deal architect

Analyst Cam: Tercera

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission ), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

This time, it is Chris Barbin, presenting on his new fund and advisory firm, Tercera. Chris was one of the co-founders of Appirio, a pioneering cloud systems integrator. They built practices around Salesforce, Google, Workday and others starting in 2006. A decade later they were acquired by Wipro, the large global outsourcer.

His focus now is SIs who are building practices around what they call the "third wave of the cloud" - ISVs like Okta, Snowflake, Splunk, Slack and others while also those focused on new  markets for Salesforce, Workday etc. He has also put together a nice board of advisers to help these firms navigate the changing cloud landscape.

Many investors still avoid professional services startups and that becomes Chris's opportunity.  It is an invigorating conversation with one of the savviest services executives I have known.

In fact, 12 years ago he was profiled in this blog as a "cloud pioneer". He continues to be one.

 

The Analyst Cam: Acadian Ventures

As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short segments (with permission), as part of my Analyst Cam series.

This time it is Jason Corsello who presents on his fund Acadian Ventures, an early-stage venture firm investing in "future of work" - the talent/HCM part of that rapidly changing world especially after the turmoil of 2020.

I have known Jason for years both as an industry analyst, and then in his role as an executive at Cornerstone OnDemand.

He is very well connected in HCM world and it shows in the portfolio he has already invested in, and in the limited partners/advisory board he has put together.

Analyst Cam: Unit4 ERPx Briefing Part 2

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

Below is Part 2 of the presentation, Dmitri Krakovsky, Chief Product Officer of Unit4 made about the rollout of the ERPx version announced last October. Part 1 ran yesterday here. 

Analyst Cam: Unit4 ERPx Briefing

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

Dmitri Krakovsky, Chief Product Officer of Unit4 spent a generous hour briefing me about the rollout of the ERPx version announced last October. I am running Part 1 today and Part 2 tomorrow.

Dmitri starts with an update on the TA Associates investment in Unit4 with a valuation in excess of $ 2 billion.

Several things I liked in the presentation

• The new architecture reflects the seismic changes in the industry since Unit4 launched its first gen cloud in 2017 - lot more focus on microservices, ML etc. From a user point pov, there are digital assistants, smart automation, instant mini apps and a lot more mobility. You can see a lot of his influence from recent time at Google.

• There is a lot more thought on migrations and upgrades. His Intuit background shows up in a lot more user controlled destiny versus dependence on IT or SIs.

• I like that the first 15 early adopters are a microcosm of Unit4's global differentiation and focus on services verticals like nonprofits, higher education etc. I particularly liked the portion around industry specific "mesh" architecture.

Next up - hope to interview some of the early adopter customers.  Well, Part 2 before that, tomorrow.  

 

Burning Platform: The future of "as a service"

In the 39th (yesterday) and 40th (today) episode of the series  we have Phil Wainewright of Diginomica and Jeff Kaplan of THINKstrategies, two of the pioneering influencers in the SaaS/cloud marketplace.

In part 2 below we talk about how business models are evolving and how servitization has become a significant trend in every industry vertical, not just in enterprise technology - as Phil calls it Everything as a Service.

In part 1 yesterday we had taken a walk down memory lane on how the SaaS, cloud infrastructure and platform economies have evolved over the last 25 years.

Analyst Cam: Zimit CPQ for Services

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

James Cramer, CEO of Zimit, a Workday Ventures portfolio company presented to me about their CPQ (configure, price, quote) capabilities aimed at the enterprise services markets. The majority of CPQ tools in the market today are aimed at product makers.

Zimit CPQ is not just a quote generator, it functions as a proposal engine and can embed text like staff resumes, customer references and methodologies.

They have an impressive range of customers - services arms of software vendors, digital agencies, embedded services in industrial companies. Also telling that their customers are not just project oriented but are also using other business models like outcome based pricing, pass-through hyperscaler charges etc.

Listening to James present, you marvel at how rapidly the enterprise services economy has evolved in the last decade. Add to that the virtual deployments the pandemic accelerated last year. Not your Dad's service economy.

Analyst Cam: Salesforce Vaccine Cloud

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

Over the last year, I have been impressed with a variety of pandemic and related crisis -driven applications Salesforce and its partners have launched. They have helped with contact tracing of 200 million people, source over 60 million pieces of PPE, helped process millions of SBA PPP loans. I have profiled them here, here, here   

In that tradition, it was nice to have Meredith Flynn-Ripley, SVP Product Growth and GM at Salesforce present on their Vaccine Cloud. It is designed to help 3 broad constituencies - public health authorities, healthcare providers and employers with the whole lifecycle of vaccine management including education, communications, scheduling, inventory management and certifications.  

Meredith does a nice job in 20 minutes covering a lot of ground. As she mentions, Salesforce is starting to deliver a similar scale of results to over 150 customers and millions of vaccinations in this critical endeavor.

 

Analyst Cam: Unit4 Executive Briefing

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

Mike Ettling, CEO and Dmitri Krakovsky, Chief Product Officer of Unit4 joined me for a corporate and product briefing.

Mike spends time on the recent announcement that they have received a  majority investment from TA Associates, a leading global growth private equity firm and about the exit of the previous majority investor, Advent International.  He discusses what TA liked in the services verticals they are focused on to value them in excess of $2 billion

Last May, I had interviewed Mike about leadership during a crisis.  I asked him to provide an update and starting around 10.45 he invokes the Zulu philosophical concept of Ubuntu which roughly translates to 'I am because of who you are'. That has guided him through life and especially in the crisis that started last year. Later in the conversation, in keeping with the recent spat between two much larger competitors , I asked both of them if they wanted to take shots at any competitors. I joked they were 'boring" but I like their high road - "we focus on customers, not competitors"    

Dmitri provided an update on the ERPx release. In October, he had presented (starting around 28.00 here) about the rollout. They are on schedule with 15 early adopter customers across industries and geographies he describes.  Dmitri also addresses my point that the hyperscalers have gained momentum not just at the infrastructure layer, but also at the platform layer. How does an application vendor like Unit4 navigate this major shift in the industry?

We cover lots of other ground during the session. Dmitri will be back to present more details in a session later this week. 

 

Analyst Cam: Vida Health

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

Stephanie Tilenius, CEO of Vida Health, a Workday Ventures portfolio company presents on their solution leveraging a network of therapists, nutritionist and coaches in every one of the 50 US states.

Vida focuses on "holistic health" - physical and mental with a focus on chronic conditions such as diabetes and anxiety. Chronic conditions drive 90% of US healthcare spend. A whopping 41% is spent on 12% of the population who have 5 or more such conditions.

She provides several examples of improved patient outcomes when they get what Vida calls "integrated, polychronic" treatment such as a 33% greater improvement in A1c when diabetes and mental health were treated together.  Their key message is point solutions often miss the mark.

The pandemic dramatically accelerated adoption of telemedicine. Personal health data grew significantly as we adopted digital fitness equipment and trackers. Add to that digital networks like this one. It is a symbiotic relationship - plenty of data for Vida's machines to create more personalized support and matching with providers.

They have grown nicely in the last 5 years - with 1.9 million covered "lives' and a network of over a thousand service providers with the fees paid for by employers and healthcare payers. 

Analyst Cam: Plex acquires Kors Engineering

As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. 

Ben Stewart, VP of Product Strategy and Dave Mofars, VP of Product Marketing at Plex Systems presented on their recent acquisition of Kors Engineering and its MACH2 integration platform that interacts with shop floor machines.

Plex and Kors have partnered for nearly two decades and the combination made even more sense as we see increased automation in the shop floor with enterprises bringing more manufacturing back in the face of blue collar labor shortages.

It blends well with the Industrial IoT strategy Plex has been pursuing. MACH2 focuses on the What, the IOT detail allows for pursuing the WHY such as details on machine health.