're right Steve, in fact, I didn't know you were working with Julian Payor and the team on piloting the license management stuff. It's great to hear your feedback. That was kind of the whole intent with the journey. If I rewind a bit with AppSource itself, you'll recall we had to do quite a bit of work on the overall user experience for AppSource. We worked hard with the engineering team to improve that, improve discoverability and search capabilities and just sort of the plumbing underneath. And then the next step was, was licensed management, which we've just GA'd working again with the engineering team, and then from there, to your point, the value proposition, a lot of ISV's put all this together and then you add transactability and the ability to actually sell your stuff on our marketplace to what's now more than 4 million monthly shoppers, going to that destination is it is definitely a point of value that I've heard positive feedback from ISV's on. Toby: So that's why we really invested there. I know it's taking us a little bit of time to get there, but that was another key announcement. We announced license management later in the fiscal year. We'll have translatability and AppSource for our customer engagement apps, for power apps, and then we'll continue to roll out a roadmap from there. Toby: And then the other piece I forgot to mention Steve, we made some noise about as well, was these new sandbox environments. And I know you've given me this feedback before, but you know, sort of in the broader internal use rights world, the value in having sandbox environments for our partners to do dev tests and do customer demos around, I heard loud and clear from you and from other partners. And so that's the other thing we announced. We have these new discounted skews, which are basically just at cost skews across the business for those dev test environments. And then for partners who are participating in ISV Connect and hitting those new lower reduced rev share thresholds, we'll provide those licenses for free. Toby: So we think that's going to be a great new benefit for partners as well, more on that technical and platform side of things. Steve: Yeah. Particularly for the ISV's, because ISV's don't necessarily see a lot of value or need to get Microsoft competencies. Competencies are definitely, as a program that was designed for resellers to demonstrate their competence. But a lot of ISV's don't want to have a need for that. And that's where [inaudible 00:19:22] had historically kind of been tied was to those competencies. Steve: So is there any talk about any sort of... I mean, they did do that kind of short-lived ISV competency, which was primarily around, hey, if you've got an app in AppSource you qualify. Here's some IUR. Steve: So this new program will replace that, but are they going to be revisiting any sort ISV competencies or need? Toby: Yeah, well I won't say too much as far as future plans are concerned, but what I can say Steve is that we did this for biz apps, we did it for ISV Connect because that's our program and we got feedback and we think there's value in that. Toby: I did mention that going forward we'll have a more consistent approach across Microsoft Cloud. There's lots of different benefits out there. Azure Credits, we announced some new things around Teams. And so we just need to, as one Microsoft, provide that to our partners in a consistent delivery through these benefits so that we can support that kind of value proposition we talked about earlier. So look for more from us in that area. You're spot on, on the competency side. And I wouldn't even say resellers, I'd say more SI, system integrators services partners. Steve: Yeah. Toby: The key difference there is, we want those guys to be able to differentiate their organization. As a company, you can say, "I've got 15 certified individuals in this role-based certification. And I've got this many credits to my business that make me a gold partner at an organization level"- Steve: Which is something a customer looking at SI would be looking for. Toby: Right. Steve: But when you're looking at an ISV solution, they're really just looking at the functionality. Toby: It's the app, right? You would want to badge in app versus badge and organization. And so that's the key difference there. And I think we've kind of figured that out and again, you'll see us do more in that space going forward. Steve: Yeah. I just want to mention, just go back for a second to make sure everybody is aware that the transactability and the licensing are optional. These are things that you can take advantage of if you spend a ton of money on your own systems, nobody's going to expect you to rip and replace. These are really designed for... I mean when I think of a partner like myself, if I can get out of the license management and have transactability just be automatic, where all I really have to do is focus on building my IP, getting it in AppSource, hopefully promoting it properly, but then the licensing becomes automatic and the transactability becomes automatic, and I'm just getting money coming into my account. Of course, you guys are scraping your 3%, which I don't begrudge because your given me those tools. That just makes things a lot easier. Toby: That's right. And you're right, it's not mandatory. It's again what makes sense for the partner. And so, you can do business with us and ISV Connect outside of the marketplace and work with us on the new 3%, get those benefits, or you can transact in the marketplace, it's that same 3%. And it's a different benefit. You get that whole commerce system, you get that whole billing engine. You don't have to worry about that. And there's a lot of ISV's out there that see value in that. So yeah, you're spot on. Steve: Yeah. I remember Goose had kind of recharacterized the revenue share after the kind of flap up from some of the ISV's about the benefits and stuff and he recharacterized it as a cost for the use of the platform that you're building on top of a platform that Microsoft has built, Microsoft maintains, Microsoft advances. So look at that as a cost for that. And I think you still kind of need to look at that as a cost for that. It's not 3% for licensing and transactability, it's a cost for maintaining the platform, there's these pieces you can take advantage of or not. But if you're not taking advantage of license management, transactability, it doesn't mean you don't have to pay the fee. You're paying the fee for something else. Toby: Yeah. Steve: I'm trying to head off some things I know I may hear from some folks [inaudible 00:23:24] licensing. No, no, no. Toby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. You're right, Steve, and again, to zoom back out again, I mean, it's not about the 3%, it's about attracting partners to build on the broader Microsoft Cloud and supporting their business in a way that works for them. And you're right, there is a cost of doing that, but we want to invest, and I think we just sent a message hopefully to the market that we want to be aggressive in this space, we think we're well positioned, we've got a great value proposition with this broader Microsoft Cloud thing that we're just seeing incredible growth across the business. Toby: And I guess most importantly, we're listening back to that, after a full year, really sort of staying in tune to feedback from partners like yourself, that [inaudible 00:24:07] at large to make sure that we're doing the right thing and delivering, that's kind of what was most important to me. Steve: So those discounted skews for ISV's, in order to qualify for that, what do they need to do? They need to join ISV Connect? Toby: Yeah. So the discounted licenses, which are again, just basically at cost for us, are available to anyone who's enrolled in ISV Connect. All you need to do is enroll in the program, but then if you hit the new reduced rev share threshold that sort of unlocks additional benefits, then we'll give those licenses to you for free. And I can't here in the car, remember all the details of the numbers and stuff like that, I think, and you probably have it. I think aka.ms.bizapp.ISV connect, I think that's a link to our website that has all the benefit details and stuff, but that's basically the way it works. Steve: Are those available today? Toby: They are. There's a whole bunch of them available today and there's more coming. I know that the sales service, field service, marketing, I think the customer insights products, maybe commerce, I might be forgetting a few others and then there's more coming down the pike shortly. Steve: All right. So a good reason for people to go back to revisit ISV Connect site if they haven't in a while. Toby: I would love that. Yeah, I think so. If we can get people to go back and like you said, revisit, just get educated, hopefully get re-engaged and then keep the feedback coming. That's a great outcome. Steve: So I've had a few ISV's asking me about what's the future of ISV Embed, and maybe you can speak to that because that one's kind of a little vague, I think, for a lot of folks right now. Toby: Yeah. It's a great question Steve, that's kind of next, next on our list. And again, today I can't share a lot of specifics, but this is a good topic for us to come back to probably in our regular chats. Toby: As you know, Cloud Embed is a model that supports kind of like an OEM like model where a partner's just packaging their IP directly on the underlying license and selling it together through our ISV Cloud Embed program, which leverages our CSP vehicle as a way to transact. And so we've had it out there for a couple of years. And I may have mentioned before that we're sort of modernizing a whole bunch of our commerce capabilities and new business models and so we're working on a few different options still to support that embed scenario where things like co-selling with our field or certain other marketing benefits aren't the most important thing for a particular ISV in a particular scenario, they don't want to have to mess with reselling the underlying dynamics license. They're not resellers. They just want to sell their IP. Steve: Yeah. Toby: So we're working on some stuff there, especially, on both the core dynamics business and the power platform business. So we can stay in touch and I can come back to you for some feedback once we have more to share. Steve: Yeah. That, I mean, that program worked for a particular kind of an ISV. Toby: Yeah. Steve: A lot of the ISV's that have add on solutions that are not SI's, there's a partner already involved with a customer and they just want to sell their add on solution. Steve: Yeah. Licenses have probably already been sold by that partner. They don't want or need to get involved in that management of that sort of stuff. They just want to sell their IP. And then there's some ISV's that the customer is actually buying, which I think we're starting to see now. And I think I told you this before, one of the things that Salesforce had going for them with their ISV's was there were a lot of very robust ISV's that did a lot of direct marketing to customers about their solution and less so about the fact that it ran on Salesforce. Steve: Salesforce is this platform in the background, but this is what we're selling is this ISV solution, and in that scenario they own the customer because the customer wasn't buying Salesforce, they really were buying the solution to their problem for this ISV, and we hadn't seen as much of that on the dynamic side for a long time. It was definitely, you start with dynamics and then you add on ISV features and capabilities. But I think we're starting to see more of that, that holistic ISV solution that a customer is buying the solution that happens to run on the power platform or on dynamics. Toby: Totally. That's the scenario we see mutual opportunity in. That example, you said where the ISV owns the partner or the customer, the relationship with the customer, frankly that helps us reach more customers as Microsoft. And then if we provide that ISV still the underlying technology and the right business model to support their business, then that's goodness on both sides. So, that's exactly [crosstalk 00:29:10]. Steve: So that's the one where ISV Embed probably makes the most sense, , that type of partner. So we're starting to see more of them. Toby: That's great. That's great. Well, I always appreciate the feedback if you have any. So I'd love you to go through these new things in a bit more detail, and then send me your feedback and we can continue to keep the lines of communication open as always. Steve: I'm not letting you off just yet. I'm keeping you for a couple more. Toby: Oh man, I've got my team waiting, I'm hungry Steve. Steve: I just want to ask, "What is the most exciting thing you're seeing in the space coming soon that people should really be paying attention to?" I know we've got some things happening that aren't so much related to ISV, like the power platform pricing coming down, but what are some of the things that you're seeing in your group, or maybe some things that are already out there that you're feeling like ISV's are not understanding what this is obviously or they'd be all over it? Toby: Hmm. That's a great question. I'd say probably two things. One is, again, one of the big announcements we made at Inspire that wasn't necessarily related to ISV's or ISV Connect specifically, but what we announced with Teams where Teams users will now be able to sort of view and collaborate on Dynamics 365 records from directly within Teams. Toby: So this concept of collaborative apps you'll see, and that's at no additional cost. Obviously that concept you'll see us continue to do more around to bring that again, pretty large install base of Teams users that are out there, 250-million now, together with Dynamics, we think is sort of unique to our value proposition. So there was [crosstalk 00:30:58]- Steve: So this is somebody you think ISV's out there should definitely go do a little bit of investigating into the Team story? Toby: Yes, yes. Teams on the front end, it's such a large install base that we can take advantage of as partners. And then on the backend, I mentioned that again, power platform, Dataverse, leveraging our data services like Azure Synapse Analytics, again, stitching that all the way from the front end of the backend. We as Microsoft, we're really focused on that combined Microsoft Cloud story. And I think the partners that are recognizing that and investing in that with their own IP are the ones we're going to engage with and hopefully generate some good opportunity around. Toby: The second one, in that vein Steve, the second one I was going to say is just what we continue to do with our industry clouds. So we have cloud for healthcare out there at the moment, we've got financial services, manufacturing, retail, we announced the cloud for sustainability, we've got not-for-profit. So, these things continue to roll off the conveyor belt, but it's such a great opportunity. I was sort of surprised with how much interest we had from the ISV ecosystem around these industry clouds. Obviously as we build more industry IP, we need to sort of adjust our relationship with our partners who serve those industries, but there's still so much space to add, specific IP to that industry and work with some of those very credible industry partners that we were sort of talking about just a moment ago is a big place that we're going to invest going forward. So, that's an area I'd encourage people to keep a close eye on. Steve: Are you satisfied with the level of ISV engagement with the accelerators? Are they still kind of too many of them on the sidelines kicking or poking it with a stick or have we got enough of them actually coming in now that you're happy with that velocity? Or are you feeling like there's a bunch more that need to get in there? Toby: I think, first of all, we've evolved a bit from that original industry accelerator approach to now just real industry IP that we're building first party in these verticals that I mentioned. Obviously there's great partners out there that can work with us with those solutions to, like I said, have their IP built on that broader Microsoft Cloud. Industry clouds are just a great example of a Microsoft Cloud solution, frankly. And so to your question of, do we have enough partners there? You want to obviously get it right when you launch an offering like that with the right, frankly, small number of partners to complete the solution and have it be good and relevant and useful for customers, but the more the merrier around that investment. Toby: And so it's early days, Steve, we only have one industry cloud in market GA'd at the moment, but as I said, there's a lot more coming. So we want to make sure we're building the ecosystem around it pretty aggressively. Steve: Yeah. I mean, we've got partners of all sizes, so we got some big healthcare ISV's I'm sure engaged in some of the heavy lifting, but healthcare is an awfully big market, awfully big field, and there is spot, point solutions kind of across the healthcare organization that need to be filled by probably a smaller ISV's. So it seems like there's stuff across that whole thing. Toby: Yeah. Totally. There's plenty of opportunity and plenty of space around that. And even from a geographic perspective, I mean, different parts of the world have different regulatory requirements and are different, and so there's yeah, to your point, and that's what I was trying to articulate earlier. I think there's still just a massive opportunity for partners to work with us around those new offerings. Steve: Well, I know you've got to get to your thing. You've told me twice in the call, I appreciate you pulling the car over to chat with me to catch up. I just wanted to get some of this stuff out to the listeners about some of these changes that just occurred. Steve: And I'm definitely going to go through, like you said, and study it a little more closely and I'll reach out to you directly with some feedback and some thoughts and see if we keep this thing moving. Toby: Awesome. Well, Hey, I'm so glad you caught me, Steve. It's always a pleasure to catch up and have a chat, and yeah, please do go through it in some detail. Again, your feedback is important. Whole ecosystems feedback is super important to me, so I appreciate it. And yeah, it was great to catch up. Steve: All right man, talk to you soon. Toby: All right. Take care, Steve.

"Dann haben wir danach die Nachricht des Partners bekommen, dass es wohl das beste Engagement gewesen ist, was der Partner bis dato gesehen hatte" Wir sprechen mit Benjamin Tattermusch, Director Enterprise Sales bei Icertis über seine Erfahrung und Erfolge mit uns. Hör rein, wenn Du wissen willst, wie sich die Art des Pitches und das Mindset bei Benjamin grundlegend geändert hat und wie er heute Kunden führt, um Verbindlichkeit zu schaffen und den Sales Cycle zu verkürzen.

Dave Ng is a General Partner at Altara Ventures, a leading Southeast Asia-based venture capital firm. At Altara, he focuses on backing the next generation of promising entrepreneurs building for the region and beyond. Previously, Dave was Head of Southeast Asia for Eight Roads Ventures where he led investment and portfolio activities for the region. Before that, he was Venture Partner at B Capital Group, where he helped launched its Asia office. Over the past decade, Dave has the opportunity to partner up with many talented founders, including FreeAgent CRM, LeadIQ, Ninja Van, Carro, StashAway, Akulaku, and Icertis. Prior to investing, Dave spent many years building and operating within the technology industry. He was a director at Oracle focusing on its Cloud business, an early employee at enterprise SaaS pioneer Zuora (NYSE: ZUO), and has advised major corporate leaders as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. He began his career in product and engineering as a software engineer at Oracle, delivering multiple major product releases. Dave graduated from Carnegie Mellon and Harvard. In his free time, he enjoys sharing his experiences and discussing exciting innovations with fellow entrepreneurs. Read more about Altara Ventures here https://altaraventures.com/ and connect with Dave on Linkedin here https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-ng-487773/ If you enjoyed this podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 30 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince new guests to come on the show, and on top of that, I love reading the reviews! Follow Andrew: Website: https://andrewsenduk.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.senduk/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-senduk-1980/

in one case study icertis ai automated 70,000 agreements representing legacy contracts in a data repository. Icertis au helped the company to get information out of the documents. Contract generation manually done is much slower process. icertis helps locate different documents and work with them in a efficient way. Icertis analyzes risks and ensures compliance --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/david-nishimoto/message

Samir Bodas, co-founder and CEO of Icertis, is an exceptional technologist, with three decades in the industry. He took his venture, in the specialised field of contract lifecycle management, from India to the US and turned it into a corporation that was recently valued at $2.8 billion. In the process, he has successfully straddled the world of entrepreneurship and the demands of corporate leadership

“When customers ask for it, it's almost too late already. You should have already done it.” – Mark Terbeek In this episode of Outliers, we’re talking with Mark Terbeek about his investment process, advice for entrepreneurs, and the power of coaching. Mark Terbeek is a Partner at Greycroft, an early stage venture capital firm focused on investments in digital media. With experience as an analyst at McKinsey & Company Chicago, a board member for companies like Kontiki, BladeLogic, and Icertis, and a managing director at MK Capital, Mark has helped make Greycroft a leading investment firm in the media and technology spaces. Greycroft manages $1.1B and has made over 120 investments in companies like Thrive Market, Huffington Post, Shipt and Trunk Club. Show notes with links, quotes, and a transcript of the episode: https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/mark-terbeek-outliers-show-notes  Chapters in this interview: 00:00:22 – Mark’s background at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey 00:07:59 – Mark’s foray into entrepreneurship and the VC world 00:16:43 – How the world of venture capital has changed over the past 20 years 00:20:01 – The patience needed to be a great investor 00:22:21 – Comparing enterprise vs. consumer venture capital investing and their trends 00:28:05 – Greycroft’s focus areas, including intelligent enterprise and vertical SaaS 00:35:15 – Why being API-forward is so important in modern tech companies 00:39:45 – Icertis and contract intelligence 00:46:19 – The allure of system of record software businesses 00:49:17 – Mark’s fundamental investment beliefs 00:55:45 – Advice for entrepreneurs and investors: it’s okay to be honest and vulnerable 01:02:11 – Resources for entrepreneurs and investors   Sign up here for Outliers Weekly, our Sunday newsletter that highlights the latest episode, expands on important business and investing concepts, and contains the best of what we read each week. Follow Outliers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/heyoutliers. If you loved this episode, please share a quick review on Apple Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Miguel Armaza sits down with Alison Lange Engel, Venture Partner at Greycroft, a leading venture capital firm focused on investments in the Internet and mobile markets, with offices in New York City and LA. Greycroft manages over $2 billion and has made over 200 investments, including some leading fintech companies like Acorns, Venmo, Flutterwave, and Public. Alison works across the Greycroft portfolio, advising companies on go-to-market strategy, execution, and sourcing new investments. She’s also a proud MBA alum from our very own Wharton School. We discuss - Her operator background at companies like LinkedIn, Microsoft and Stripe - A deep dive into her experience as Head of Marketing at Stripe - Transitioning to the investing side - Greycroft’s story, investment thesis, and what defines their portfolio companies - Why Alison and Greycroft are bullish on the future of consumer fintech - Inside stories on fast-growing portfolio companies - And a lot more! Alison Lange Engel Alison Lange Engel is a Venture Partner at Greycroft. She works across the Greycroft portfolio, advising companies on go-to-market strategy and execution and sourcing new investments. Alison has 20+ years of experience leading, structuring, and scaling high growth businesses. She’s managed teams throughout North America, Europe, Brazil, and Asia. Prior to Greycroft, Alison was the first CMO at Stripe and worked to establish the marketing function, scaling the team 5x in one year and driving quantified growth. Prior to Stripe, Alison was a Vice President of Marketing at LinkedIn. In her 6 years at LinkedIn, she had a broad impact on LinkedIn’s advertising business strategy and execution, with overall company revenue growing from $200MM at IPO in 2011 to $5Bn+ today. Alison’s early career in technology started with the sale of Massive Incorporated, a venture-backed video game advertising business, to Microsoft in 2006. She held marketing leadership roles at Microsoft Advertising for 3 years. Prior to her career in technology, Alison was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, focused on Media, Entertainment and Consumer sectors. Her media background includes HBO and the CBS Television Network, where she held sales and programming roles. Alison has a BA from UCLA and an MBA from The Wharton School. About Greycroft Greycroft is a seed-to-growth venture capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build transformative companies. The firm has deep experience in both consumer and enterprise technology, with a portfolio that spans the globe. Greycroft values building enduring relationships with founders and understands that they want more from investors than just capital. Greycroft has raised $2 billion in commitments and has over 200 active investments. The portfolio includes Acorns, Anine Bing, App Annie, Axios, Bird, BetterCloud, Braintree, Bright Health, Buddy Media, Bumble, Flutterwave, Goop, Happiest Baby, Huffington Post, Icertis, Lightricks, Maker Studios, Medly, Openpath, Scopely, SEMrush, Shipt, TheRealReal, Thrive Market, Trunk Club, Venmo, and Yeahka. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Substack: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

Indian Startups seems to have taken the lead in the most number of companies funded, with a total of 19 startups that have raised funding. Many of these are SaaS companies. 196 Million dollars was pushed to 16 of the 19 companies. Of these companies, Icertis raked in approximately $80 Million followed by Ecom Express at about $40 Million Dollars. Other companies that were funded include Quizizz, Riskcovry, Awfis and Nordwin to name but a few. The complete list of companies will be shared in our post on Linkedin. Of the 19 companies funded, 3 companies are yet to disclose the amounts.Israeli company, Optibus picks up $107M for an AI-based planning and operations platform aimed at the mass transportation sector. Mass transportation is an essential part of how metropolitan areas are kept moving and connected. Optibus is a platform that helps to analyze how vehicles and people move in and around cities so as to provide scheduling, navigation and driver rostering towards mass transportation providers. The company has raised $107M as Series C funding and it looks to expand its solutions and services with the infusion of the funds. Though the valuation of the company has not been announced yet, it is estimated that Optibus is valued at nearly $500 Million dollars after this round of funding which boosts it by nearly 4 times its previous valuation and round from 2018. 

SaaS startup Icertis raises $80 million in Series F funding; valuation triples to $2.8 billion. This year's funding was led by existing investor B Capital Group, with participation from Greycroft, Meritech Capital Partners, Premji Invest, PSP Growth, and e.ventures. The company will use this funding to invest in accelerating its AI and Blockchain development, expanding its sales and marketing footprint, and building out its global partner network. It also has plans to expand across Japan, South East Asia, and northern Europe. The funding round makes Icertis the second most valuable SaaS unicorn in the Indian startup circuit after Freshworks, which was valued at $3.5 billion in their last funding round in 2020.Pipe Raises $50 Million Through Latest Investment Round Led By Raptor Group & Siemens Next47Pipe stated it gives SaaS companies access to the full annual value of their subscriptions, upfront. Since launching its SaaS financing platform in February 2020, Pipe claims it has seen overwhelming demand from early and growth-stage SaaS companies. Speaking about the platform, Harry Hurst, Co-Founder, and Co-CEO of Pipe stated: “When we were approached by such incredible companies with aligned missions to form partnerships, the conversations quickly evolved. We felt it made sense to have the broader ecosystem that powers growth-oriented companies join forces to invest together in the future of revenue as a tradable asset class.”Legl gets $7M to help law firms upgrade to digital workflows. B2B SaaS startup Legl has bagged $7M in Series A funding led by Octopus Ventures for its platform for law firms which offers tools to streamline core business processes such as customer onboarding, due diligence, and payments. The UK startup was founded just over a year ago by Julia Salasky, a lawyer by background, who previously founded the public interest legal crowdsourcing campaign platform, CrowdJustice. Legl says it's now working with around 100 UK-based law firms, including around a dozen of the top 200. Series A will be used to expand Legl's team and grow its UK user base as well as for further development of the product.

Mark is a leading B2B investor and on the board of Scopely, Icertis and more.  He shares his current investment theses and explains how Greycroft operates as a seed to growth stage venture fund.

My guest today is the Senior Account-Based Marketing Manager for a SaaS company called Icertis in Bellevue, WA. Jason Hinojosa has been in the marketing field for over 12 years now and has a history of working in fast growth, startup environments. He was also formally the Marketing Director for HERE Seattle, a non-profit dedicated to supporting an inclusive culture in tech. Allow for him to share how he started in Texas and finally moving his way to the Pacific Northwest. Also, please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast to receive more content like today's episode. Interview Resources

The first time I heard of Icertis was when it closed its billion dollar valuation funding round last year. I wasn't alone to discover Icertis back then. Many people in the ecosystem, including some of the top investors had the same question, what does Icertis do and why is it valued at over a billion dollars? In this episode of SaaSBOOMi podcast with its co-founder Monish Darda, we don't just answer the questions about what makes Icertis a unicorn, but also trace the journey from the early building blocks.  As I discovered in this conversation, Icertis isn't just a SaaS unicorn. It's clearly among the companies out there who have the potential to go all the way to become what they call "BuiltToLast.""If you're building the company for the long term, you really have to think about your values....giving people a framework and giving yourselves a framework on how you behave," Monish tells me in this podcast. Monish and Samir Bodas, the co-founders of Icertis, applied all the learnings from their past failures to build a culture that lasts. "After every meeting, and during the meetings, we always ask ourselves, what if we walk out now."The culture of learning from failures is helping Icertis avoid existential failures in the future. During every company meeting, both Samir and Monish talk about their failures over the past six months. The story of Icertis reminds me of Ben Horowitz's famous book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things." Icertis' journey so far, and the potential ahead, underscores what it really takes to build a company that matters, not just for the next funding rounds, but a true "BuiltToLast."Please tune in to learn from Icertis' journey.

Kellan Carter "I graduated in 2009, eerily similar conditions to today. The job market was tough so I combed through our alumni list and reached out to John persistently till I got a reply. When he agreed for a call, I flew out to meet him at his office. If he was kind enough to give me time, I was going to respect him by flying out there. Several years later when I was ready, he brought me in at Ignition". Kellan Carter is a Partner at Ignition Partners, a dedicated early-stage enterprise software VC firm. Kellan is also a board member and investor at several leading tech startups such as botkeeper, Icertis, and Symend. He led Symend's $7.5mn Series A earlier this month. Kellan is an alum of University of Montana. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theindustryshow/support

In this podcast Bernadette draws down from her experiences as an assistant general counsel, law firm partner and legal tech entrepreneur. Bernadette describes the digital transformation of the legal profession and specifically the modern legal department. Giving examples of her expertise which includes the adoption of legal technologies, data and performance metrics for legal departments, and other innovative practices that are transforming the practice of law.One of the reasons she was so attracted to coming into CLM is after speaking to Icertis CEO Samir Bodas. She'd always known this having worked in contracting, but he said: "Do you realize that every dollar in and out of an organization is represented by a contract", and it was this simple phrase that was such an epiphany to her. In Bernadette's view contracting is having its day. If you'd asked her six months ago how many people knew what force majeure was, she would say a very small group of individuals globally. We all now know what force majeure is! Tune in to find out more...

Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/show/1YQdnQ50mmenzWVA2MBsQy Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/insights-podcast-series/id1364412685The several success stories of Zoho, Freshworks, Browserstack, Icertis who have all reached several hundred million dollars in ARR with most of their product built in India give proof points for the possibility to build large scale SaaS companies coming out of India.Unlike the 90s when software was a one-time sale, the subscription nature of SaaS pricing ensures that the interests of the customer and the software vendor are well aligned. Today, there are over a hundred thousand software companies serving over two thousand categories with over five hundred billion dollars spent on software purchases. The SaaS industry is just one hundred fifty to two hundred billion dollars, so there's another three hundred billion dollars of traditional on-prem software that needs to be replaced. Another opportunity exists in creating a product for the customers currently being served by custom software solutions built by the large IT services companies. At the same time, new industries are seeing digitization, creating more opportunities for building software. In terms of liquidity as well, SaaS as a sector offers significant options- from an active M&A market and active interest from venture capital and private equity to fund growth to several examples of companies going public. Krish ends by quoting Jason Lemkin, “In a SaaS business, once you cross $10M with good momentum, you basically become unkillable because of the recurring nature of the business”

Viel zu oft werden Verträge noch per Umlaufmappen zur Unterschriftensammlung hin- und hertransportiert. Enterprise Agreements fanden in dringenden Fällen sogar den Weg per Flugzeug zum Bestimmungsort, damit dieser noch rechtzeitig unterschrieben werden konnte. Dazu kommt, dass viele Verträge auf unterschiedlichen Repositories liegen und eigentlich keiner so genau weiß, wo er suchen muss. Immer noch fehlen vielen Unternehmen ein abteilungs- und standortübergreifendes Vertragsmanagement. Bernd Kesslau ist Applied Manager bei Icertis und hilft Unternehmen dabei, ihre Vertragsmanagementprozesse zu digitalisieren. Im Interview mit Nadja stellt er die auf Basis von Microsoft Azure cloudbasierte Vertragsmanagementlösung von Icertis vor. Wie kollaboratives Arbeiten mit Verträgen in der Cloud aussehen kann und welche Vorteile sich für Unternehmen daraus ergeben, erklärt Bernd Kesslau mit fundierter Expertise. Wir sind uns sicher - es geht kein Weg an der Cloud vorbei. Auch im Vertragsmanagement nicht.