Insights for IT Negotiations

Erwann Couesbot UpperEdge's AWS Practice Advisor discusses AWS's Enterprise Discount Program and his take on the top 3 commercial terms any potential AWS enterprise customer should negotiate when considering this program.

Workday’s numbers are outstanding with 26% YoY growth, 28% subscription growth. Their execution and strategy are working well, they are seeing growth in HCM, Finance, Planning and Analytics products by adding six F500 customers and eleven Global 2000 customers. Customer satisfaction rate is over 97%, their customer base is over 3,000 and they’ve added over 400 employees. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s...

Salesforce beat Wall Street revenue and earnings estimates, posted 33% overall revenue growth for the quarter and had a net loss of $109M while maintaining previously raised full year guidance. During the earnings call, Chairman and Co-CEO, Marc Benioff also restated the lofty $35B revenue target for FY24. It is clear that in order to effectively double their revenue in five years, they will need...

One of the most eye-opening announcements made at Dreamforce came during Salesforce’s Investor Day Finance Review presentation where Salesforce set an ambitious goal for themselves - reach $35B revenue by FY24. The target itself is eye-catching but the fact that it will require them to double their revenue in just four years is even more noteworthy. In this podcast, Adam Mansfield shares his persp...

For many reasons, SAP customers are increasingly looking to refresh their SAP hosting strategy and turning to hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Given the pace of change in the hyperscaler market, there are many considerations that organizations should keep in mind as they evaluate their options. In this podcast, IT Sourcing and Commercial Advisory Practice Director, Justin...

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reported that revenue was up 20% but profits were down 23% in Q3 FY19. Profits were impacted significantly by the 25% increase in expenses associated with new employee additions largely tied to technical and sales roles at Google Cloud as well as Google Cloud’s ongoing investments in infrastructure. Alphabet is clearly betting on and significantly investing in Go...

When the Department of Defense (DoD) first issued an RFP for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (“JEDI”) last November, Oracle almost immediately filed a lawsuit claiming that the RFP process violated federal procurement law. After being removed from consideration, Oracle continued to go to court and lost on the grounds that Oracle failed to meet the requirements. Oracle has since appeale...

Microsoft had another strong quarter with overall revenue growing 14%. Its Q1 FY20 earnings call made it clear that Microsoft is going to rely on their ability to infuse innovation (like AI) into its offerings to differentiate themselves, increase customer spend, and win more business. In this podcast, Adam Mansfield shares his perspective on how Microsoft is performing and discusses what to expec...

Less than a month after his departure from SAP, it was announced that Bill McDermott will join ServiceNow by year-end 2019 as President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. He is replacing John Donahoe who is leaving to become Nike’s new CEO. McDermott will now have the chance to lead a cloud-only software company where he will bring not only his years of industry ex...

It’s always important to pay attention to how a vendor within your portfolio is performing and what is said in their earnings call but this is especially true when there is a CEO change as significant as the one that just happened at ServiceNow. Q3 FY19 is the first earnings call since the shocking announcement that CEO John Donahoe is being replaced by former SAP CEO, Bill McDermott. Their commen...

Outsourcing your Infrastructure Managed Services comes with its own sets of risks. Poor planning and preparation creates undue risks that could have been mitigated upfront. In this podcast, IT Sourcing & Commercial Advisory Practice Director, Greg Hall, shares five common risks that can derail your efforts, break your business case, and start you off on the wrong foot with your chosen provider. He...

There has been much confusion and anxiety around Java use this past year and many organizations are still not sure whether they are required to purchase a commercial license. Concerned about the potential financial exposure that could be tied to Java use in the event of an Oracle audit, many readers and clients sent us questions and comments in response to Senior Advisor, Erwann Couesbot’s blog, T...

This podcast is part of our Head in the Clouds series which covers the latest cloud computing news from the perspective of someone who helps enterprises improve their cloud vendor contractual relationships. This week, Adam shares his thoughts on Facebook’s unification of Workplace and Portal to further expand its current customer base of 3 Million paying Workplace users and increase adoption among...

The US Department of Interior is moving over 84,000 users back to Office 365 after its previous decision to go with Google despite the many challenges that come with such a massive change. Needless to say, this is clearly a significant loss for Google Cloud as they strive to ramp adoption of G Suite within the government and large enterprises. The optics associated with the government’s decision t...

This podcast is part of our Head in the Clouds series which covers the latest cloud computing news from the perspective of someone who helps enterprises improve their cloud vendor contractual relationships. This week, Adam shares his thoughts on Zendesk’s recent moves to land more enterprise customers. He also discusses how Google Cloud restructured its sales organization to better position themse...

This podcast is part of our Head in the Clouds series which covers the latest cloud computing news from the perspective of someone who helps enterprises improve their cloud vendor contractual relationships. This week, Adam shares his thoughts on Slack’s recently released Q2 FY20 earnings – the company’s first earnings since going public. He also discusses Google Cloud’s efforts to land even more e...

This podcast is part of our Head in the Clouds series which covers the latest cloud computing news from the perspective of someone who helps enterprises improve their cloud vendor contractual relationships. This week, Adam shares his perspective and insights regarding Salesforce’s recently released Q2 FY20 earnings as well as Google Cloud’s announcement aimed at making G Suite and Hangouts more “s...

Salesforce had another strong quarter and raised FY20 revenue guidance, indicating that they expect even better quarters ahead. Knowing that their customers are focused on digital transformations, Salesforce is aggressively pushing the Customer 360 Platform as the solution that will enable their success. In this podcast, Adam Mansfield discusses the recent acquisitions that are starting to pay off...

On the heels of the MapAnything acquisition back in April, Salesforce is buying ClickSoftware, a field service and workflow management software company for $1.35B. Salesforce continues to focus on building out its field service offerings realizing that this space is where its competitors, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP have increased their own investments. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r S...

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, recently reported Q2 FY19 earnings and shared a very interesting bit of information; Google Cloud’s annual run rate is now $8B. The last and only time Alphabet shared Google Cloud’s annual run rate was in February of 2018 when it was $4B. In this podcast, Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how they achieved this impressive growth in such a short period of...

As many SAP customers begin their ECC to S/4HANA migration journey, we’re noticing many organizations focusing too heavily on some elements of their sourcing strategy and not enough on others. In this podcast, SAP Practice Leader, Len Riley, discusses the four key elements of the sourcing strategy that you must contemplate with your team in order to establish a holistic and integrated sourcing str...

SAP ECC to S/4HANA migrations are complex projects that come with many challenges but they also represent opportunities for customers to improve their previous licensing agreements. However, this complex undertaking requires significant planning since SAP’s motivations for S/4HANA migrations directly conflict with the motivations of its customers. In this podcast, SAP Practice Leader, Len Riley di...

ServiceNow beat market expectations with another strong quarter. Their positive results support the underlying message of their recent rebranding and change in marketing and sales approach – ServiceNow is no longer just a tool for IT. In this podcast, Analyst Bearson Smith, discusses some key highlights from the earnings call, what ServiceNow’s shift in focus is really about, and how customers can...

If you are a Salesforce customer, you may not be aware that Salesforce recently removed their standard renewal price protection from their Master Subscription Agreement. Besides the fact that customers are now completely exposed and Salesforce has increased leverage at renewal, this also gives us a glimpse into the strategies and approaches being developed behind the scenes at Salesforce as they l...

Judson Althoff, executive vice president of Microsoft's Worldwide Commercial Business organization, kicked off Microsoft Inspire 2019 with a promise that all solution areas will get better in FY20. Specific to Microsoft Teams, he said, customers are going to see more collaborative capabilities and AI capabilities. A focus on innovating Teams and adding capabilities makes perfect sense as Microsoft...