Unknown Speaker 0:00:13.7 

Good afternoon. I hope you enjoyed our last session, where we talked a lot about revenue performance management, our applications, and where we're going next. We had an engaging conversation with Tony in SBI. As you're sitting at your tables, you've got practitioners here at this event who are in the same roles, dealing with some of the same challenges, so please make sure you're introducing yourselves and making those connections, which is really the genesis of this next session. We love to hear from practitioners. What's top of mind? What are they thinking about as they're navigating the complexities ahead of us? So I'm very excited to introduce a little fireside chat that we'll have today with Scott Hirsch and Justin Edwards. Please come on up. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:01:09.1: 

I had a couple of slides that I wanted to introduce the complexity of the Anaplan go-to-market. Can you guys hear me now? Yes, okay, cool. Oh, but I was going to start with our sales performance management video. [Video plays 0:01:27.2]. So what we're trying to do with our suite of revenue performance management solutions is exactly what that video says, which is to help rev ops teams and CROs see around corners and make sure that they have all the data at their fingertips to be able to make the right decisions at the right time to hit the revenue number. This is more and more important in our increasingly complex and dynamic world, which has those endemic things going on, such as tariffs and wars, and endemic things happening, such as how the virus journey is completely changing faster than it really ever has. So I'm really excited to be working in this space at Anaplan and excited to talk to Justin today about the changes that he's seeing happening in go-to-market operations and sales operations. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:02:47.6: 

I wanted to quickly do a little bit of an introduction. I don't have a cheat monitor, so I'm going to have to look up here, but an introduction just so the folks in the room can understand how complicated Anaplan's go-to-market is. We actually have a very high-growth model, and even though we're privately held by Thoma Bravo, some of this information has been shared publicly, but we've been growing 20 per cent year over year over the last couple of years. Anybody who has been in that type of high-growth model knows how difficult that is for the planning teams in making sure that you have your accounts distributed fairly, evenly, and equitably, that you're focusing on the right accounts at the right time at the right place to be able to hit your revenue number and to make sure that your plans and quotas actually all get out on time. I think we've all worked at companies where that doesn't always happen. Every moment you take away from your sellers to be able to sell is the moment that they're not selling, and creates more uncertainty around whether or not you can actually hit your revenue number. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:03:53.9: 

We have 2,500 customers. We serve 48 per cent of the Fortune 50, and we also have a channel go-to-market motion. We have a bunch of different ways of how we categorize an account and score accounts internally that add complexity to the go-to-market planning process as well. Then, just by the numbers, we have 36 SKUs across five LOBs. We have 14,000 use cases in market, 250 partners, 250 sellers, three geographies, 50 areas, and selling pods globally, and then a very robust sales support team. You probably heard Joe Horsey speak this morning about some of the work that we've been doing in that area to make sure that our sales teams are adequately supported to be able to hit their numbers. So suffice to say, I wanted to throw these slides out there just so everybody knows we eat our own dog food, but our problem isn't necessarily an easy one to solve. So if it works for us, it can work for you. So without further ado, I wanted to bring out Justin for our fireside chat conversation. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:05:08.6: 

The awkward exchange here, Scott. Good to see you. Good afternoon. 

 

Scott Hirsch: 0:05:14.6  

So Justin, you've been doing revenue operations, go-to-market operations for a long time, and I was just wondering if we could just start with you telling us a little bit about how you've seen the market evolve and change, and what your philosophy is around go-to-market operations. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:05:35.0: 

Interesting question. When I think about my role, my team's role, I think through the lens of productivity. How are we driving productivity in the field? I haven't said this publicly, but I'd like to think of myself as the chief productivity officer, and I say that jokingly, of course, but it has to be balanced. I think about it across two dimensions. It can't be productivity when it comes at the sake [sic] of other organizations. So I won't strive for productivity in the field if it comes at the expense of my team having to do things in the background and manufacture things in the background to support that productivity. It needs to be productivity of the field as well as to do it in an efficient and effective manner from the supporting function as well. So that's number one, productivity. Then, number two, thinking about bringing my team along the spectrum from champion to challenger. So many people in supporting roles operate along this spectrum.  

 

Justin Edwards 0:06:50.9: 

So think about champion being someone that is very execution oriented, yes ma'am, yes sir, I'll get the job done. Challenger is obviously on the other side of that spectrum, but more obviously challenging the status quo, asking questions, and having a seat at the table. So my objective with my organization is to bring them along on that spectrum from champion more into the middle, but having that opportunity to challenge the status quo and really be agents of change. So productivity and the champion challenger spectrum are two things that I think about very often.  

 

Scott Hirsch 0:07:37.4: 

I like that tension between the champion and the challenger, and I experienced that in the marketing side as well, so it resonates a lot. I do feel like there are new skillsets that are emerging, especially, maybe it changes the way you think about your hiring profile for how you hire ops people. If you want them to be moving from the champion end of the spectrum more to the strategic advisory end of the spectrum, how do you think about that? How do you think the role of the ops person is changing, or are there certain skills or characteristics that you think are more important now than they were, say five or ten years ago? 

 

Justin Edwards 0:08:17.4: 

Yes, absolutely. When you think about operations five years ago, I think the parallel was often in terms of Salesforce administration. That's how people viewed the role, right? Hey, can you help me progress an opportunity? Can you help me close or open an opportunity or create a quote? That's very much in that champion side of the spectrum and requires a certain skillset. I'm very much steering away from that end of the spectrum, as I said, and therefore, the hiring profile becomes much different. When you think about the challenger profile, it's someone who can sit at the same table as the people that they're supporting and have an honest and intellectual conversation about where they think the business needs to be steered. So it naturally requires a different skillset. Someone who is maybe more tenured, right? Someone who has the ability to stand toe-to-toe with the principle they're supporting and be a thought partner and sparring partner to exchange ideas.  

 

Justin Edwards 0:09:36.1: 

So that's really how we're developing the profile in ops. All of that requires though automation and processes. I can't evolve the skillset of someone in operations from champion to challenger without the administrative-type things that I referred to earlier being handled by automation. So that's a journey that we've been on, and I've been able to gradually evolve both the expectations and the capability of the team. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:10:10.8: 

Yes, that's interesting. Coming back to your point about productivity, if you want somebody to sit more in a champion role, you have to remove the obligation to do a lot of the more menial and tedious tasks, which requires new tools, right? I'm just wondering if we could stay in the past just for one more question, but having operated at companies that didn't use Anaplan in the past, what was different then versus now in terms of the ability for people to have the time, energy, and the strategic oomph to be able to go toe-to-toe with their stakeholders? 

 

Justin Edwards 0:10:50.9: 

Yes, I don't think anyone in the room will be surprised by this answer, but I was telling someone very recently that we as operations professionals spent 90 per cent of our time stitching data together across a disparate landscape of technology. You literally are in a spreadsheet going from one system to the next, copying and pasting, and spending all of your time prior to the deliverable, practically putting it together so that it can be consumed. So the remainder of your time - ten per cent until the deliverable is due - is spent doing what - driving some kind of conclusion or insight. It's obvious to say, but that equation needs to be flipped. We should be spending the minority of the time actually gathering or reporting, and more of the time driving the insight and conclusion. If you think as that relates back to my champion and challenger spectrum, it very much brings that person along, almost naturally, because they will be more inquisitive. They will ask better questions. They will be better partners to the principles. It's just that the manual stitching together of data and the lack of automation drag them down to the champion side of that spectrum. So automation is a key unlock to my ability as a leader in operations to bring people along on that spectrum. 

 
Scott Hirsch 0:12:30.4: 

I always throw you an oddball question. This is one of them. I apologize in advance, but do you think that your role as a sales ops leader, a go-to-market operations leader, is to make solid recommendations based on data, or is it to help sales leaders understand optionality, or is it a mix of both? 

 

Justin Edwards 0:12:58.4: 

Gee, I don't know. Is it better to… 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:13:01.6: 

Say this is the right way we should go. This is the way that the data is telling us, and here's my proof, or is it more about hey, there's some strategic trade-offs and decisions we have to make, and here's a couple of different scenarios, or what if options. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:13:18.4: 

I hate to say this. It really depends. As many times as I can, I will bring a recommendation based on my experience and what the data is telling me, but there's always going to be variables and options that may not resonate with the principles. I make it a practice - as I'm sure many people in this room do - not to bring any presentation or perspectives without a recommendation. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:13:54.7: 

Right, right. 

 

 

Justin Edwards 0:13:57.4: 

Does that help answer the question? 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:13:58.2: 

It does. What I was trying to get at was when we were talking before about what if modeling and scenario modeling. Is that something that gets done behind a closed door with an ops team with a goal of coming out with a very firm recommendation, or can it be something that you do together with sales leadership, but everyone is acting with the same set of data? Of course, this requires tools that enable you to do real-time what-if scenario modeling. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:14:28.9: 

So I've been at a number of software companies. I won't say the names, but… 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:14:37.0: 

We can all look at it on LinkedIn. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:14:38.6: 

Yes. You could look at LinkedIn to figure it out. There was a very iterative process to define territories. So the way it worked was - just to pull on that thread a little bit - the way it worked was you would cobble together a spreadsheet by pulling disparate sets of data. You'd bring it to the sales leader. He or she would pick it apart invariably, and you'd have to go back to your desk. A day or week later, you'd come back with the revisions and say, 'How does this look?' It's a lengthy, iterative process. What are the consequences of that? A lot of frustration, errors, and time wasted in the field, frankly, to be carving territories instead of what their primary roles are in selling and managing. One of the biggest is actually a delay in the delivery of territories flows. So that may sound tactical on the surface, but it's really a productivity driver. The faster I can deliver territories and quotas, the faster the teams can actually be out doing what they're best at doing, and that's selling. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:16:00.4: 

So the reason I tell you that background is because I've had the incredible satisfaction this past fiscal year of making a post on LinkedIn six weeks prior to the completion of the fiscal year, saying that our territories and quotas were locked. Locked territories and quotas six weeks before the fiscal close, and we're able to deliver territories and quotas on day one to every single person in the field of the fiscal year. Again, that may sound tactical on the surface, but what it does is a real productivity unlock for the field. 

 

[Audience applause 0:16:42.2] 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:16:45.7: 

I don't think I've ever worked anywhere where people got their quota and their territory on day one of the fiscal. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:16:52.7: 

No. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:16:53.1: 

Yes. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:16:53.7: 

So you mentioned scenario planning, and it comes back to that possibility. In Anaplan - so to your point about dog food, I choose to say champagne - we drink our own champagne. So we've deployed the territory app inside of Anaplan, which has this phenomenal scenario modeling future where I, as a sales ops professional, can sit with the first-line leader and literally define any scenario that they want by dragging and dropping different accounts into different territories, creating new geographies. Let's say you want another territory in the Netherlands. You just create it. You drag the accounts in. The pipeline comes with it. So if you think back to my story about my history and having this very lengthy, iterative, and manual process for that territory design, it's no longer the case. I'm able to shorten the duration for completion of that task almost to zero because you're walking out of that meeting with a completed territory because of that scenario modeling capability. That is just one reason for our success this year and being able to deliver. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:18:24.0: 

So another real-world example might be if, just hypothetically speaking, the UAE were a big territory for us, and we had to limit all of our travel there and maybe pull back on some of our pipeline expectations, you could very quickly remodel and rebalance across all the territories and quotas for all of Anaplan. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:18:46.1: 

Literally drag and drop accounts, territory, people, pipeline, quota, and immediately see the impact. It's game-changing. Honestly, I've never had that capability, and I've literally built territory applications for prior companies. I've never had this capability before. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:19:12.6: 

Cool, before we get off of this concept of challenger champion, we asked in our last session one of the speakers the question do you think agents will ever replace AEs. It's kind of an interesting conversation because so much of selling is art and so much is science, and where is that line, but do you think that agents would ever replace ops or parts of ops? 

 

Justin Edwards 0:19:41.1: 

I don't, no. I'm not just saying that because some of my team members are in the room. I think what it will allow us to do is actually be more productive and move us along that spectrum. So what I mean by that is we have a sales analyst that we have commercially available. If the CRO has a question that he or she would normally ask a sales ops person to do, which would require a lot of manual work, but asking the agent would allow that question to be answered very quickly. What does that do? It removes cycles from the ops person, allowing them to think more strategically and act more strategically on behalf of the business. So I think it will take away some of the more mundane routine activities, yes, boost productivity with the ambition I think to bring people along that spectrum and make them more value-added. That's the way I see it. So I do see it as a productivity lever. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:20:58.6: 

We are going to open it up for questions from the audience, by the way, so if you have some, just jot them down or keep them in mind. I wanted to pivot over to talking about forecasting for a little bit. So at Anaplan, we just launched our sales forecasting solution at the end of March. Anaplan has been using it for long before that. We actually used our own forecasting model as a baseline for creating the application, but can you talk a little bit about what impact using Anaplan for sales forecasting has had? 

 

Justin Edwards 0:21:36.8: 

The big unlock that I've been able to observe is just seeing everything that you need on a single pane of glass. Many of us operate, as I said, over a disparate landscape of different applications and platforms. Historically, being able to bring those altogether was a significant undertaking. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:22:05.7: 

Yes, from Salesforce Gainsight, people's laptops, and ERP. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:22:09.5: 

ERP. Yes, a significant undertaking. We're able to bring those things in and see them all together in real time. That's number one. Number two is the adaptability and the agility of a platform. What I mean by that is I've worked at organizations that ran alternative options, which were okay, but they didn't have nearly the agility or adaptability of Anaplan. What I mean by that is if you wanted a change effected in whatever your reporting instance was, what do you have to do? You have to wait and queue for IT to contact you. Invariably, your ticket was deprioritized because something else is more important. So you'd be waiting forever for this little change to be made for you to be more effective in your job. So today, if my CRO asks me for a change - I'm not exaggerating - I can have it live that day. So our ability to react to the pace of the business, to be adaptable to the changes, or to the requirements is a complete game-changer. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:23:38.4: 

Yes, we talked in our session before about how powerful CoModeler becomes in that scenario as well, because you could actually provide code, different scenarios that maybe aren't even baked into the model before you make them prime time basically. Yes, so, arcing back up, our last session was the CRO of the future, and I was just thinking about the question of the ops team of the future. What do you think in today's world, with the tools we have available today, and the agility that's required, is going to separate successful go-to-market teams from those that flounder or struggle? 

 

Justin Edwards 0:24:20.0: 

I think our world is just changing so quickly. Every day you wake up, you see a new headline about what AI is doing. So I think it's imperative that we're all able to be agile and responsive. That to me has been what I've been most impressed with on the application, in drinking our own champagne, not dog food. So agility, adaptability, like I was saying earlier, and our ability to respond to changing market conditions have been unlike anything I've experienced. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:25:07.7: 

Cool. Why don't we offer it up for some audience questions? I have a couple more in case we don't get any, but I wanted to make sure we gave ample time for questions from the audience. Yes, Chin. Do we have a mic? Okay, I'll repeat your question. 

 

Audience 0:25:36.1: 

This is a question for the chief [unclear words 0:25:37.5] officer. As Scott mentioned the complexity that we have on our go-to-market, or could you share some of your favorite productivity metrics for [unclear words 0:25:47.6]. What do you think are your favorite productivity metrics for the roles? 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:25:57.3: 

So the question was favorite productivity metrics for the various roles that support go-to-market, right? 

 

Audience 0:26:02.4: 

Yes. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:26:02.7: 

Okay. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:26:04.7: 

It's a great question. I can go in a number of different directions, but we are rolling out a new framework to evaluate effectiveness, I would say inside of Anaplan, and it's anchored on, not just outcomes for the field, meaning are they driving pipeline? Are they achieving quota? Those are all outcomes that everyone normally measures, but what we're doing is establishing a framework to measure the extent to which the inputs are being accomplished to the extent that you would expect. Inputs like are they meeting with clients? How often are they meeting with clients? Are they executing sales programs as we expect? Are they giving demos, right? Are they taking their enablement? How effective are they with the enablement, not only participation, but in demonstrating what they're being taught? Those are all inputs to achieve the outputs that we would anticipate. So it's an entirely new framework - we haven't launched it yet - but I'm really excited about it, because we're going to have the ability to be much more predictive about what those outcomes are.  

 

Justin Edwards 0:27:37.6: 

The outcomes are the live indicator. If a rep hasn't achieved the quota, it's too late. So how can we get ahead of it? How can we observe the patterns and the behaviors before we get to the point where the rep hasn't hit his or her quota, right? So the ability to measure those inputs in order to influence the outcomes is, I think, going to be - I keep on using this word - but a game-changer for us for a number of dimensions, ultimately to affect productivity as you asked. 

 

Audience 0:28:17.2: 

Thank you. It's like [unclear words 0:28:19.4]. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:28:21.0: 

Exactly. 

 

Audience 0:28:21.7: 

It's not a guarantee, but it's high [unclear words 0:28:23.6] to the numbers. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:28:24.7: 

Exactly right. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:28:26.9: 

I think there's also medium-term… So if it's too late, like if you miss your quota and there are early indicators that maybe shorten grant time, that you could look at, but you could also be analyzing things in the medium-term as well. So for instance, reps that are more likely to leverage the falling inputs. Do they generate pipeline faster? Do they generate pipeline of a certain type faster? All that would just be so interesting to analyze and just see what the strongest correlations are and double down on those. I think that's super fascinating. Are there any other questions from the audience? Yes. 

 
Audience 0:29:14.0: 

Congratulations on the [unclear words 0:29:15.6]. Can you give [unclear words 0:29:18.5], and what are the biggest lessons learned that, if you were to do it again, you would maybe change? 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:29:35.2: 

Okay, the question was at Anaplan what types of quota and at what level were we modeling to be able to get letters out on day one, and then second, what were the lessons learned? What would we change? 

 

Justin Edwards 0:29:49.9: 

So we don't have expand and land quotas. We don't have product-based quotas for the most part. I'll back up for a second. If you remember the complexity slide that Scott showed earlier… 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:30:06.2: 

I can back up to it.  

 

Justin Edwards 0:30:08.9: 

Most of our field are what I call a generalist AE. So they sell the entire portfolio. We don't have a product dimension baked into the quota, nor do we segregate land versus expand as an example, or even direct or indirect. So it's a generalist quota. However, we were able to do it for all personas on day one, right? So CSVPs, which was our post-sales motion, SDRs, which were our BD function, AEs, all lines of management on day one. What was the second dimension of your question? 

 

Audience 0:30:52.4: 

Just lessons learned, and if you were to do anything differently, what would be the most important thing you would think about? 

 

Justin Edwards 0:31:01.1: 

What took longer than I would have wanted is that we have a pretty lengthy process to actually distribute Docusigns with the permission letter, right? So we had a process to distribute informal territories and quotas in advance of having the official Docusign sent. There are a number of reasons why it takes longer than I would want, but my aspiration is that the official Docusign goes out on day one of the fiscal that would advance many of those… It just feels more official, right? The other thing is, I think we can always collaborate more, bring more people into the planning tent, so to speak. It never feels like you're doing enough. There are always people who are left out. I'm a big believer in the more people that are aware, minimum - they don't have to be involved - but aware of what's going on, the changes that are being made, the better we'll all be. So while we made a tremendous amount of progress on collaboration this year, I think there's always more to do and more people to bring into that planning tent, so accelerating Docusign and just improving collaboration. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:32:39.7: 

Good question. Yes, right here. 

 

Audience 0:32:44.9: 

[Unclear words 0:32:48.1]. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:32:52.6: 

The question was last minute acquisitions process changes. How do you bring them in? How do you prepare the team? 

 

Justin Edwards 0:32:59.3: 

We had a recent example. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:33:03.8: 

Yes, my company was acquired, actually, last September. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:33:08.9: 

It's a really tough question to answer because, at least in my experience, it largely depends on the integration strategy. Are they going to be maintained as a wholly owned subsidiary? Are they going to be fully integrated, and if so, when? Or will they be - like in the case of Syrup - an entity that is still under the CEO, but that CEO reports into someone inside the business? It's like an entity within an entity, so to speak. So there are a number of models that work, and I think it largely depends on what that integration strategy is. The one that's hardest is the full legal integration, where we take people, we eliminate the legal entity that the acquired entity was operating under, and it becomes a part of the new entity. In which case, all of the employees get distributed. All of the systems need to be aligned. That's the hardest model, which is why a lot of companies don't do it right away. The easy answer is the wholly owned subsidiary. You just leave them be, so to speak. They continue to operate.  

 

Justin Edwards 0:34:40.4: 

The challenge there is that you have to stitch together… If you think about the financial close with a wholly owned subsidiary model, every time you go close the books, you have to consolidate earnings across those entities. Interestingly, we sell… 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:35:02.1: 

The consolidation product, yes. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:35:04.1: 

Right, which we've used ourselves, but maybe we can talk about it more after with your specific situation, because it depends, in my experience, largely on the model. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:35:17.7: 

So we did keep Syrup, my company as its own little entity through the end of the fiscal and then sort of rolled it into the rest of the go-to-market plan, but hypothetically we could have used CoModeler, say to say, okay the Syrup solutions we're going to enable the existing teams on how to sell them and there's, let's just say a 12-week window to do that. There are only certain teams that would be eligible to sell the Syrup solutions because of geography and industry focus, and we could have gone into Anaplan and modeled that out. It at least enabled people to use Syrup as an ability to hit their number right, which is what happened in practice. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:35:59.5: 

That's what we did. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:36:00.3: 

Yes, okay. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:36:02.1: 

So the options are endless, honestly, but it all hinges on that one question for me of what's the integration plan? 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:36:16.0: 

Yes, it's interesting because we did sort of follow a hybrid. So the team was kept whole, and our direct sellers became overlay sellers to the existing Anaplan sales team, who were eligible to sell that SKU. Any other questions from the audience? Yes, did you have your hand up? No. Yes. 

 

Audience 0:36:54.7: 

[Inaudible] 

 

Justin Edwards 0:37:22.5: 

We went through extensive changes this year. From a segregation perspective, we tried to keep breakage low, but that's not always possible, right? So the point I think you're making is, how can we operate as quickly as you're suggesting, Justin, when not everyone is in the tent or in the know? It's a great point. I had to navigate that many times. A lot of these go-to-market strategies or these annual plans are kept under tight control because they have people implications or they have deal implications. Hey, this deal is about to be sold, but my plan suggests that that account may be shifting from one rep to another. I can't tell him or her that that's our plan. So you make a really good point, and I don't know that there's a silver bullet answer. I do know that we were able to navigate all of the changes through bringing the right people into the tent, so to speak, or into the know at the right time in order to execute the planning timeline.  

 

Justin Edwards 0:38:49.8: 

So that's not always possible. Where it's not possible, my default is to just withhold those territories. You're obviously not going to be able to claim a perfect distribution of territories and quotas from day one, but for the people that are with highest impact, it comes back to the saying don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Let's do the changes that we can and communicate them where we can and withhold the others for when those conversations have to happen. There's not a perfect answer that I've experienced, though. 

 

Scott Hirsch 0:39:35.9: 

Any other questions from the audience? No. Well, we're just about at time. I want to thank you for doing this talk. It was great. We'll be around in the break just before the next session if any folks want to come up and ask some additional questions. Feel free. So thank you. 

 

Justin Edwards 0:39:58.0: 

Thank you.