Month: April 2020

Microsoft Strong Q3 Led by Dynamics 365, Teams, and the Cloud

Microsoft posted another strong quarter, with revenue up 15% (16% in constant currency) to $35 billion.  Operating income rose 25% to $13.0 billion and EPS rose 23% to $1.40.  The pandemic has slowed some revenue streams such as LinkedIn advertising, LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Bing Search advertising, and SMB transactional licensing; however, accelerated digital adoption resulted in little overall impact on quarterly revenues.

“We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.  From remote teamwork and learning, to sales and customer service, to critical cloud infrastructure and security – we are working alongside customers every day to help them adapt and stay open for business in a world of remote everything,” said CEO Satya Nadella.  “There is both immediate surge demand and systemic structural changes across all of our solution areas that will define the way we live and work going forward.  Our diverse portfolio, durable business models, and differentiated technology stack across the cloud and the edge position us well for what’s ahead.”

Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased by 17% (up 20% in constant currency), driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth of 47% (49% in constant currency).

“Dynamics 365 is helping thousands of organizations accelerate digital transformation as they remote every part of their operations from manufacturing to supply chain management to sales and customer service, inclusive of new scenarios like curbside pickup, contactless shopping, remote customer assistance, and operations,” said Nadella.  “Patagonia is using Dynamics 365 Commerce to rapidly move to new, more intelligent distribution and fulfillment models, including contactless shopping.  And we are working with card issuers like American Express so merchants who use Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection can reduce fraudulent activity as they process more transactions online.”

In the Productivity and Business Processes and Intelligent Cloud segments, there was an uptick in cloud usage, “particularly in Microsoft 365 including Teams, Azure, Windows Virtual Desktop, advanced security solutions, and Power Platform, as customers shifted to work and learn from home.”

“We are empowering people and organizations for a world of secure remote work and learning with Microsoft 365 and Teams.  As work norms evolve, organizations are realizing they need a comprehensive solution that brings together communications, collaboration, and business process, built on a foundation of security and privacy.  Microsoft Teams supports multiple communications modalities in a shared workspace.  It’s the only solution with meetings, calls, chat, collaboration, and with the power of Office and business process workflows in a single integrated user experience with the highest security as well as compliance.

Teams keeps all your work and communication, conversations, documents, whiteboards, and meeting notes in context.  It helps people collaborate inside and outside meetings, making them more efficient and effective while reducing fatigue.  We’re accelerating Teams innovation, adding new capabilities each week, and now support meetings of all sizes, meetings that scale from 250 active participants to live events for up to 100,000 attendees to streaming broadcasts.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Teams usage has exploded during the pandemic, with more than 200 million meeting participants in a single day.  The platform has over 75 million active users, with two-thirds of them sharing, collaborating, or interacting with files on Teams.  The number of organizations integrating their third-party and Line Of Business apps with Teams has tripled in the past two months.

Teams now has over 20 organizations with at least 100,000 deployed employees, including Accenture, Continental AG, Ernst & Young, Pfizer, and SAP.  It is also being widely deployed in medicine and education.

Nadella argued that Microsoft is “not immune” to the broad economic downturn, but that the accelerated shift to digital solutions is to its benefit.  “I would claim that digital as a component of that economic activity is going to increase.  And specifically, the full stack we have from infrastructure to our SaaS applications are going to be very competitive in that context.”

“In our commercial business, our strong position in durable growth markets means we expect consistent execution on a large annuity base, with continued usage and consumption growth across our cloud offerings,” said CFO Amy Hood.  “However, we expect the sales dynamics from March to continue, including a significant impact in LinkedIn from the weak job market and increased volatility in new longer lead time deal closures.”

Terminus Full-Funnel Marketing

Terminus announced a set of additional “full-funnel marketing” features to its ABM platform.  New B2B account-based marketing capabilities include dynamic web personalization, lead-to-account matching, account engagement scores, expanded ABM reporting, and streamlined workflows.

Dynamic Web Personalization ensures a “consistent and relevant experience” to website visitors independent of their originating channel.  With web personalization, markers can serve up “visually impactful content [that] appears depending on what segment a visitor is in, allowing every page on your website to dynamically deliver relevant information.”  Marketers do not need to build multiple landing pages.  Terminus supports personalization by industry, revenue range, intent, relationship, engagement, CRM stage, or Target Account List in the Account Hub.

The new Lead-to-Account matching ties leads to the appropriate Salesforce Account record.  The Lead-to-Account capability is powered by the Terminus B2B Account Graph that helps marketing “maintain CRM accuracy, enable custom reports and workflows, and keep sales teams organized and thinking about the entire buying committee.”

Terminus, which already provides relationship scores, added engagement scoring to its analytical tool kit.  As engagement varies by company and market, “users can now configure how valuable various digital touchpoints are to better report on what accounts are engaged in the ABM Scorecard.”   The ABM Scorecard is a marketing dashboard that evaluates marketing’s impact on engagement, pipeline, and revenue.  The ABM Scorecard assesses engagement impact across both time and segment.

“If you are struggling to understand how to measure the ROI of your account-based marketing program, the updated ABM scorecard with Trends is a great way to prove that you are driving desired business outcomes.  You can do this by segmenting by your targeted accounts and layering in Terminus firmographics to quickly see pipeline and revenue by industry, revenue range, employee range, etc. to show your CMO how you are driving results over time.  This enhanced scorecard allows you to quickly see how each one of your ABM programs is getting to engagement, pipeline, and revenue goals.  By trending your key marketing KPIs you can see if you’re accelerating or decelerating toward your goals, so you can easily pivot if necessary.”

Terminus VP of Growth and Product Marketing Janet Polyakov

Terminus completed its Sigstr integration following its late 2019 acquisition of the relationship intelligence firm.  Sigstr analyzes communications patterns in employee emails, helping determine both account and contact relationship strength.

“These Relationship Scores are a unique, first-party data source that informs teams how their relationships with specific accounts and contacts are improving or degrading over time by providing buying intent signals, sales coaching opportunities, and more accurate pipeline forecasting,” said Terminus.  “Additionally, Sigstr’s email marketing capabilities enable users to unify messaging across the web, owned websites, and the inbox.  The new capability provides users the ability to centrally control the email signatures of their employees while promoting dynamic, personalized content to the most engaged audiences in the inbox.”

Other new features include a native integration with Google Analytics and enhanced ad campaign reporting with trended advertising metrics.

“With these new capabilities, we’ve doubled down on our effort to be the most complete account-based platform on the market,” said Bryan Brown, chief product officer at Terminus.  “As marketers’ jobs become more demanding, it’s critical that they are able to execute with agility across multiple points of interaction, be it ads, web, or email, all from a single platform.  Terminus enables users to easily measure business outcomes well beyond clicks and leads that facilitate better collaboration across teams and deliver higher quality engagements.”

D&B Hoovers Gooses Its Content for Current Users

Spend Capacity is one of three new risk metrics available through D&B Hoovers.

D&B Hoover’s customers are enjoying additional risk scores and industry content through the end of May.  This benefit is perfect timing for adding value to their offering on a short-term basis as it allows customers to test out additional content and functionality for two months at no charge. Sales reps are under great pressure to build and maintain their pipeline through improved targeting and messaging.

Likewise, Relationship Managers at banks are under immense pressure to process CARES PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) across a broad set of pandemic-impacted industries.

Supplementary material includes

  • First Research industry overviews
  • DecisionHQ flags (does the location have purchasing authority?)
  • Spend Capacity (A spend ranking score versus other companies)
  • Growth Trajectory (Will the company grow, shrink, or remain stable over the next 12 to 18 months?)

In Family Trees, a star icon flags locations with purchasing authority.  All three predictive scores are available as search filters in Build a List.

First Research reports [sample] are a set of plain-English industry overviews which help sales reps, Customer Success Managers, and relationship managers who sell and service across a broad set of industries quickly understand industry basics and trends. Core content includes

  • Industry Description: Competitive Landscape; Products, Operations, & Technology; Sales & Marketing; Finance & Regulation; Regional & International Issues; and Human Resources.
  • Top Companies
  • Financials: Industry statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US International Trade Commission. Also includes valuation multiples.
  • Industry Forecast: Inforum Forecast
  • Industry Growth Rating
  • Trends & Opportunities
  • Executive Insight: Key Topics by C-level job Function
  • Business Challenges
  • Call Prep Questions: Conversation Starters; Operations, Products, & Facilities; Customers, Marketing, Pricing, & Competition; Regulations, R&D, Imports, & Exports; Organization & Management; Financial Analysis; and Business & Technology Strategies.
  • Industry Indicators
  • Industry Websites
  • Fast Facts

The Call Prep Questions and Executive Insights offer great value to non-experts. If you are a relationship manager or territory rep, you are likely speaking to individuals across many industries on a daily basis. It would be impossible to develop true expertise in all of those industries. These sections help professionals ask intelligent questions and tailor their conversations at the account and persona level.

First Research reports are available as an integrated service in D&B Hoovers, via the D&B Direct API, as a standalone service, and as individual reports.

First Research reports are written at the eight-digit Dun & Bradstreet SIC-code level and associated with company profiles by these codes. They are also available through the Research and Reports module.

Dun & Bradstreet is also offering risk solutions for business and government during the Covid pandemic:

Dun & Bradstreet Pipeline Risk Analysis

Dun & Bradstreet is offering a free Pipeline Risk Analysis to help firms better understand which opportunities are at risk due to the pandemic.  The analysis may also be used for supply chain or portfolio analysis.  The Health Scan takes a corporate family tree approach to opportunity analysis that leverages Dun & Bradstreet’s global corporate linkages.  Thus, it flags accounts where greater than 20% of their locations are in geographies with commerce and population movement restrictions.  

The analysis also identifies accounts located in geographies with restrictions, accounts in industries directly impacted by government restrictions, and firms deemed at risk according to Dun & Bradstreet’s predictive metrics (Delinquency Score, Failure Score, or Viability Rating).

“Our predictive models indicate that companies operating with limited margin are likely to face hardships when their normal operating environment is disrupted significantly,” stated the firm.  “Our predictive scores show these populations of companies are more likely to struggle to balance all financial obligations, especially if direct sales are compromised through a change in customer behavior.”

As Dun & Bradstreet delivers both risk (credit, supplier) services and sales and marketing solutions, they are better positioned to offer a hybrid solution that evaluates accounts based upon a series of risk factors.

“By adding ‘risk’ as an additional dimension for account selection in addition to fit and intent, organizations can identify accounts that have the highest likelihood of facing financial strain and potentially going out of business. This helps sales teams prioritize their time and helps marketing teams allocate their limited resources more wisely.”

Dun & Bradstreet VP of Product Marketing Deniz Olcay

Olcay also noted that there is an information asymmetry that benefits purchasers.  Buyers have a much better understanding of their cash position and risk profile than sellers, resulting in “adverse selection,” to the benefit of buyers.

When modeling for Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), collections risk is usually not a significant factor in the calculation; however, during a recession, collection costs and delays need to be factored into the CAC calculation.  Firms become much more guarded with their cash during recessions, extending payment periods to maintain liquidity.

“Marketers and sellers may not be measured on being able to collect payments, but it has a significant impact on the performance of the business,” said Olcay.

Dun & Bradstreet notes that the pandemic demonstrated how interconnected the global economy has become with problems in one region cascading into others.  As always, firms should be selecting target accounts based on fit, intent, and risk.  While diversifying your portfolio makes sense as a long-term strategy for hedging risk, it is a poor strategy when near-term risk information is ignored.

“As it relates to go-to-market planning, diversifying your target accounts to reduce risk can hardly be sound advice.  But, knowing the risk profile for your ‘basket of accounts’ may protect your organization from missing revenue targets.  Now more than ever, teams must keep their emotions in check and make sound targeting decisions based on risk.”

Dun & Bradstreet VP of Product Marketing Deniz Olcay

Dun & Bradstreet provided a set of recommendations for “protecting your go-to-market engine.”  These include maintaining a centralized repository of customer and prospect intelligence that is continuously updated, reassessing the Ideal Customer Profile in light of new risk factors, and reallocating marketing spend to focus on lower-risk opportunities.  Dun & Bradstreet also recommends identifying net-new accounts based on pipeline risk and concentrating on upsell and cross-sell opportunities at stable accounts.

Dun & Bradstreet is also offering Business Insights for Business & Government in the Age of COVID-19. I covered this service last week.

Dun & Bradstreet: Business Insights for Business & Government in the Age of COVID-19

Dun & Bradstreet launched a free COVID-19 Business Impact Research Platform for government agencies.  The service provides data, analytics, and insights to government decision-makers to assist with

  • Risk mitigation and risk initiatives
  • Prioritizing emergency management and economic support programs
  • Determining workforce disruptions and supply chain risks.

British and Canadian versions of the service are in development.

Dun & Bradstreet is also providing services to FEMA, the US Small Business Administration, and the National Economic Council at the White House to assist with CARES Act funding and administration.

Small businesses may review and update business information at no charge before applying for CARES Act funding.  They can then monitor their Dun & Bradstreet scores and ratings.

“We recognize that communities are managing through unprecedented circumstances.  Our team of data scientists are lending their skills and analytics capabilities to help organizations across public and private sectors as they face the economic downturn resulting from this global pandemic. We are all in this together and consider it our duty as a trusted advisor to find ways to use our insights and mission-critical data and analytics to help businesses manage risk and turn uncertainty of the moment into confidence in the future.”

Dun & Bradstreet President Stephen C. Daffron

Dun & Bradstreet is also offering free health scan tools for supply chains, portfolios, and pipeline risk.

SalesLoft: Sales Engagement for WFH Sales Teams (Part II)

Continuing my conversation with Sunshine Levin (Part I), Director of Customer and Analyst Relations at SalesLoft. One of the key features of Sales Engagement Platforms is cadences (aka sequences) which automate a set of outbound, multi-channel communications and monitor the response.

SalesLoft Cadence & Activity Feed

Because cadences are automated, reps do not need to schedule most tasks.  Instead, next steps are automatically tracked, and current activity is recorded and synced with Salesforce.  Furthermore, SEPs monitor response rates and support A/B testing. Levin recommends that admins review reports and dashboards to determine changes in the efficacy of tactics and messaging.

Another benefit of activity tracking concerns management visibility into sales rep activity and prospect engagement.  In the current environment, where family members may be ill, and children are at home, managers need to be sensitive to each rep’s situation and not focus on traditional productivity metrics.  To assist with planning, SalesLoft offers prioritization tools such as Hot Leads and a Pipeline View, their newly introduced, native offering resulting from the recently acquired Costello solution: 

“For Salesforce users,  SalesLoft Deals can give you a holistic view of everything that matters when managing a deal.  Within SalesLoft Deals, Pipeline View will help your team prevent opportunities from slipping through the cracks, while Deal View can facilitate coaching and strategy conversations about opportunities during one-on-ones.  Finally, keep an eye on deal health by reviewing Deal Gaps to identify opportunities that may be slipping and what you should do to get deals back on track.”

SalesLoft Blog

Live Call Studio and Conversation Intelligence allows managers and trainers to listen in on sales calls, whisper suggestions to the rep, and join calls.  These tools are particularly valuable for new reps that may have had little face-to-face training before offices were closed and for target accounts where reps are looking for additional assistance on major deals.  Calls may be recorded, transcribed, and analyzed, providing a basis for call post-mortems and training. Automated indexing allows reps and managers to review critical points (e.g. Next Steps, Pricing, Competitors) afterward.  Analytics also assess engagement (was it a true back and forth or a few comments with long monologues) and calculate the frequency of filler words. Playlists provide a library of sales best practices, allowing new hires to listen to snippets around product, pricing, competition, objection handling, etc.  Should a rep have difficulties on a topic, she can forward a conversational snippet to the appropriate expert or subject owner (e.g. manager, product marketing, customer support) for feedback. Conversational snippets present the voice of the customer to the subject matter expert, providing an unfiltered view of the question or concern.

Leaderboards help encourage healthy rivalry between reps.

SalesLoft noted that home Wi-Fi connections could be spotty, so reps may need to connect through their router directly.  A second option is to set up call passthrough where the call is initiated from a mobile app or the browser and is handled as a mobile or landline call.  Call passthrough provides an alternate, higher quality channel while recording both sales activity and conversational intelligence.

SalesLoft’s platform has matured from a Cadence service to SDRs to a broader sales engagement platform that supports account execs, customer success managers, and WFH use cases.  The core cadence feature set is now accompanied by conversational intelligence, enhanced analytics, and deal management tools buttressed by a growing ecosystem of application partners.

SalesLoft: Sales Engagement for WFH Sales Teams

I had the opportunity to discuss the benefits of using Sales Engagement Platforms (SEPs) for work from home (WFH) staff with Sunshine Levin of SalesLoft.  Levin emphasized that many Sales Engagement tools assist remote sales reps and managers.  SEPs help with sales productivity, activity and account prioritization, sales messaging, activity capture, pipeline analytics, and rep coaching.

Levin was recently promoted to Director of Customer and Analyst Relations and had expected to be discussing SalesLoft’s new product positioning and product packaging at their March REV2020 conference.  Instead of greeting 2000 customers and prospects in San Francisco, the firm conducted its keynote session virtually and is now communicating their value proposition in a new work environment.

At the heart of Sales Engagement Platforms are multi-channel cadences that provide a multi-step approach to establishing an initial relationship with prospects.  Reps are not only working from home but so are most of their likely targets. Thus, cadences and messaging should be adjusted in the near-term. Reaching out to prospects via standard channels is likely to be low yield due to WFH, so diversifying communications across multiple channels such as phone, email, social, SMS, and tactile (swag and e-gifting) make sense.  

Also, with prospects at home feeling isolated, personalized one-to-one videos are likely to be even more effective.  Reps can insert personal videos into emails or social links. SalesLoft research indicates that videos from Vidyard, Videolicious, and VidGrid generate two to three times the email open rates versus general emails.

While Sales Engagement Platforms offer templated emails, they are more effective if  personalized. SalesLoft’s research found that 20% personalization is optimal.  Personalization helps refine the message for each client and conveys authenticity.  It also allows reps to modify their messaging around the current work, health, and economic environment.

SalesLoft, along with many of its peers, offers LinkedIn SNAP connectors, which are integrated into cadences.  Reps can send InMails, request connections, submit introduction requests, and conduct research from within SEPs and CRMs. 

“LinkedIn-specific steps help salespeople stay focused, do less application switching, and deliver a better sales experience.”

Sunshine Levin, SalesLoft Director of Customer and Analyst Relations

SalesLoft now supports LinkedIn’s Data Validation Flag, which warns users that a contact is no longer at a company listed in the CRM.  If the company differs between LinkedIn and the CRM, a “Not at Company Flag” is written to the CRM. The flag is displayed to the rep and available as a trigger for contact clean-ups and removal from marketing campaigns.  SalesLoft automation rules can then trigger workflows based on whether a buying committee member has left or whether an admin or champion at a customer has changed jobs. These insights help reps evaluate whether an opportunity may be in jeopardy, the likelihood of closing this quarter pushed out, or they need to move quickly to identify new buying committee members or champions.

“Customers leveraging LinkedIn Sales Navigator Data Validation are now able to use real-time insights to influence critical workflows when their prospects and customers change jobs,” said SalesLoft CMO Sydney Sloan.  “Ultimately, this saves time spent reviewing customer data manually, and it will increase the quality of all opportunities as salespeople progress through the buying cycle.”

Continue to Part II of this discussion.

Openprise Agile CDP

B2B data hygiene vendor Openprise announced the availability of Openprise Agile CDP, the “first and only B2B Customer Data Platform (CDP) built on a data orchestration platform.”  As a data orchestration platform, Openprise offers a single customer view combined with no-code business rules, third-party data, and business process automation.

Openprise emphasizes the advantage of being a data orchestration platform with a B2B CDP.  “Because it’s built on the Openprise Data Orchestration Platform, Openprise Agile CDP includes all the capabilities Openprise has developed over the years to improve data quality in tools like Salesforce and Marketo—including lead routing, account scoring, and attribution—advanced features not typically found in traditional CDPs.”

Openprise supports data unification, data enrichment, normalization, deduplication, lead-to-account matching, and lead-to-contact conversion.  Analytical tools include advanced segmentation, lead and account scoring, ABM activity analysis, campaign attribution, lead routing, and account assignment.

“One of the biggest challenges marketers face is making sure their systems of record deliver accurate, high-quality data to drive marketing initiatives.   A CDP solution that automates all the critical business processes required to make the data work gives marketers high confidence in the accuracy and quality of the data they manage.”

Julian Archer, VP, Principal Analyst in the Marketing Operations Research Service at SiriusDecisions

Openprise claims it can be up and running within ninety-days, much faster than its competitors.  Firms can build custom apps with automated business processes, package them as an API, and create web-based UIs and Chrome extensions for end-users.  Openprise no-code app use cases include advanced segmentation, attribution, upsell, and cross-sell.

The Openprise data marketplace supports data enrichment from leading B2B and B2C vendors, including Zoominfo, Dun & Bradstreet, InsideView, Sales Genie (Infogroup), Cognism, Bombora, KickFire, Synthio, Oceanos (TechTarget), Acxiom, Bing, and Google Places.  Once enriched, data is normalized based upon customer-defined and Openprise taxonomic rules.  Normalization ensures that key values such as addresses, industry codes, job functions, and job levels follow a standard set of rules and taxonomic codes.

Ramble Marketing Bot

Chat vendor RambleChat released Ramble Marketing Bot, its new chatbot builder for sales and marketing.   According to RambleChat, users can build custom bots in a few minutes that “help businesses qualify leads, start more sales conversations, offer up content, and book meetings for sales 24/7.”

Enterprise and Developer customers can continue to deploy and develop bots through the IBM Watson Assistant integration within the Ramble portal.  Ramble designed their Marketing Bot for firms that lack technical expertise.

Ramble lists the following Ramble Bot features:

  • Easily Qualify Leads & Conversations
  • SDR / BDR After Hours Support
  • Collect Critical Buyer Information
  • Custom Routing
  • Playbook / Bot Cloning
  • Offer Content, Links or Suggestions

Ramble Bots may also be customized by different experiences, pages, and time zones.  For example, users can be supported by different bots based upon time of day, with a more comprehensive bot provided after hours.

Ramble Bots support Ramble’s Chat from Anywhere functionality where a chat may be initiated from emails, LinkedIn posts, display ads, Facebook, or other digital channels.  ABM Anywhere chats may be handled by the bot or immediately routed to the appropriate sales rep.

“Ramble’s unique architecture enables us to deploy chat within third-party applications, like SalesLoft, which changes how sales leaders utilize chat for pipeline contribution.  We not only make chat ‘outbound’ and ‘inbound,’ but we give companies the ability to extend chat anywhere online as a means of instant connection and sales acceleration.  Moving beyond ‘omnichannel’ and towards ‘omnipresence.’”

Ramble CEO Justin McDonald

RambleChat announced that Q1 has been their best quarter so far, with quarter-on-quarter growth of 74% and solid Q1 bookings.  The firm noted a slowdown in March, but “we believe this is only temporary.”

InfoUSA Results Launched

Infogroup launched InfoUSA Results, an SMB solution for website building.  The package includes a custom website and landing page tied to online campaigns and a dedicated toll-free or local phone number.  InfoUSA Results also supports site analytics, SEO optimization, Google Ads, local listings, and display ad remarketing.  Customers can manage the site once it is built or let InfoUSA manage it.

“We designed InfoUSA Results so businesses can easily reach more customers online. We developed this product with the time-strapped business owner in mind.  Imagine, as a business owner, you have a team working on your behalf, and new customer leads come right to you.  In fact, it can be as simple as InfoUSA Results sending a text to a business owner alerting them that they have a new customer prospect who is interested in doing business with them.  That is pretty slick.”

Mark Cullinane, President of Local Marketing Solutions at Infogroup.

InfoUSA Results designs websites that are mobile-ready and search engine optimized with metadata and structured markup.  They are optimized for fast load times.  Sitemaps are submitted to Google for speedier indexation via the Google Search Console.  InfoUSA also distributes company data to hundreds of online directory listing platforms.

The service includes multi-channel lead tracking for calls, web forms, texts, and emails with analytics delivered via a dashboard.  Voice, SMS text, and email responses are reported and logged.  Calls are displayed on a geo map with length and quality.

Call management features include call recording, call whispering, and voicemail.

InfoUSA did not publish pricing but is offering a 30% discount for the next three months.

InfoUSA Results provides website design, SEO, display ad remarketing, and site analytics.