And Vijay Says…

I had an interesting discussion with two friends on Twitter yesterday – Frank Scavo who is a well respected analyst and has advised a lot of customers on buying enterprise software and services , and Ben Haines who used to be the CIO of Box and who is now a VP at Yahoo . The topic was about customer references . I thought I will jot down my (strictly personal) views on this matter.

There is nothing more valuable for a vendor than having a customer who is willing to act as a reference to other customers and prospects.  Nothing puts a prospect at ease about a vendor like another customer who can vouch for the vendor. Customer references are also invaluable in securing favorable analyst reports for the vendor. 

References are very important for the customer too. Vendors will typically paint as bright and rosy a picture as possible to make the customer buy . It is by asking around other customers that a prospect typically gets a full picture . In most cases they just directly ask the vendor for the reference . As a seller and then as a sales leader in my career , I have been asked a zillion times to arrange such reference calls . I am greatly indebted to the customers who have provided such references.

There is a strange irony from this point forward in the story . Many customers who absolutely insist on reference calls are themselves not comfortable to be a reference for the vendors whose products and services they have successfully implemented . The most common excuse I have heard is the generic “it’s against company policy”. These same customers also often lament that their vendors have a very transactional relationship with them and doesn’t take the relationship to strategic levels . 

I am all for hard negotiations upfront . Haggle on price , payment terms , indemnity , dress code or whatever it is that both sides need to agree . But I always request my customers one thing – let’s agree on success criteria and a way to measure it . And let’s put it in the contract that if the success criteria are met – then please be ready to be a reference for a few prospects . As both Frank and Ben correctly pointed out – This is also the first clause in the contract that some CIOs and procurement folks ask me to remove . Their typical response is “we are happy to be a reference , but don’t want it in the contract”. Strangely enough I have not had a single business buyer EVER push back on me on this clause . Not one ! 

I trust my customers . If I don’t trust them , I won’t do business with them . And I earn their trust . So I am almost always sure that a customer who promises to be a reference will typically not decline at the end . But on the other hand I have been in this line of work long enough to know that people change jobs and roles . I also know that if I put it in contract , then any legal issues etc will surface upfront and get resolved one way or other . In many cases the person I am dealing with might not have the right authority to be a reference . In short – it gives me a chance to mitigate “not in policy” risk upfront . It also saves a lot of embarrassment for the customer Employees who find out after the project is over that they can’t keep their word to me . 

What does a strategic relationship mean between vendors and customers ? We both help each other to further our businesses beyond the transaction we have contracted for . As an example , I have many a times helped customers by providing them access to experts in other domains or markets that they need help with . And many customers have helped me win business elsewhere by being a solid references. If all we care about is price and budget and scope – then that is all we will get at the end . That is a fine way of doing business in some cases – but then the expectation should be appropriately set on both sides that there is no strategic nature to this relationship . 

So what is my success rate at getting referrals ? I would say maybe 30 to 40 percent at best . But I am hopeful that I can double the rate at some point . Life in enterprise software is not worth living for transactional relationships – at least for me .

It would not be the first time that a friendly banter with my pal Dennis Howlett leads me to post a blog. This time it is about spreadsheets . I have a (not so) slightly difference of opinion with Den on the topic of use of spreadsheets in enterprises . The short version is Den thinks spreadsheets are evil, and I don’t 🙂 OK that is dramatizing it a bit…but here is my (strictly personal) defense of spreadsheets for whatever little it is worth

1. If past performance is indicative, spreadsheets will thrive

Spreadsheets provided continuity for business users from early 80s till now. In this time frame, a lot of BI and EPM tools came and went away. Lotus 123 faded out, but its users just moved on to MS Excel . I don’t see this changing in near future either. Today there are more BI and EPM tools than ever before – and all the more reason for FP&A types to hold excel near to their chest to resist change.

2. BI and EPM companies use excel internally – a lot !

I know – I have worked in some of those companies, and partnered closely with others. They all use excel for BI and EPM alongside their own tools. They all market their wares as “excel killers” when it suits them – but can’t seem to convince their own planners and analysts to let go of excel.

The smart vendors all integrate excel into their products. Despite marketing hype they create, they all know that the product management rationale is solid that excel won’t go away, and recreating excel functionality elsewhere is not a good use of resources.

3. Analysts and Executives use Excel all the time too !

Not naming names – but every analyst I know who cover BI and EPM have excel on their laptops, and have an assortment of files with complex versioning schemes via naming conventions. The more modern ones use google docs instead of excel – but that is not exactly too different.

Similarly I have often seen data loaded in spreadsheets used by vendor executives in their demos . They just don’t say the backend is excel ! I am not saying this is what everyone does – just that I have seen it multiple times. I don’t blame the execs either – rarely do they know what happens behind the scenes of the demos they have on their iPads 🙂

What is the most common data source used by the new generation BI tools ? Excel ! People dump data from other systems to excel , add formulas etc, and put a nice visualization on top via the slick BI tool. Just that they don’t talk about excel in the scenario explicitly.

4. Convenience trumps functionality almost always – except for legal reasons.

World changes faster than BI and EPM tools can keep up with. The ability to change formulas on the fly and and rows and columns means that analysts can keep up with the changing world without waiting for the tool vendors to catchup. The only time they stick with tools 100% is if there are legal reasons to do so – like final copies of financial documents that need to be kept in a proper system of record.

I know top reference customers of pretty much every EPM vendor I know of that do plenty of work offline in excel and just upload the final copy to the tool for safe keeping. Or, they will do high level planning in the tool and then do finer details in excel. For example – they might allocate expenses to the head of a department and then let her manage it offline as long as she does not shoot over budget. How does she do it ? she uses excel !.

Den asked me if enterprises will use manual invoice processing if they have ERP. I have implemented SAP in a lot of Fortune 500 customers – and every single one of them have had a mass upload of invoices from excel !

5. Licenses, maintenance and training favors excel 

Even if someone creates a magic tool that does everything – it is still hard to beat excel . Why ? because excel is a general purpose tool needs very little additional training , and it does not need constant network uptime for usage across the company.  The incremental cost of keeping it running over time may not “appear” to be that high. True cost might be high – but as with everything else in enterprise land – perception is reality.

6. Does that mean all is good with excel and you should not use EPM and BI tools ?

No – Excel can, and does, cause grief in a lot of companies every year. A cursory internet search will provide you several horror stories. What the internet won’t tell you is that vast majority of the time, spreadsheets are a life saver in enterprises. But then, good news has no value in press . If my house gets water damage just once in 30 years , would anyone write an article called “House has not had single issue with water damage in 29 years and 11 months” ?

The goodness of spreadsheet is only apparent by first hand observation of its users. This is the same kind of shit that happens with ERP too . How many “ERP is dead” articles have we read ? And how many companies actually took out their ERP ?

When you see customers who say “we have displaced excel” , at best it means one department for one use case has been using a new tool instead of excel . What would be great to know is if there are entire companies who have completely gotten rid of spreadsheets as a BI, EPM and ETL tool. I have not seen any in the nearly twenty years I have spent in this field.

The smart thing in my opinion is to find the best co-existence strategy for excel and all the other tools. Spreadsheets are invaluable when used reasonably – please just don’t paint it evil with broad strokes.

That is it . Defense rests, your honor !

 

India has contributed a lot to the civilized world – and Yoga is definitely in “top 10” category . In a world where everyone seems to be stressed out , celebrating a day in honor of the ancient practice of yoga makes a lot of sense to me . Plus – it is a huge honor for India. 

I am not a practitioner of yoga – but my mom, my father in law and several others in my extended family , as well as several friends and colleagues are yoga practitioners . I would resist the temptation to call them yogis , given I grew up listening to tales of yogis who have moved on to a different plane of mind . These folks I know – to the extend I know – are kind of early in that journey , and do it today mostly in lieu of daily exercise . I definitely am planning to start learning yoga asap. 

I saw some folks resisting international yoga day by attaching religious reasons for that . This makes very little sense to me, who grew up celebrating Christmas and Eid just as much as Onam and Vishu . For those folks – I hope they are tolerant enough to view it as a way to honor their country and a good way to get some exercise . Diseases of body and mind don’t descriminate between Hindu and Muslim . 

It would be naive to think there is no religious aspect to BJP government pushing for yoga day . There are many hardliners in the ruling party who think India is for Hindus , and they may look at yoga as a Hindu tradition . But that is misguided . It’s hard to correct these people – so let them be .

That is all the good stuff . Now about some things that bother me about yoga day . 

Amongst the most pressing problems that need attention , yoga is not a top ten item for India . A good number of people cannot eat three meals a day in this country . Similarly the health care situation is pretty pathetic for a large section of society . Those are all things that need a lot of time and resources to fix . A hungry man would choose food over yoga every day of the week , how much ever it is advertised . 

Then there is the issue of pollution . Between the increase in number of cars , the felling of trees , the number of houses and offices that use air conditioning and so on – air pollution is significant in pretty much every big city in India . Practioners of yoga – especially those that do it outdoors – are going to deeply inhale highly polluted air . I have to wonder if there is any point to this exercise , including the spectacle of Guinness record winning crowd in Delhi doing it in public . 

Talking of pollution – water and food are also subjected to poisonous stuff to a great degree . In the last three weeks here on vacation , I saw three separate programs on local TV showing heavy use of chemicals on fruits and vegetables . Several people I know are now growing their own vegetables because they can’t trust the stuff they buy in open markets . What exactly is the point of doing yoga and then eating and drinking such polluted food and water ?

Hopefully there will be great planning and execution by the government to make India holistically healthy , and that this yoga day is just a good first step .