Uppercut Podcasts By Upperedge

Microsoft had another stellar quarter, beating expectations and posting double digit growth, both for top and bottom line. These impressive financial results were directly tied to the continued strength of their cloud business. Commercial Cloud revenue grew 41% with Office 365 commercial revenue up 30% as a result of continued install base expansion and average revenue per user (ARPU) growth. Azure revenue also grew 73%, driven by strong growth in Microsoft’s consumption-based business. As they work to continue down this path of success, expect Microsoft to aggressively push for more Office 365 adoptions and for more workloads to be placed on Microsoft’s cloud. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

After 27 years at SAP, Robert Enslin resigned from his position as President of the Cloud Business Group. In this podcast, UpperEdge’s SAP Practice Leader, Len Riley, discusses how SAP is restructuring its leadership responsibilities, the challenges SAP will face from these changes, and how customers will be impacted. Host: Len Riley: https://bit.ly/3fqLI99 SAP Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3yjImwb

Oracle has been struggling to meet Wallstreet’s expectations for cloud revenue. To motivate their on-premise customers to migrate to the cloud, they have offered two key cloud incentive programs: Universal Cloud Credits and Bring Your Own License (BYOL). In this podcast, Erwann Couesbot discusses what customers need to know about these programs, including the key benefits of both and potential downsides you need to keep in mind. For more on this subject, see our recent blog: Oracle’s Cloud Incentive Programs: Sweet Nothings? Host: Erwann Couesbot: https://bit.ly/2WIKJdX Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3C8PnSR

Some things we’re seeing from Oracle coming out of their Q3 earning are similar to what we saw with IBM a few years back. Their revenue is flat or slightly declining (like IBM’s was) but their earnings per share are growing, just like IBM’s had—the main reason for this? Stock repurchasing program, like IBM had done, Oracle is doing the same now, Oracle just spent in Q3 alone $10B to buy back 206M shares, and in the past 12 months they have bought back 728M shares, resulting in an overall reduction of 16% of all outstanding shares. The similarities of their financial moves go on, listen to this podcast and read the accompanying blog for further insights. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

Best Practice Metrics for Tower-based I&O Services When going to market to secure proposals for Infrastructure and Outsourcing (I&O) services, the responses you receive can be overwhelmingly complex and can challenge your ability to do a true apples-to-apples comparison. This 5-part series takes you through the steps you should take to ensure your responses are not only normalized but aligned in a manner so you can operationalize your agreement(s), once finalized.

How CIO’s can ensure they maintain control of their sole source negotiations: Make no mistake, your SI’s plan to secure a sole source award for your Implementation is set in motion from the moment they land resources to begin the strategy phase of your transformation initiative. There are several key tactics SIs will employ to lay the foundation to obtain a sole source implementation award.

Workday's performance in Q4 2019 has been going very well. Workday's subscription revenue was up 33% YoY, they are forecasting more than 27% growth next year and their customer satisfaction rating is at 98%. How are they going about doing this? Their focus has been on HCM, which is the hallmark of their product base and continues to show value to their clients. Once this value is realized, Workday can then introduce clients to an ever growing product portfolio. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3fq96DV

In this podcast, Adam Mansfield provides a recap of Salesforce’s Q4 and full year Fiscal 2019 earnings call. Once again, Salesforce posted impressive revenue growth across all of their clouds. They also raised their FY 2020 guidance and announced they are now targeting FY 2023 revenue of $26B-$28B. If they were to achieve this, they would essentially organically double their revenue in the next 4 years. Salesforce’s confidence in reaching this ambitious goal comes from the trusted partnerships they established with CEOs and the vast array of offerings they have to drive value and digital transformation success for them and their businesses. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/37hFkMV

Erwann Couesbot discusses some of the main commercial hurdles when it comes to Workday negotiations. Similarities exist when negotiating with major ERP companies, but there are some important differences when negotiating with Workday. They are not a full ERP provider yet, but with M&A they are moving up fast to compete with the likes of SAP and Oracle. This podcasts discusses important commercial terms you need to consider for your next negotiation with Workday. Host: Erwann Couesbot: https://bit.ly/2WIKJdX Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2TTLjEO

Mergers and acquisitions are opportunities for SAP to push S/4HANA onto clients. During an M&A there is an optimistic air to discuss synergies, efficiencies and future benefits. But SAP at this time is thinking about big acquisition budgets, revenue opportunity and the possibility to audit either or both companies. SAP will take this time to win in the short term as as well as the long term for future sustainable revenue. Chip Hanna discusses 3 M&A situations to prepare for as SAP will look to expand its S/4HANA adoption onto its clients during this time of exposure. Host: Chip Hanna: https://bit.ly/37gknCk SAP Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3yjImwb

Part of SAP’s 2019 Capital Markets Day presentation centered on “The SAP Top Ten” which includes SAP’s ambition to be #1 in Cloud ERP by 2023. There was also a significant amount of time devoted to C/4HANA’s evolution, its position against competitors like Salesforce, and how the recent acquisition of Qualtrix comes into play. Host: Chip Hanna: https://bit.ly/37gknCk SAP Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3yjImwb

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 what to watch out for prior to your next renewal. For more information on this topic, read our recent blog: ServiceNow ITSA Unlimited Customers: Beware of These Licensing Changes. Host: Erik Bullard: https://bit.ly/2Voe4K6 ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

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 affected. For more information on Oracle’s updated Java licensing, read our recent blog: Using Java? Here’s How Oracle’s New 2019 Java Licensing Affects You. Host: Erwann Couesbot: https://bit.ly/2WIKJdX Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3C8PnSR

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 G-Suite, they noted that they now have 5 million paying customers -- up from 4 million a year ago. It is clear that Google is going to invest and scale when it comes to their Google Cloud business. Enterprises will need to chart their course appropriately and this podcast details key points to consider on why you should plan and how to plan.

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 S/4HANA. For more, read his recent blog: Migrating SAP S/4HANA Could Get You Fired. Not Deciding on S/4HANA Will Probably Get You Fired. Host: Ted Rogers: https://bit.ly/2V7h1z3 Project Execution Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3xlw9px

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 more enterprises migrated to higher value (and costly) E3 and E5 plans. Azure revenue is not reported but it grew 76%, which in a vacuum is impressive but sequentially this represents flat growth when it grew 98% back in Q2 FY18. Based on these results, you should fully expect Microsoft to continue to push enterprises to more robust Office 365 plans and promote the need to use Azure and the cloud bundle Microsoft 365, especially for Firstline Workers. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

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 their emerging products (CSM, HR, Security Ops, Intelligent Apps). 31% of net new ACV was tied to emerging products, up from 25% last year. Expect ServiceNow to continue to focus on their current customer relationships to drive growth moving forward. They know that there is a large opportunity to continue to drive revenue through expansion of their products, adding new products, and increasing the use of what is already landed. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r ServiceNow Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3ls6VDt

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 they also have possible (and likely) ramifications for larger businesses that utilize or are considering adopting Google's G Suite Enterprise plan.

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 negotiations and ultimately lead to getting more value from your Salesforce relationship. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/37hFkMV