Insights for IT Negotiations

Oracle’s recent legal battles with the U.S. government have been widely reported. Here is a brief summary of the two prominent legal battles and what they could mean for Oracle customers. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

ServiceNow has long been known as an IT helpdesk but in recent years, they have evolved into much more than that. As they strive to become the ultimate digital transformation platform, they have made behavioral and licensing changes to drive adoption of new solutions and expand into lines of business outside of IT. In this podcast, Erik Bullard discusses ServiceNow’s land and expand strategy and w...

In July of 2018, Oracle released a new subscription-based pricing model for Java SE (Standard Edition) and announced certain changes that went into effect in January of 2019. These licensing changes sparked confusion and widespread concern among customers. In this podcast, Erwann Couesbot touches some of the changes Oracle made, who in particular will be affected, and how organizations will be aff...

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reported Q4 and full year earnings that beat expectations across the board. The company did not provide a lot of detail regarding its cloud business which is part of its “Other Business” category. What they did mention is that they doubled the number of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) deals worth more than $1M and doubled the number of multi-year contracts. Regarding...

Still running SAP ECC? You’re not alone but with support ending in 2025, you’ll need to make a decision about where you’ll move to soon. Unfortunately, SAP hasn’t shared customer success and failure data pertaining to the S/4hana platform. So how do you know if S/4HANA is your best choice? In this podcast, Ted Rogers discusses what you should keep in mind when seriously considering a migration to...

Microsoft Q2 FY19 revenue reached $32.5B which once again represented double-digit revenue growth. Commercial Cloud revenue was $9B and grew an impressive 48%. Office 365, which is part of the Commercial Cloud revenue, grew 34%. This growth was primarily driven by a 27% growth in the number of seats as well as an increase in the revenue per Office 365 user. Revenue per Office 365 user increased as...

ServiceNow had their strongest Q4 ever with $665M in subscription revenue, representing 33% growth. They closed 51 transactions in the quarter with over $1M in annual contract value (ACV). They now have 678 customers with over $1M in ACV, which represents 33% growth. ServiceNow is not only successfully selling their core IT products (ITSM, ITOM, ITBM, ITAM) but they are also having success with th...

Google has announced that starting April 2, 2019, the pricing associated with Google's G Suite Basic and Business plans will increase by 20%. G Suite Enterprise pricing will not be affected by the planned increases. This is the first significant announcement made by Google Cloud since Thomas Kurian took over this year. Even though these increases will directly impact small to mid-size businesses t...

NRF, the world’s largest retail conference, is coming up January 13-15. We fully expect Salesforce to spend a significant amount of time at the conference discussing new products and solutions. While it is good to gain an understanding of what is new and what is coming, it is also important to use this time to ask the right questions of Salesforce. Doing so can help set up your renewal negotiation...

While Microsoft may want to overwhelm you with new products and solutions at NRF’s Big Show, don’t forget to leave with insight that is valuable to you. Definitely understand what is new and what is coming, but also prepare to ask the right questions of Microsoft. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Salesforce had another stellar quarter, beating analysts’ expectations in its third-quarter earnings last night. Revenue is up 26% y-o-y and the Remaining Performance Obligation (RPO) is now at $21.2B, up 34%. The company raised FY 2019 guidance and expects 2020 revenue to reach $16B, expecting continued growth in cloud computing sales. Marc Benioff has even higher expectations for Q4, putting som...

In September, Thomas Kurian took a leave of absence from Oracle after 22 years at the company. Just two months later, he joined Google as the head of cloud computing, heightening underlying tensions between the two companies that have been in an ongoing legal battle for the past 8 years. At Oracle, Kurian led cloud transition efforts but he and Larry Ellison reportedly had differences with respect...

Many organizations are enticed to move to Microsoft Office 365 or even Microsoft 365 by the belief that their cost profile would decrease and that their pricing would come with special one-time discounting. Too often, organizations later discover after closer examination that the discounting not only wasn’t special but it didn’t come with the proper downstream price protections. This is one reason...

The sourcing and selection of your IT Services partner often spans over several months and requires significant time and effort from your cross-functional teams. Closing your services contract on time while preserving the complete integrity of your negotiated commercial construct requires a plan. You must maintain momentum throughout the process and execute an approach that helps mitigate the risk...

Despite the upbeat and high-fiving tone of SAP’s Q3 2018 earnings call, analysts were not enthusiastic about SAP’s latest results. Although SAP reported 41% growth...

Microsoft had another strong quarter with earnings and revenue beating expectations. Commercial Cloud revenue is up 47% driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 36%, Dynamics 365 grew 51% and Azure revenue is up 76%. Current and potential customers should expect Microsoft to continue to aggressively push adoption of their strategic cloud bundle, Microsoft 365, which includes Office 365, W...

ServiceNow had another strong quarter. Subscription revenue was up an impressive 39% with 25 net new deals with over $1M in annual contract value. With the goal of landing more net new customers and upselling their current base, ServiceNow has changed their go-to-market approach. They now describe their product portfolio as the Now Platform and three (3) workflow clouds (IT, Employee Experience an...

Larry Ellison made some bold statements in his opening keynote at this year's OpenWorld conference. Oracle redid its entire cloud infrastructure and claims that this second generation cloud offering is very different and better than anything else out there. Ellison then spent a significant amount of time taking aim at Amazon's AWS. Listen to Oracle practice leader, Jeff Lazarto's quick recap for m...

After attending Oracle OpenWorld sessions focused on Universal Credits and Bring Your Own License (BYOL), Oracle Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, shares what customers should know about these pricing options. Those considering these options should proceed with caution and take steps to ensure they are making the best choice for their organization before making a commitment.

Too many companies fail to negotiate the right cloud deal with their cloud vendor come renewal. Ultimately, the common culprit is simply poor preparation. Failing to allocate the necessary amount of time, relying to heavily on a perceived strong relationship, and being overly confident in your standard processes can all lead to an unfavorable cloud deal.

Back in April of this year, SAP finally provided some guidance on how it planned to address Indirect Access, or as SAP refers to it, “Digital Access,” for current and future customers. Specifically, they articulated three options for existing customers: Do Nothing, License Exchange or Contract Conversion. New customers would be licensed under the new model, measured by the 9 document types defined...

Too many ServiceNow customers are starting to see a less accommodating and flexible ServiceNow. Especially when it comes time to renew their cloud subscription. Unexpected price increases being forced onto their customer base with contract terms that are less favorable than what have been in place previously are too common. It is critical that you prepare appropriately for these changes as you emb...

Thomas Kurian's leave of absence results in him leaving Oracle altogether. According to various news outlets, the main reason for his leaving was due to a dispute with Larry Ellison over whether or not to allow Oracle's Cloud software to work with other Cloud software such as AWS and Azure.

It is very clear that, after attending the various product keynotes (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Einstein Analytics..etc), Salesforce is going to be aggressively pushing the Customer Success Platform (Customer 360) and all the products it includes into as many customers’ ecosystems as they can and as quickly as they can.

Beyond the announcement of the new partnership with Apple and coverage of Einstein Voice, It is very clear that Salesforce wanted it to be known that they are completely focused on their Customer Success Platform. This focus will bring an aggressive sales organization pushing its customers to adopt more of the products and solutions that it encompasses.