European companies may face a dual challenge as the U.S. seemingly shifts its strategic focus, which may necessitate measures to assess risk and potentially reduce reliance on American based technology firms. The new US administration has signaled an increasing prioritization of its own domestic manufacturing, which has increased the specter of raising tariffs on EU goods like automobiles and machinery to shrink its $200 billion goods deficit - while simultaneously redirecting resources to counter China’s economic and political challenges across the globe. This pivot may leave EU firms exposed, as the US has signaled it can’t indefinitely ...
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APs (application providers) rely on customer retention and satisfaction. Persistent, coordinated pressure from end-users - especially when tied to cost, compliance risks, and competitive positioning - can force them to adapt. The Java ecosystem’s shift toward open-source runtimes (accelerated since Oracle’s 2023 pricing change) gives users leverage, as APs risk losing relevance if they cling to an outdated model. Now is the time to leverage Aps to accelerate the breaking of Java’s monopoly. Navigating the Java Licensing Landscape: A Shift Towards Cost-Effective Solutions In the dynamic landscape of enterprise technology, navigating the ...
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Preface Nearly all clients are seeking greater prosperity in 2024. While client organizations are still focused on cost reductions to meet the challenges of their new economic and market realities, the pent-up demands of the business are increasingly calling for innovation, automation, and organizational performance improvement. We foresee a volatile and unpredictable business landscape predicated on geopolitical tensions, economic uncertainty, and continued supply chain disruptions as client organizations continue to diversify their technology supply chains, but digital transformation continues to be an investment area. Digital ...
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Oracle in hunt for new money With Oracle Cerner integration going slowly, and as expected most valuable and highly skilled resources are leaving the organisation, the Cerner acquisition has not delivered (yet) the value Oracle has been expecting so far. See our post from 2021 on this topic here. So, what can you do and what do you need to know? Increase the annual YoY price increase on core products to a minimum of 8%. In an economic tide, where clients are creaming for cost optimizations Oracle, has increased their starting position for support renewals to an 8% YoY increase. Only when a client would be committing to new business of the ...
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A significant change to Oracle's Java licensing policy was announced January 23rd 2023. The Java licensing changes are clearly designed to increase revenue for the company rather than provide for a greater or enhanced product. While most well-run businesses seek to increase revenue, with Oracle we must view with a critical eye however, as these types of initiatives typically don’t do much for the customer in the way of added value. In addition to the revenue bump these changes will impact for Oracle, they are clearly also designed to eliminate competition (also not in the customer’s favor). It is important to note that these changes do not ...
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Like many of the market leading SaaS companies, Veeva’s fiscal year-end is January 31st. Why is this important? Most technology suppliers before their fiscal year end will have an extreme ‘push’ by sales management to extract every last dollar of potential revenue before they have to report out their annual earnings. As any sales representative will tell you, everyone wants to close strong at the end of the year. Veeva is no different. To that end, however, there can be opportunities for savvy buyers who are willing to research and invest time in understanding their supplier and their place in the market - even with only days to go. It’s ...
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Coupa’s rise in the SaaS Business Spend Management sector has been impressive since its founding in 2006. Since its stock traded at an all-time high in 2021 at over $350/share, it’s been a rocky road for the company. In a market with greater competition and an economy putting inflationary pressure on companies, Coupa has found both its market cap and stock price plummeting since that high water mark. Since the very start of 2022, Coupa has been targeted as a potential acquisition, and as of this week – that’s what happened with Private Equity firm Thoma Bravo has agreed to an $8B takeover. With Thoma Bravo, trying to acquire, they may be in ...
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SAP customers are facing some difficult and well documented hardships of late, especially those still on the Slow Road to HANA. For many, the migrations have become far more than was originally bargained for. As we have stated in previous articles, SAP’s greatest Cloud success has been in its acquisitions like Ariba, Concur and SuccessFactors. On their own, SAP has struggled. While SAP touts it’s 100% growth in S4/HANA Cloud growth and backlog, for customers, the story is far different as underutilization and adoption woes rule the day for a huge number of them. Given customers are facing these challenges, SAP continues marching forward with ...
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SAP Market Alert: Proceed with caution. With SAP Cloud Revenue exceeding expectations and SAP Management cheering on the RISE program, it looks like they finally have been able to get some traction with a business change program. Some SAP customers that have been delaying their ERP refresh, maybe thinking they are running out of time to make a final decision on what to do with their SAP R/3. Not coincidentally, the RISE program seems to come at the right time for some, as an easy option when they are already on an SAP Platform. We caution our Clients however, in taking a shortcut in your deliberations and not disregard the natural ...
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CRM and Marketing Disruption: Rapid Changing client behavior (initiated by COVID-19) and less physical interaction, required additional means to connect to prospects and grow your business. If you are not doing it your competition will, and companies are loading up on technology to help them achieve this. The problem is, that many companies are loading up and buying the wrong products, at the wrong price, for reasons that are not shared across the enterprise. General Situation: Most Organizations have a CRM (Salesforce, Oracle, SugarCRM, Hubspot etc.) and one of the many Marketing automation tools, but lack the customer knowledge in order to ...
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