Uppercut Podcasts By Upperedge

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

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

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

Salesforce’s Q1 FY25 total revenue came in at $9.13B, representing an 11% growth year-over-year. This was on the lower end of their guided range and came up short of the analyst expected $9.17B. Salesforce now expects their FY25 subscription and support revenue growth to come in slightly below 10% (Salesforce’s better way of saying single digit). Elongated deal cycles, deal compression, and high levels of budget scrutiny have been cited as the driving factors to the slowed growth. It is clear from the earnings call that Salesforce, and the Salesforce account executives, need to turn things around; your Saleforce reps will be focused on getting customers to adopt Data Cloud and their GenAI offering, Einstein Copilot. They will also be leaning on price and packaging changes to drive revenue growth as well. In this podcast, Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what Salesforce’s earnings mean for customers and what customers should expect from Salesforce as they push through their upcoming ne

Microsoft announced their FY24 Q3 earnings yesterday. Total revenue was reported as $61.9B, better than the $60.9B analysts were expecting. The critically important Microsoft Cloud revenue, which includes Azure, O365 Commercial, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365 and other cloud products, came in at $35.1B, representing a 23% increase year-over-year. Microsoft’s Azure revenue grew 31% in the quarter, which is an acceleration from the prior quarter with 7 points coming from Microsoft’s AI services. Microsoft’s go-forward success and revenue growth will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft’s ability to get more customers to adopt cloud products, AI solutions (Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Service, GitHub Copilot, and Azure OpenAI) and migrate to the costly all-in Microsoft 365 E5 suite. In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how customers can take advantage of Microsoft’s needs and focus areas to ensure the right deal is struck at the negotiation table

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

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

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

Salesforce’s FY24 total revenue came in at $34.9B, representing an 11% growth year-over-year. However, this did come in much lower than the 18% growth posted in FY23. Salesforce’s FY25 guidance also represents a continued decline in growth, as the midpoint of Salesforce’s forecasted revenue would represent roughly 8.6% growth. It is clear from the earnings call that Salesforce, and the Salesforce account executives, will be focused on getting customers to adopt both Data Cloud and the newly released Einstein Copilot. Salesforce will be pushing Einstein Copilot either as an add-on to the current Sales Cloud and/or Service Cloud subscriptions or an upgrade to the most robust and expensive “Einstein 1” edition (formerly “Unlimited Plus”). An “Einstein 1” adoption or upgrade also inevitably comes with Data Cloud adoption. In this podcast, Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what Salesforce’s earnings mean for customers and what customers should expect from Salesforce as they push through the

Microsoft announced their FY24 Q2 earnings yesterday. Total revenue was reported as $62B, better than the $61.1B analysts were expecting. The critically important Microsoft Cloud revenue, which includes Azure, O365 Commercial, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365 and other cloud product, came in at $33.7B, representing a 24% increase year-over-year. Microsoft’s go-forward success and revenue growth will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft’s ability get more customers to adopt cloud products, adopt AI solutions (Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Service, GitHub Copilot, and Azure OpenAI) and migrate to the costly all-in Microsoft 365 E5 suite. In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how enterprise customers can take advantage of Microsoft’s needs and focus areas to ensure the right deal is struck at the negotiation table. He also covers what enterprise customers should expect from Microsoft as they prepare for their renewal negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfie

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

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

Salesforce’s Q3 subscription and support revenue came in at $8.14B, representing 13% growth year-over-year, but fairly flat revenue growth when compared to other quarters in FY24. It also represents significantly lower growth when compared against the 18% growth posted last Q3. During the earnings call, CEO, Marc Benioff, made it clear that he and Salesforce are focused on: (1) Increasing profitability (2) Being the #1 AI CRM (3) Getting sales executives to be able to tell the stories of AI success (4) Delivering new products and new technologies (Unlimited Edition Plus, Data Cloud, Einstein GPT Copilot…etc.) (5) Delivering great implementations and making sure customers are successful (6) The Ohana 2.0 culture. In this podcast, Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what Salesforce’s earnings mean for customers and what customers should expect from Salesforce as they push through renewal negotiations. In addition, Adam provides his perspective on how best to prepare for Salesforce’s aggres

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

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

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

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

Salesforce released their Q1 FY24 earnings, and while they did beat their previously forecasted revenue target, they reported their slowest revenue growth since 2010 and stated they expect this slowed growth to continue. Salesforce’s total revenue for the quarter was $8.25B, up 11%. Salesforce also reiterated full year FY24 total revenue guidance of $34.5B to $34.7B, which would represent 10% growth. In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what to expect from Salesforce as they navigate customer sales cycles and renewal negotiations. Salesforce is going to be focused on pushing customers to adopt more products through aggressive sales pitches that bring together logical product portfolios for the customer to adopt. This will likely include a strong pitch centered around Salesforce’s “AI + Data + CRM” strategy and Industry Cloud adoption. He also shares his thoughts on what customers should do to appropriately prepare for Salesforce’s playbook and approach to ensure th

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

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