Insights for IT Negotiations

Salesforce had yet another strong quarter and a strong year despite the challenges the pandemic presented. With 24% growth in full year revenue, Salesforce achieved its longtime goal to become a $21B company. In the earnings call, Benioff talked about how they were set up ahead of the pandemic and how relying on their own products, enabled them to be successful. They also posted an impressive 40%...

Workday is looking to fill out their product portfolio through acquisitions as opposed to going out and buying market share which is a strategy Oracle once used back in the early 2000s. Peakon will allow Workday to gather data on employee engagement, diversity & inclusion, health & wellbeing, as well as company culture. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s Practice Leader for Workday, discusses more about th...

If you are considering Oracle and you begin to evaluate an Oracle Fusion HCM proposal, it is important that you insist on full pricing transparency.  This will enable you to conduct your due diligence, build out some financial modeling, and evaluate different pricing scenarios. UpperEdge's Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, discusses three key terms to review in this podcast. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https...

ServiceNow had another strong quarter and year, beating expectations and landing even more customers spending over $1M per year. While ServiceNow’s revenue is still heavily coming from its IT Workflows solutions (ITSM, ITOM, ITBM, GRC (now IRM), and Security Operations, etc.), ServiceNow continues to gain adoption of Customer Workflows (CSM, Field Service Management) and Employee Workflows (HR Ser...

Microsoft had a strong Q2, crushing revenue expectations, while continuing to rely heavily on its commercial cloud offerings (e.g., Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, LinkedIn, etc.). Commercial Cloud revenue ($167B) was up 34%. In this podcast, Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses where Microsoft is focusing specifically such as ramping Azure consumption, moving more enterprise c...

Many Microsoft enterprise customers are about to embark on their first renewal negotiation since adopting the all-in cloud bundle, Microsoft 365. Many will be faced with significant challenges as the appropriate contractual and commercial arrangement, including pricing, was not previously put in place. The good news is, there is still a path forward that can result in an optimized and improved go-...

Justin Parker, UpperEdge's Practice Director, discusses the importance of an IT cost optimization framework. To truly be successful at optimizing your IT costs, your efforts cannot be seen as one-time events, it's what you have to do on ongoing basis—thus making a framework for your programs exceedingly important. Host: Justin Parker: https://bit.ly/3C895y4 IT Cost Optimization Advisory Services:...

Justin Parker, UpperEdge's Practice Director discusses how to best identify, assess and analyze potential IT cost optimization opportunities. Earlier this year Justin co-hosted a webcast: “Driving Effective Cost Reduction: It’s All-Hands-on-Deck!" where he covers this topic in-depth; this podcast is an excerpt from that webcast. Host: Justin Parker: https://bit.ly/3C895y4 IT Cost Optimization Advi...

Over the last several years, UpperEdge Practice Director, Justin Parker, has supported many clients with their SAP hosting RFPs and advised them on the appropriate sourcing strategy to ensure that their objectives are met today and well into the future. This podcast is an excerpt from the webcast: Demystifying the SAP Hyperscaler Hosting Market, where Justin highlights several considerations for m...

Unlike some of its competitors, Oracle is seeing growth and better performance overall in 2020. However, it’s slow growth as Oracle moves to the cloud and off of its dominant on-premise solutions, which takes in revenue upfront vs. cloud subscription revenues. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s Oracle Practice Leader, gives insights on Oracle’s move to the cloud, new streams of revenue, and profitability....

There’s an important role that internal alignment plays on the success of your IT cost optimization program. Early in 2020, Justin Parker, UpperEdge Practice Director co-hosted a webcast: “Driving Effective Cost Reduction: It’s All-Hands-on-Deck!” where he covers this topic in-depth; this podcast is an excerpt from that webcast. Host: Justin Parker: https://bit.ly/3C895y4 SAP Commercial Advisory S...

UpperEdge Practice Director, Justin Parker, discusses how many organizations are grappling with the key decision of where and how they will host their SAP workloads. More recently, organizations are starting to consider one of the many hyperscaler hosting platforms. There are several market dynamics driving this shift such as increasing customer expectations, overall pace of change in the IT marke...

If you’re concluding a year-end deal with SAP in 2020, there are many things you need to think about. SAP, like everyone else, has had to readjust expectations with the market. They made some major leadership changes, but they are looking ahead with relief and optimism. With this in mind, Chip Hanna, UpperEdge’s SAP Practice Director, covers four strategies to approach SAP as the year comes to an...

Salesforce officially announced they are acquiring business communication platform, Slack, for roughly $28B. Why did Salesforce make its largest acquisition in history and what does it mean for current Slack and/or Salesforce customers? What should enterprises expect from Salesforce as it pushes them to adopt Slack and replace Microsoft Teams? In this podcast, Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mans...

UpperEdge's Len Riley chats with Alex Winthrop about how Accenture was particularly impacted by the global pandemic and what actions they took this year that customers should be aware of. —Discussion based on blog: How Accenture’s Strategy Evolved in 2020 – Published October 21, 2020

Salesforce had another strong quarter even during a pandemic, posting 20% revenue growth while even raising full year guidance.  Salesforce posted impressive revenue growth across all its clouds (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Platform & Other as well as Marketing and Commerce Cloud).  Salesforce’s ability to raise full year revenue guidance is directly attributable to a strong pipeline that CRO, Gav...

Understanding the pros and cons of Private Cloud vs. Public Cloud is essential to selecting the right scenario for your business. Through a combination of market research and experience supporting our clients going through similar transformational choices, Brian Undlin, IT Sourcing & Negotiation Analyst at UpperEdge has identified factors to help you decide whether a private or public cloud would...

As the shift to digital accelerates, more enterprises are turning to the cloud to drive efficiencies, lower IT costs, and support work which now requires more collaboration. Alphabet reported that Google Cloud revenue increased 45% in Q3. It is clear that Alphabet is going to continue to aggressively invest in Google Cloud with headcount increases in technical and sales roles, further built-out go...

Microsoft had a strong start to its Fiscal 2021 and overcame the devastating impact the pandemic has had on many business including many of Microsoft’s customers. Microsoft was able to beat expectations across the board, relying heavily on its commercial cloud offerings (e.g., Microsoft 365, Teams, Azure, Power Platform, Dynamics 365, LinkedIn, etc.). Commercial Cloud revenue ($15.2B) was up 31% i...

ServiceNow beat expectations and exceeded the high end of revenue guidance despite COVID while also raising full year guidance. Subscription revenues were up 31% and they now have over 1000 customers with annual spends greater than $1M. ServiceNow is going to continue to position themselves as the platform enterprises need to ensure digital transformation success. They will continue to focus on pu...

On an annual basis, Workday requires clients to do a true up, to which clients ask, “How come when we do a true up, we have to pay more for overuse, but never get a refund for underuse?” Workday’s pricing, as given in an order form, represents (from their perspective) a minimum annual spend amount for the entire term. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s Workday practice leader, discusses why Workday has the...

Many Workday customers are concerned about paying subscription fees in year 1 of their contract while they are going through their deployment. Workday’s typical response is that everyone must pay in year 1 because it is a cloud platform and they are constantly innovating—even while you’re deploying. However, Workday has started to make some exceptions to this position. Jeff Lazarto, UpperEdge’s Wo...

Workday deals consist of a number of factors and unique challenges, the top questions customers have is around pricing— e.g. “Is our proposal pricing from Workday a fair one?”, “Is our prior deal a good one?”, “Where do we stand within the market?”. To start answering these questions, you need to look at your benchmarking factors, which consist of list prices, discounts, net fees on a line-item ba...

If you’re an existing SAP customer, how can you determine what your licensing requirements are under the Digital Access Model? Truth be told, the answer hasn’t gotten any clearer. SAP has since introduced a Digital Access Evaluation service to help, however this is a guise for a soft audit which SAP will use to find gaps in your licensing to immediately monetize. Chip Hanna, UpperEdge’s Advisory P...

Many customers are sharing their financial challenges with their system integrators - especially as it relates to priorities, allocation of funding, and the state of the business. But asking your SI what staffing issues they may have and where they stand in relation to their own revenue targets is equally important as it can shed light on whether your SI is willing to commit to more collaboration....