ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

PROS Ramps Up Pricing and Revenue Focus

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 05 August 2025

Earlier this year I was a guest at the PROS 2025 Outperform conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. PROS is a well-established price optimization and revenue management software provider that, although well-known within the airline and hospitality industries, has a lower profile outside of these specific verticals. An original premise of PROS was to offer advanced analytics and pricing as well as... Read More

Topics: Analytics, sales engagement, Office of Revenue, Generative AI, Data Intelligence, AI and Machine Learning, Business & Technologies, Revenue Lifecycle Management

Oracle AI Direction for Business Applications

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 25 June 2025

Oracle, long known for its dominance in databases and enterprise software, has a new message for the business world: Artificial intelligence (AI) isn't just a technology trend, it's a business imperative. At the recent Oracle Industry and Application Analyst Event, company executives made their most compelling case yet for why non-technical executives should care about a deeply integrated tech... Read More

Topics: Revenue Lifecycle Management, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies

Conga’s Existential Approach to Revenue Lifecycles and Operations

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 12 June 2025

At this year’s Conga Connect 2025 conference held in Orlando, FL, the enterprise software provider unveiled both a new chief executive and a sharpened vision for the future of revenue management technology. David Osborne, recently appointed CEO of Conga, took the stage for his keynote address with a foundational question: “Why?”—as in, why does Conga exist? It’s a question designed to provoke... Read More

Topics: Office of Revenue, Revenue Lifecycle Management

What’s Next for AI and Sales?

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 21 May 2025

Ten years have passed since artificial intelligence (AI) first appeared in sales technology, and the results are mixed. Early tools applied rudimentary machine learning (ML) models to customer relationship management (CRM) exports, assigning win probability scores or advising on the “ideal” time to call. The mathematics was sound, the demos impressive, yet adoption faltered because little thought... Read More

Topics: sales engagement, Office of Revenue

SugarCRM as a Revenue Platform with AI for Sellers

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 19 February 2025

I was recently a guest of SugarCRM at their 2025 Analyst summit with an opportunity to meet with the executive team and new CEO, David Roberts. SugarCRM is a venerable CRM offering that started as an open-source project and over the years has matured into a very flexible CRM system with offerings for sales, marketing and service. The new CEO, David Roberts joined the company toward the end of... Read More

Topics: Revenue Performance Management, Office of Revenue

How Software Can Help Usage Pricing Adoption

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 13 February 2025

Based on the number of invitations I have received to speak on the topic, usage pricing (also referred to as consumption pricing) is hot. But as I have remarked elsewhere, it is not new. I recall a conversation with a customer over 30 years ago when I was involved with analytic software who asked, “Why can’t we just pay for the software we use?” And this of course makes sense: only pay for what... Read More

Topics: Subscription Management, Office of Revenue

You Don’t Have to Put Up with a Manual Quote to Contract Process

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 23 October 2024

In a previous role I was actively involved with identifying and implementing dashboards and reports tracking key sales department metrics and KPIs for enterprise-size customers as well as high-tech growth companies. These included recognizable examples such as opportunity conversion rate, average deal size and sales velocity (length of time to close, won or lost). Wind the clock forward and in my... Read More

Topics: Office of Revenue

What’s New in Technology for Office of Revenue?

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 31 July 2024

Spring and fall are conference seasons, and this spring I was fortunate to be invited to several software provider events that are part of my coverage of the Office of Revenue. And while artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) were front and center, there were other announcements where the focus was more on the potential changes that these technologies would enable within... Read More

Topics: Office of Revenue

The Buyers Guides for Subscription Management Classifies and Rates Software Providers

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 24 July 2024

I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Subscription Management: Ventana Research Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by ISG and Ventana Research. The era of subscriptions has transformed the way businesses operate and consumers engage with... Read More

Topics: Subscription Management, Office of Revenue

What Is So Different About B2B Digital Commerce?

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 23 April 2024

As a business application tech analyst, I tend to focus more on B2B than B2C and the differences between the two. So, when it comes to digital commerce, I am interested in the differences from a process or functional point of view and therefore the potential digital commerce application or platform needs required to support B2B commerce. With more B2B enterprises looking to provide access in a... Read More

Topics: Digital Commerce, Office of Revenue

From Lead to Cash to Revenue Life Cycle Management

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 14 March 2024

Much development and marketing resource is being directed at technology that supports tracking and managing the customer experience (CX) and identifying prospects. All of this is good for business and highlights some of the exciting potential for artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) to really accelerate the basic need of matching buyers and sellers to create more efficient... Read More

Topics: Office of Revenue

Akeron Vulki: A Sales Performance Application with a Difference

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 09 February 2024

Revenue and sales performance used to be the preserve of a few software providers as many enterprises made do with in-house solutions, often built on the ubiquitous spreadsheet. But increasingly managing revenue and sales performance is becoming too complex as business models are changing in response to customer behavior. Akeron, with their Vulki Sales Performance application, is a more recent... Read More

Topics: Revenue Performance Management, Office of Revenue

Sales Engagement or CRM – Which Way to the Sales Freeway?

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 06 February 2024

Sales and revenue operations teams have for the most part traditionally relied on CRMs for information relating to leads and opportunities. For inside sales (sometimes referred to as high-velocity sales) as well as field sales, relevant product, pricing and customer have been loaded or entered into the CRM to be accessed via reports, dashboards or spreadsheets. For inside sales teams, dialers... Read More

Topics: CRM, Office of Revenue

2024 Market Agenda for Office of Revenue: Bring AI to the Table

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 30 January 2024

Ventana Research recently announced its 2024 research agenda for the Office of Revenue, continuing the guidance we have offered for nearly two decades to help enterprises across industries derive optimal value and improved outcomes from business technology. Chief Sales and Revenue Officers face an imperative to manage their sales and revenue organizations, but they do not always have the guidance... Read More

Topics: Digital Commerce, Subscription Management, partner management, Revenue Performance Management, Office of Revenue

Align Incentive Compensation and Multi-Channel Sales to Protect Growth

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 23 January 2024

I recently published an Analyst Perspective on how the rise of omnichannel buyer engagement coupled with subscription pricing is increasing the complexity in achieving corporate targets. An example is the software provider who implemented a new self-service capability to speed fulfillment for existing customers by enabling the direct purchase of additional licenses without assistance from the... Read More

Topics: Office of Revenue

Margin Highlights the Need for Sales and Revenue Planning

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 27 December 2023

I have a phrase I like to use when describing the changing nature of sales: Not all revenue and sales dollars look the same. This is in reference to the changing nature of both how in addition to traditional offerings, organizations are now selling subscription and usage-based products and services through multiple channels. These customer-driven shifts in the approach to buying and selling are... Read More

Topics: Revenue Performance Management, Office of Revenue

Today’s Go-to-Market Strategies Must Align Sales and Marketing

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 07 December 2023

There are stark reminders that all is not well in business-to-business sales and marketing land. Many organizations struggle to hit revenue targets, and individuals consistently fail to hit their quotas. Various reasons are put forward, but the more convincing argument is that buyer behavior has transformed over the years, requiring changes to the traditional way of engaging with B2B prospects... Read More

Topics: Office of Revenue

Future of CRM has Sales Engagement Potential

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 26 September 2023

Customer relationship management systems have been around since Tom Siebel created one while working at Oracle in the late ‘80s and then monetized it founding Siebel Systems that eventually was bought by Oracle. When Salesforce launched its “No Software” slogan in the early 2000s, CRM moved to the cloud, but the concept was still based on a object model centered around an opportunity that... Read More

Topics: Office of Revenue

Generative AI Helps Sales in Practical Ways

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 16 August 2023

Having worked at a start-up during the first wave of artificial intelligence (AI) that was predicted to revolutionize sales in the mid-2010s, I guess I am a natural skeptic when it comes to new claims about how AI will change sales forever. In the mid-2010s, vendors were using machine learning (ML) models trained on sets of historical opportunity data that represented closed won and closed lost... Read More

Topics: Digital Commerce, Office of Revenue

The Buyers Guide for RPM Classifies and Rates Vendors

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 09 August 2023

I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, a research and assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Revenue Performance Management Ventana Research Buyers Guide: 2023 is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. Drawing on our Benchmark Research, we apply a structured methodology built on evaluation... Read More

Topics: Revenue Performance Management, Office of Revenue