What a Great VP Sales Actually Does. Where The Magic Is. And When to Hire One.
In SaaS, #1 most common mishire, with a bullet, is the VP/head of sales. In fact, there a VC saying that I used to really hate. It goes something like “You’ve Got to Get Past the Carcass of Your First VP of Sales” or “It’s The Second VP of Sales When You Really Start Selling” [...]
Wanted: A Rules Engine for Excel
James Kwak writes about the role of Excel in the JPMorgan 2012 trading loss After the London Whale trade blew up, the Model Review Group discovered that the model had not been automated and found several other errors. Most spectacularly, “After subtracting the old rate from the new rate, the spreadsheet divided by their sum [...]
Ruminations on ROI Versus TTV
Last few weeks I have had some very interesting meetings and discussions. If you follow my writings, presentations, etc. you know that I don’t believe in the need for ROI (Return on Investment) calculations for — well, most of the stuff we buy for Enterprise Software. In my view, ROI is something that is either: Asked by [...]
The Incumbents Advantage
I am a big fan of Clayton Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma”. and his other writings. My blogs and books similarly celebrate disruptors and innovators. But, “Dilemma” first came out in 1997, and I think we need to acknowledge how companies which should long have been disrupted and dead continue to survive and, in many cases, even [...]
Opal Targets Enterprise with Purpose-Driven Social Apps
Enterprise platform startup Opal Labs wants to make Enterprise work more like a consumer experience. The Portland-based startup launched officially in October 2012. The founders had previously founded a digital agency, We the Media, where they served very large Enterprise clients. The exposure to Enterprise enabled the team to work closely with a flagship customer to [...]
We Have Big Data But Do We Also Have The Big Picture?
I envy doctors, lawyers, accountants and plumbers. At a cocktail party or any time one of them is confronted with the usual icebreaker question, “So what do you do?” they have ready and concise answers. Me? Not so much. The situation starts to go downhill just after I say “software industry analyst” and I need [...]
New Data on Social Business: Communities Are the #1 Initiative in 2013
At IDC we do a social business survey a couple of times a year and I now have fresh and just out of the field data to share. It’s proven very interesting and telling to trend the survey results over…
News Analysis: Adobe Behances The Creative Class With $150M Community Acquisition
Behance Empowers The Creative Cloud To Make Ideas Happen On December 20th, 2012, Silicon Valley based Adobe Systems announced the $150M USD acquisition of Behance, a digital portfolio and community site for creative professionals. Founded in 2006, the SoHo, New York based company raised 6.5M in May 2012 from Union Square Ventures prior to the [...]
