Uppercut Podcasts By Upperedge

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

Oracle closed out another strong quarter with the following highlights from their FY23 Q3 earnings call: • Cloud growth was up 45% • SaaS offerings like FusionERP and NetSuite showed increases of 20% and 26%, respectively. • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s consumption rate was up 86% • IaaS revenue was up 57% With numbers going up across the board, Oracle’s continued cloud growth reflects the current industry trends, and their numbers withstand a tough macroeconomic environment. As Oracle continues to think strategically about their revenue and consumption growth, Oracle customers need to have a firm understanding of this strategy so they can leverage it at the negotiation table. In this podcast, our Oracle Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, maps out some of Oracle’s goals that customers can use in their negotiation strategy. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

Workday fell short of expectations in their most recent FY23 Q4 earnings call, but their revenue was still posted as a 20% increase year-over-year and their overall growth projections throughout the next FY remain accurate. These numbers are a direct result of elongated sales cycles in an economic downturn, but Workday continues to leverage their current customer base to increase renewal rates. 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 year as they continue to accelerate growth as well as how customers can prepare for their upcoming Workday negotiations and renewals given this information. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3A6KOXt

Salesforce’s Q4 FY23 revenue came in at $8.38B, up 14% year-over-year and beating guidance ($7.93B - $8.03B) and analyst expectations ($7.99B / 9.2% growth). Salesforce’s full year FY23 revenue came in at $31.B, higher than guidance ($30.9B - $31B) and represented 18% growth year-over-year. Salesforce also provided full year FY24 revenue guidance of $34.5B - $34.7B that beat what analysts were expecting, but still showed a slowing growth of around 10%. During the earnings call, Salesforce, specifically CEO Marc Benioff, made it very clear that improving profitability is Salesforce’s highest priority. The goal is to make Salesforce the largest and most profitable software company in the world. In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from Salesforce during the year ahead and beyond. He also shares how customers should approach Salesforce and how best to leverage Salesforce’s clear goals during their upcoming negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfi

Workday announced a 3% layoff of its workforce earlier this week. While these layoffs are significantly smaller than what we have seen from other major tech companies recently, there are still some important insights to gather from this reduction to their global workforce. These layoffs primarily affected the product and technology division, but Workday mentioned their plans to hire in their marketing and sales organizations and stated they do not plan to lay off more of their workforce in the immediate future. In this podcast, our Workday Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, discusses what these changes mean for customers in terms of where their product dollars are going, where Workday’s current focus is, and how to navigate Workday’s inevitably aggressive sales tactics following these layoffs. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Workday Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3A6KOXt

ServiceNow’s Q4 subscription revenue came in at $1.86B, representing 22% growth year-over-year even though cRPO fell short of guidance. ServiceNow pointed out during the earnings call that cRPO (revenue that will be recognized in next 12 months) was impacted by fewer early 2023 renewals than is typical in Q4. ServiceNow mentioned that they outperformed their Net New ACV and renewal ACV targets for the contracts that were expiring in Q4. ServiceNow’s full year FY22 subscription revenue also beat guidance, coming in at $6.89B, up 24% year-over-year. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow over the course of the upcoming year as ServiceNow works to upsell and cross sell their current customers while 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 Service

Microsoft’s FY23 Q2 earnings came out, and total revenue was reported as $52.7B, lower than what analysts were expecting ($52.9B). This revenue represented only 2% growth year-over-year, the slowest rate of growth since 2016 . Microsoft’s net income was also down 12%. Most importantly, Microsoft Cloud revenue was reported at $27.1B, representing a 22% increase year-over-year. While the associated gross margin increased from 70% to 72%, their Cloud growth rate has been slowing. Microsoft Cloud revenue growth was 32% in FY22 Q2 and 24% in FY23 Q1. Microsoft’s go-forward success will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft Cloud, which includes Azure, Office365, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, Power Apps, and other cloud solutions. In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how enterprise customers can take advantage of Microsoft’s focus on helping customers realize more value from their spend. He also covers what enterprise customers should expect from Microsoft in the coming q

Several key executives are leaving Salesforce, including Co-CEO Bret Taylor, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, Tableau CEO Mark Nelson and Chief Strategy Office Gavin Patterson. This substantial executive level exodus is certainly catching the attention of investors, Salesforce competitors and customers. In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, shares his thoughts on the executive departures and provides insights on what customers should do to get ahead of any impact they may have on their relied upon Salesforce solutions. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

Salesforce’s Q3 FY23 total revenue came in at $7.84B, slightly higher than the expected $7.82B, and represented 14% growth year-over-year. However, Salesforce provided Q4 FY23 revenue guidance that came up short of what was previously expected, while also mentioning they were not yet ready to give FY24 guidance. Additionally, it was announced that Salesforce’s co-CEO, Bret Taylor, will be stepping down at the end of January 2023 (Salesforce’s year-end), stating that he wants to return to his "entrepreneurial roots.” In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from Salesforce leading up to their year-end and beyond. He also shares how customers should approach Salesforce and how best to leverage Salesforce’s clear goals during their upcoming negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/2V78ADX

ServiceNow’s Q3 subscription revenue came in at $1.742B, representing 22% growth year-over-year but lower than the expected $1.85B. ServiceNow also lowered their full year subscription revenue guidance from a midpoint of $6.92B to a midpoint of $6.86B, while maintaining an expected subscription gross margin of 86%. ServiceNow now has 1,530 customers paying them over $1M per year, with the average annual spend among that group coming in at $4M. Eighteen of the top 20 deals in the quarter contained 5 or more products, which is another key metric for ServiceNow because it demonstrates their ability to sell a wide set of solutions to their customers, especially solutions outside of the core Technology Workflows product set like Employee, Customer and Creator. In this podcast, ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow as ServiceNow’s year-end fast approaches. He also shares how customers can leverage ServiceNow’s clear goals during their upcoming Ser

In their most recent earnings call, Microsoft beat revenue expectations but posted the lowest rate of revenue growth in five (5) years. Microsoft’s FY23 Q1 total revenue was $50.1B, up 11%. Microsoft Cloud revenue grew 24% to $25.7B, and for the first time exceeded 50% of Microsoft’s overall company revenue. Their go-forward success will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft Cloud, which includes Azure, Office365, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, Power Apps, and other cloud solutions. In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how customers can leverage Microsoft’s clear focus on getting more adoption and utilization of Microsoft’s cloud, security solutions, Teams, Dynamics 365, and LinkedIn. He also explains why more customers should push for the more costly all-in cloud bundle, Microsoft 365 E5. Lastly, he covers what customers need to do to ensure they appropriately prepare for their upcoming renewal negotiations. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r Microsoft Com

Salesforce’s Dreamforce Conference is a massive event filled with celebrity appearances, sessions, dinners, and hallway meetups. But for many attendees, it can be an overwhelming experience. In this video, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, shares his thoughts on how attendees and the companies they represent can get the most out of their time at Dreamforce while also using the event as an opportunity to gain leverage during the next Salesforce renewal negotiation. Host: Adam Mansfield: https://bit.ly/3rPGp8r SalesForce Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/37hFkMV Related Blog: https://bit.ly/3d7xDj2

Salesforce reported Q2 FY23 earnings and, once again, beat revenue expected by analysts. Salesforce’s total revenue for the quarter was $7.72B, up 22%, while analysts were expecting $7.69B. Despite this continued growth, Salesforce also lowered full year revenue guidance again. They are now expecting $30.9B-$31B, which would represent 17% growth year-over-year, but previously forecasted $31.7B-$31.8B. Salesforce cited foreign exchange headwind as well as customers becoming more measured in the way that they buy as reasons for the lowered guidance. Customers buying habits include stretching sales cycles, executives scrutinizing purchasing decisions, and deal compression. In this podcast, our Salesforce Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what to expect from Salesforce as they navigate customer sales cycles and renewal negotiations leading up to Salesforce’s year-end in January. Based on comments made during the earnings call, not only is Salesforce going to try to pull in as much net-new product a

Oracle laid off part of its U.S. staff earlier this week as part of its plan to layoff thousands in the U.S., Canada, India, and Europe. These layoffs were primarily concentrated in marketing and the customer experience (CX) department. Oracle’s CX solutions include CRM products which compete with Salesforce, the leader in this space. Oracle Practice Leader, Jeff Lazarto, discusses what this may mean for this department moving forward. He also shares why he expects to see more layoffs tied to the massive, $28B acquisition of Cerner which was closed in June of this year. These layoffs come after talk of Oracle planning to announce an increase in support fees which would go into effect after December 1st, 2022. Host: Jeff Lazarto: https://bit.ly/37eCXdN Oracle Commercial Advisory Services: https://bit.ly/3jdtF7p

ServiceNow’s Q2 subscription revenue came in at $1.658B, representing 25% growth Year-over-Year. However, RPO (Remaining Performance Obligations) came up short of expectations primarily due to longer sales cycles and FX headwinds. ServiceNow closed 54 transactions in the quarter with over $1M in new Annual Contract Value (ACV). ServiceNow now has 1,463 customers paying them over $1M per year, with the average annual spend among that group coming in at $3.9M. They also surpassed 100 customers that are paying over $10M per year. This increased customer spend can be directly attributed to the success expanding customer footprints - in Q2, 16 of the top 20 deals contained five or more products. In this podcast, our ServiceNow Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses what customers should expect from ServiceNow over the course of the upcoming year as they work towards pulling in deals that may have slipped out and getting more products adopted as part of year-end renewals. He also shares how customers

Microsoft missed on the top and bottom lines and posted their lowest earnings growth in two years according to their recent Q4 earnings call. Microsoft’s FY22 Q4 total revenue was $51.9B, which was up 12% but lower than what Wall Street expected ($52.4B) and lower than the high end of their adjusted revenue guidance ($52.6B). Microsoft Cloud eclipsed $25B in the quarter, representing a 28% increase year-over-year. Their go-forward success will continue to be directly tied to Microsoft Cloud, which includes Azure, Office365, LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, Power Apps, and other cloud solutions. In this podcast, our Microsoft Practice Leader, Adam Mansfield, discusses how customers can leverage Microsoft’s clear need to show success in taking market share (Azure, Teams, Dynamics 365, Security, etc.), moving customers to “E5,” specifically the all-in cloud bundle Microsoft 365 E5, and accelerated revenue growth beyond the conservative guidance given. He also covers what enterprise customers should expect as they a