The fiscal year end is a critical time of year for both suppliers as well as technology buyers, many of whom are in the middle of 2024 budget planning as I type this. Several tech suppliers are wrapping up their fiscal year soon, and will be putting on the full court press to customers and prospects aiming to get as much revenue possible before the book closes on the year. During times of required action (renewals, new purchases, etc.) or duress (audits, M&As), we feel the pressure to get the deals done, and rarely take a step back to view the tech market as a 'federated'' whole, and how that might be impacting your business decisions. ...
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Ahh, May. The month itself is named after Maia, the Greek goddess of Spring - and it's easy to see why. In the emerald month of May, life begins anew as the grass turns green, new leaves come out on the trees, and flowers bloom. It is the season of hope, optimism, and renewal. Oops, did I just say renewal? Oh, that's right, May is also Oracle's fiscal year-end, and the busiest month of the year for your beloved Oracle reps as they scramble to sell new business and process your most recent hostage invoices (otherwise known as your annual maintenance service & support renewals). Instead of enjoying the greening of the great outdoors, many ...
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With recent announcements from Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, Coinbase, Twitter, and Meta (among others) indicating that there would be cuts to staffing in the coming weeks and months, it’s clear that the recession is in full force. As outlined in my previous blog, we discouraged organizations from making drastic changes to the muscle (the workforce) and bone (the facilities) of their organizations. Yet, many of the big-tech powerhouses (like the ones mentioned above) have been announcing job cuts to curb recessionary pressures. Cutting costs and managing value through downturns can be a far tougher challenge for SME’s than their large ...
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Healthcare is one-fifth of the US economy. Due to the shifting demographics related to aging baby boomers, Medicare and Medicaid patients now make up roughly half the patient population. Due to changing insurance payout structures, this population of patients now costs hospitals roughly 10% more to serve than they make, leaving the remaining patients to make up the difference -- plus providing enough operating margin to sustain all investments. In addition, of the 29 major industries we serve, Healthcare ranks 28th in IT Buying Efficiency, which is to say that Healthcare is the 2nd worst performing industry when it comes to technology ...
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It’s a now well-known axiom that there is opportunity in chaos. From our vantage point, technology suppliers are joining in the spirit of that theme to accelerate price increases which are then passed along to their customers. Price gouging it would seem is no longer the domain of consumer goods as we suspect it’s also being employed in high tech. If you have been involved recently in a renewal, software audit, M&A activity, or any other supplier intensive negotiation, some of these price increase ‘excuses’ may sound familiar: Inflation Energy costs Interest rates Labor supply Economic downturn War in Ukraine Rising US dollar value ...
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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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As discussed in some of our previous blogs, market indicators continued to show signs that a recessionary environment was on the horizon. Today, it became official wherein the U.S. recorded its second straight quarter GDP retraction. Preceding this news, were some unfortunate earnings reports coming from Fortune 100 companies (Walmart missed expectations on lowered forecasts). Firms are carrying unanticipated levels of inventory and are having to heavily discount to get rid of it, which are all harbingers of low growth, lower revenue and tighter margins. From our blog titled, “CEOs: #1 Action to Protect Your Organization from The Looming ...
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Preface In 2007, NET(net) developed a program for Private Equity firms to improve the operational efficiencies of their portfolio companies by reducing IT costs with no diminution of business value. As our Private Equity partners went through the global financial crisis in 2008, they modified their approach to the capital markets, extending their holding horizons, and looked to make up the difference in missed returns with improved value (predicated on the operational efficiencies they created). No category performed as well as IT spend, and no partner performed as well as NET(net). In 2022, we see a similar situation as many of our clients ...
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