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Gartner Says the Marketing-To-Sales Handoff Should No Longer Exist

Experts Discuss How Sales and Marketing Leaders Succeed in Today’s New World of B2B Buying at the Gartner Sales & Marketing Conference, Taking Place October 9-11 in Las Vegas

 where Gartner experts explained that effective B2B selling today is no longer about progressing a customer through a linear buying journey.

#B2B buying today is no longer about progression, it’s about completion. Because of this, the #marketing to #sales hand-off should no longer exist.

“Over the years we’ve seen B2B sales and marketing struggle mightily to progress customers through the purchase process. The problem is, for the customer, buying is not really about progression, it’s about completion,” said Brent Adamson, distinguished vice president at Gartner. “Customers today are trying to accomplish what are often nonsequential steps to complete a purchase and that has completely undermined the traditional model of linear deal progression. We are living in a post-handoff world.”

The reality of B2B buying today is not about progression, it's about completion
The reality of B2B buying today is not about progression, it’s about completion

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B2B Buying “Jobs”

Gartner research reveals that B2B buyers must complete six distinct activities — or “jobs” — to successfully complete a purchase today:

  • Problem Identification
  • Solution Exploration
  • Requirements Building
  • Supplier Selection
  • Validation
  • Consensus Creation

While nearly every successful B2B purchase progresses through the first four jobs, customers simultaneously address “validation” and “consensus creation” throughout the entire process. In effect, these two jobs are always on, even while customers are working to complete the other four jobs in the process.

Gartner research shows that most B2B buyers will revisit nearly every “buying job” at least once before they make a purchase. The result: a customer buying journey that resembles more of a maze than a linear path (see Figure 1).

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To complicate things further, B2B buyers utilize both sales reps and the supplier website — equally — for discovery and validation throughout their buying journey. In effect, this means it isn’t a sales problem or a digital problem that organizations should be trying to solve for. Rather, it’s a supplier problem that sales and marketing must jointly address with high-quality, consistent, cross-channel information to help customers complete the purchase jobs they need to accomplish.

“Unfortunately, the current commercial process today is not built to support this new world of B2B buying,” added Mr. Adamson. “The organizations that will succeed going forward will be those that materially simplify the purchase process for customers. It’s on marketing and sales teams to take the customer by the hand and guide them through the purchase, from start to end.

“The best suppliers assume the role of ‘buying Sherpa’ guiding customers step-by-step through the complexities of a B2B buying journey that they themselves will struggle to overcome or even possibly anticipate on their own.”

Read More: Interview with Anil Kaul, CEO at Absolutdata

comScore Validates NinthDecimal’s Location and Visit Metrics

NinthDecimal, the leading omni-channel marketing platform, announced that its visit metrics and location data have been validated by comScore. Completion of comScore’s multi-faceted review process validates the accuracy and aptness of NinthDecimal’s location data, as well as its data hygiene practices.

“It’s increasingly important for advertisers to understand what is driving foot traffic to physical venues so they can optimize their marketing efforts,” said David Algranati, senior vice president of product management at comScore. “We are pleased to serve as a source of truth for companies like NinthDecimal as they look to validate their metrics.”

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comScore used the following criteria, among others, to validate NinthDecimal’s visit metrics:

  • Accuracy and freshness of store boundary data
  • Ability to contextualize raw latitude and longitude signals
  • Identification and filtering of false positives

“comScore is a trusted partner, which is why we engaged them to validate our location data and visit metrics,” said Todd Rose, chief business development & strategy officer at NinthDecimal. “We are honored and thrilled to pass comScore’s rigorous standards and to collaborate with them on the evaluation of cross-screen advertising effectiveness.”

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NinthDecimal is the omni-channel marketing platform powering real-world conversions for Fortune 500 brands. Its customer growth engine identifies a brand’s best customers and new prospects; activates marketing strategies to drive store visits and sales; and quantifies the impact of advertising across all media. NinthDecimal has the largest real-time engine of consumer behavior based on where you live, work, shop, and play. Its platform is powered by nearly 200M US consumers seen in almost 10 billion locations per day, unlocking AI-driven consumer intelligence not visible through traditional search or social platforms.

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Fluent, Inc. Appoints Andrea Haldeman as Senior Vice President of Sales

Fluent, Inc., a leading data-driven performance marketing company, announced that the Company has appointed Andrea Haldeman as Senior Vice President of Sales, effective immediately. In this role, Haldeman will build and drive Fluent’s global sales strategies, client engagements and sales performance across all of Fluent clients, solutions and services.

“We are delighted to welcome Andrea to the Fluent team.  Her broad sales and client capabilities will propel Fluent to continued success across the client experience and lifecycle,” said Matthew Conlin, President.

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Andrea comes to Fluent with a proven track record of delivering transformational business results, leveraging over 20 years of experience in big data, analytics, and digital advertising solutions. Prior to joining Fluent, Andrea served as Chief Revenue Officer at Inuvo, where she led sales, account management, publisher operations, and launched their AI driven digital media prospecting solution. Previously, Andrea served as Senior Vice President of Sales at Infogroup Targeting Solutions and in multiple senior level roles within Acxiom.

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“I am very excited to join the Fluent team to lead sales into the next chapter of explosive revenue growth,” commented Haldeman. “Fluent’s granular and permissioned first-party data, coupled with a robust performance marketing platform, enables Fluent to deliver powerful and unique customer acquisition, retention, and growth solutions for our clients.”

The addition of Ms. Haldeman to the leadership team at Fluent is designed to better support the evolving needs of Fluent’s business, particularly in recent strategic business investments and decisions, enhanced sales partnership with Fluent’s business units and a more cohesive and successful customer relationship and experience. Daryl Colwell, former SVP of Sales, will be transitioning to lead Fluent’s growth initiatives.

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SAP® Sales Cloud Brings Intelligent CRM to Customers

SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Deutsche Telekom AG; Cooler Master Corp., a global thermal solutions provider; and KSB Group, a manufacturer of pumps and valves, have adopted the SAP® Sales Cloud solution to build trusted relationships with their customers and bring more efficiency and speed to sales.

“Customers are no longer making decisions based on price and product,” said Giles House, general manager, SAP Sales Cloud, SAP. “They’re basing it on trust. And while customers have evolved, most CRM systems have not. To overcome this gap, sales need to be faster, more connected and intelligent to stay ahead of the constantly changing customer and build relationships that go beyond one-off transactions.”

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Deutsche Telekom chose SAP for its out-of-the-box solution that tackles complexity, improves usage and shortens time to market. The solution can be easily maintained without the need for sophisticated IT skills. Deutsche Telekom expects to reduce time to market by simplifying the configure-price-quote (CPQ) process.

Cooler Master, a leading Taiwan-based innovator in thermal technology, has replaced its current platform with the SAP C/4HANA suite to build a sales model improving after-sales business and forecast management.

“Our legacy system was quite challenged by the complex sales and service processes we have at KSB,” said Hansen Willerding, program lead for SAP Cloud for Customer solution, KSB Group. “Implementing SAP CRM software was core to our digital strategy. Our sales and service teams have access to relevant data now, increasing speed and efficiency of our processes, but also offering our customers a better service – one that meets the requirements of digital transformation.”

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The SAP Sales Cloud Solution Brings Deal Intelligence to Users

Twenty customers are exploring machine learning (ML) innovation with SAP software. Four of them, including Insight Enterprises Inc., have gone live with ML capabilities supported by SAP software that integrate deal and lead intelligence. Historical data is used to train the machine learning model, which helps predict customer preferences and enables more efficient sales.

“Working with prospective clients means establishing meaningful connections,” said JP Kato, CRM manager, Insight Enterprises. “In order to help them run smarter and maximize their IT investments, Insight has implemented SAP Sales Cloud and machine learning. The predictive analytics and deep-learning algorithms allow us to efficiently determine our clients’ needs and allocate the appropriate sales resources to intelligently connect with the businesses that would benefit most from Insight Intelligent technology solutions.”

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The deal intelligence capability of SAP Sales Cloud automatically scores prospective sales and ranks them according to their likelihood to close. With ML-enhanced deal and lead intelligence features integrated in the SAP Sales Cloud solution, Datahug from CallidusCloud provides sales managers with new capabilities. They include identifying “at risk” opportunities in a timely fashion and eliminating opportunities in the pipeline that have a low probability of closing.

SAP has integrated the incentive compensation management solution from Callidus Software Inc. with the SAP HANA®business data platform. Benchmark testing shows that calculating commissions improved 15-fold, a speed that makes intelligent recommendations possible in real time.

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Akeneo Recognized as Magento Premier Technology Partner

Akeneo PIM Helps Magento Merchants Enhance Product Experience and Boost Conversion Rates

MagentoLive Europe — Akeneo today announced a Magento Premier Technology Partnership that combines the expertise of the leading open source enterprise Product Information Management (PIM) provider with the leading eCommerce Magento platform. Akeneo PIM solution will manage and feed high-quality product information to the Magento platform and help customers deliver a more compelling and consistent product experience across sales channels. The combined power of Akeneo and Magento enables brands and merchants to improve product data quality and relevance for shoppers, which increases sales conversion rates and reduces product returns.

High quality product information is critical to merchants in the era of experience-driven commerce. But collecting and enriching product data is a major pain point for most companies. “Businesses are competing to launch new products and keep their catalogs up to date across channels and locales. They need a purpose-built PIM solution to ensure product data quality and streamline their processes.” said Fred de Gombert, CEO and co-founder of Akeneo. “We are thrilled to join forces with Magento to help merchants deliver outstanding product experiences in today’s omnichannel world.”

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Akeneo PIM Enterprise Edition integrates with the Magento platform via an extension that enables product data to be exported from Akeneo’s PIM solution to Magento Commerce and Magento Open Source. Akeneo and Magento solutions are a logical fit as they are both open source, share the same technology stack, and count many joint customers benefiting from the combined value proposition. Plus, Akeneo and Magento have many mutual Solution Partners with solid experience in implementing the joint solution.

“We welcome Akeneo as a Premier Partner within the Magento Technology Partner Program,” said Mark Lenhard, VP Strategy & Growth at Magento, an Adobe company. “As a leader in B2B commerce, we see our growing install base of B2B manufacturers and distributors using Akeneo with Magento to streamline their product information creation and governance processes enabling high quality, consistent product content across the enterprise.”

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The combined strength of product data management and feed capabilities will accelerate time-to-market for global brands and merchants who need an end-to-end commerce solution. The shared open source software DNA allows enterprise-level clients looking for customization and integration of additional capabilities including localization, print, and Digital Asset Management (DAM), to take advantage of platforms that provide unparalleled agility and flexibility.

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Acumatica 2018 R2 Roadshow Highlights Latest ERP Release for Increased Productivity and User Satisfaction

October Tour Reflects Aggressive Outreach to the SMB Market for Digital Transformation

Acumatica, the world’s fastest-growing cloud ERP company, continues its national roadshow this month to help educate small- and mid-size businesses about digital transformation and the operational benefits of the company’s recent 2018 R2 product release.

The development priorities for 2018 R2 were exceptional usability, increased customer satisfaction, and compliance with new industry and governmental regulations for today’s SMB market needs. Sectors that can take advantage of R2 include manufacturing, distribution, construction, retail/ecommerce, services, healthcare, software and more. Acumatica R2 also provides improved dashboarding capabilities largely based on customer feedback and inputs. Together these product advances provide a superior user experience not only for Acumatica customers, but for their customers as well, facilitating a truly connected business.

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Acumatica’s eight-city roadshow kicked off with events in ChicagoColumbus and Anaheim the first week in October followed by Dallas, the Seattle area, and Atlanta the week of October 8. The tour concludes the week of October 15 in New York City and Orlando. Visit Acumatica’s events link to register for the roadshow closest to your location.

A few of the exciting R2 features being showcased at these events include:

  • The new “side panel” where the user elects to display other screens or dashboards in a new window on the right side of the transaction screen. That panel can display the customer record, the sales representative’s record and even a customer dashboard. The user can select any of these options and update the current information, such as an address change, without having to leave the original transaction screen.
  • User-defined creation enhancements allow the addition of attributes, such as a prospect’s industry or the mailing date of an invoice in real-time on a screen.
  • Pop up, on-line notifications improve the current note functionality – an example of improved usability is when a vendor’s contract is up for renewal, the purchasing manager creates a note on the vendor’s record, and when a user is about to purchase from that vendor the expiration note pops up.
  • Push-to-mobile notifications to smart phones are based on a “business event” – one use case would be changing an opportunity in CRM by assigning it to a sales representative. As soon as that change is made in Acumatica, the system sends a notification to the sales representative’s device and that person just needs to swipe the notification and details of the new opportunity are available.

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Acumatica 2018 R2 includes Financial Management enhancements so multi-entity companies can close books independently of one another. It also supports updated Tax Calculation Integration, providing a choice of sales tax calculation providers, and offers additional functionality to support deferred revenue recognition for ASC 606 compliance. Advances in the Project Accounting module support connected businesses by allowing salespeople to work collaboratively with project managers to create quotes and convert them to projects. CRM upgrades include a deeper Outlook integration linking email activities with any contact in the system and GDPR Compliance Tools to simplify and safeguard the handling of personal data. Portals have been enhanced so organizations with multiple companies and branches can better control information that is visible to specific customers.

Exceptional industry specific solutions continue to differentiate Acumatica from its competitors. R2 Distribution Management offers several ease-of-use improvements, including improved discount functionality to save time in sales, order management, purchasing, and accounting. New landed cost enhancements streamline purchase receipt processing and provide additional landed cost allocation capabilities. The purchase return process improves control over returns, including the needed accounting transactions and shipping improvements that match freight costs to shipments and reduce operating costs.

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R2 Manufacturing Edition makes improvements to Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS), equipping manufacturers to consistently and cost-effectively set accurate and reliable delivery dates. Integration with the Project Accounting module aggregates cost tracking over multiple production runs so businesses can determine profitability for large jobs and contracts. The bill of materials includes additional revision status controls and production management provides additional processing screens for streamlining processes.

R2 Field Service Edition includes allocation and prepayment features to support industries involved with selling and installing custom items. Enhanced purchase order integration works with new service order statuses to ensure that materials are available when appointments are scheduled. Additional cost tracking provides field service companies with insights regarding service order profitability.

R2 Commerce Edition supports additional sales order processing workflows for an omnichannel experience, and R2 Construction Edition includes project management features such as conversions from RFIs to change order requests, quote creations linking to CRM and to a project, and improved automatic processing that connects bills to lien waivers.

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Provation Adds Tom Monteleone as CFO and Jim Mullen as SVP of Global Sales

Experienced Software Veterans Bring Deep Financial, Sales and Healthcare Software Expertise to Provation’s Executive Leadership

Provation, a leading clinical productivity software provider for procedure documentation, backed by Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. (together with its affiliates, “Clearlake“), today announced that Tom Monteleone has joined the company as Chief Financial Officer and Jim Mullenhas joined as Senior Vice President of Global Sales. Their additions reflect Provation’s continued commitment to bringing best-in-breed software solutions to healthcare professionals and operating a world-class organization.

“We are excited to add two seasoned software industry executives to our senior leadership team. Tom’s experience leading software companies and corporate carveouts is a perfect fit as Provation embarks upon its exciting new chapter as an independent company,” said Dave Del Toro, CEO at Provation. “Jim’s go-to-market expertise and deep healthcare software experience further compliments our current team, particularly as we launch Provation Apex. With the additions of Tom and Jim, we feel the company is better positioned to execute on its long-term growth strategy and build on our mission to help customers better achieve their clinical and financial goals.”

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“I’m thrilled to join the Provation team at such an exciting time,” added Mr. Monteleone. “As a newly-independent company with Clearlake’s support, offering the leading clinical productivity technology, Provation has very strong momentum in the market. I look forward to leveraging my experience to accelerate our growth and continue building our strong customer base among hospitals and health systems across the country.”

Prior to joining Provation, Mr. Monteleone was most recently CFO for Ancile, a SaaS developer of human and operational performance improvement software, where he helped lead the carveout of the business from RWD Technologies. He also previously served as CFO for AirVersent Inc., Corestar Financial Group, and AscendOne Corporation. Mr. Monteleone holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Loyola UniversityMaryland.

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“It is a tremendous opportunity to work alongside a team with a proven commitment to delivering customer-focused solutions,” said Mr. Mullen. “Building on a strong foundation and market leading positioning, I am eager to better serve our existing customers and accelerate growth as we launch Provation Apex, the new, cloud-based procedure documentation SaaS platform designed to improve outcomes, clinical efficiency and physician satisfaction in ambulatory surgery centers and hospitals.”

Mr. Mullen joins Provation with 20 years of experience driving sales excellence within healthcare software organizations. Mr. Mullen was formerly the Senior Vice President of Sales at Nextech, an EMR and practice management software provider where he helped redesign the sales organization to accelerate growth.  He also previously served as a sales organization leader for General Electric’s healthcare software division, T-Systems, Inc., Cerner Corporation, and Allscripts. Mr. Mullen holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business and Corporate Communications from University of Houston.

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Billtrust Appoints Marcel Korst as Senior Vice President of Marketing

Enterprise Software Executive brings Product and International Marketing expertise to Billtrust’s team

Billtrust, the innovator and category leader in B2B accounts receivable automation, announced today the addition of Marcel Korst as Senior Vice President of Marketing. He will report directly to Billtrust’s President, Steven Pinado, and is responsible for leading the marketing team.

Korst previously was leading marketing at Mattersight where he built the category for personality-based software applications. Prior to that, he spent 13 years at Microsoft working in sales and marketing. During his last five years with the company he led marketing & public relations for the global customer service & support division. Korst began his career pioneering performance-based digital marketing for B2B SaaS applications at IBM.

“I am humbled to join Billtrust, already a leader in the category and look forward to support further global growth and deliver best-in class customer experiences” – Marcel Korst, SVP Marketing

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Korst will oversee and direct corporate and product marketing strategies, as well as contribute to global initiatives. He will be instrumental in delivering solutions to Billtrust’s customer base and prospective opportunities.

“We are thrilled for Marcel to join the Billtrust leadership team,” said Steven Pinado, Billtrust President. “We are even more excited to leverage his experience in building and leading an efficient marketing organization to increase market awareness of the value of AR automation and further demand for our solutions.”

Korst holds a master’s degree in Business Communications from Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands and has attended a variety of executive education programs, including those at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Rotterdam School of Management.

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Adobe Accelerates Experience-Driven Commerce With Major Advancements To Magento Commerce Cloud

First Integrations and New Partnerships Empower Enterprises and Small and Mid-Market Businesses to Make Every Moment Shoppable

Adobe, unveiled its vision and strategy to make every experience shoppable by integrating Magento Commerce Cloud into Adobe Experience Cloud, enabling enterprise companies to create highly engaging, personalized shopping experiences. Integration with Adobe Experience Cloud’s content management, personalization and analytics solutions provides an unrivaled offering for enterprises looking to deliver world-class commerce experiences. The company also unveiled a major update of the Magento platform to empower small and mid-market merchants to extend the lead in commerce innovation and agility.

“The innovations we are bringing to market enable companies of all sizes and across industries to make every experience shoppable.”

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With rising customer expectations and increased competition, brands now compete on the quality of the customer experience they offer over a lifetime of customer engagement, both on and offline. Adobe’s vision for experience-driven commerce is to empower companies to unify end-to-end customer experiences from creation to commerce, driving loyalty and business growth.

“Consumers expect every interaction with a brand to be contextual, intuitive and meaningful, but companies have struggled to consistently deliver personalized experiences across the myriad of touchpoints,” said Mark Lavelle, senior vice president of commerce, Adobe and former CEO of Magento. “The innovations we are bringing to market enable companies of all sizes and across industries to make every experience shoppable.”

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Enterprise Capabilities

The first integrations between Adobe’s industry-leading content management, personalization and analytics solutions in Adobe Experience Cloud and Magento Commerce Cloud are now available and will empower enterprises to:

  • Create highly engaging shopping experiences: The integration with Adobe Experience Manager lets enterprise brands create and manage powerful shopping experiences across every touchpoint throughout the customer journey.
  • Personalize every experience: Integration with Adobe Target capabilities, powered by Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s AI and machine learning technology, allows companies to optimize and deliver contextually relevant shopping experiences, driving customer loyalty and letting businesses compete more effectively.
  • Anticipate customer needs: Predictive analytics in Adobe Analytics, powered by Adobe Sensei, help companies proactively monitor and analyze customer data to find patterns and predict future customer behaviors to detect potential challenges like special shipping requirements or inventory shortages and better convert opportunities.

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“The integration of Magento Commerce Cloud into Adobe Experience Cloud is a game changer for Adobe’s and Magento’s joint customers,” said Jordan Jewell, senior research analyst at IDC. “The combined capability of Magento and Adobe allows businesses to differentiate themselves with highly personalized, customer-centric commerce experiences and leverage deeper insights to deliver timely, contextual, engaging and shoppable experiences across the entire customer journey. With rapid change occurring in the digital commerce market right now, organizations of all shapes and sizes need to seriously consider how to deliver the most engaging and frictionless commerce experiences to their customers.”

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Accela Announces Appointment of Renowned Industry Veterans to Join Leadership Team

Dennis Michalis tapped as CRO, Dave Rusconi hired as SVP of Cloud Operations, and Ankur Ahlowalia joins as SVP of Revenue Operations and Enablement

Accela, the leading provider of market-leading SaaS solutions for government, announced today the hiring of industry veterans to the company’s leadership team to focus on leading its strategic direction in cloud operations, SaaS and customer solutions.

“Dennis, Dave and Ankur have long-standing careers in growing businesses, defining and aligning technology offerings and cloud operations, and leading successful teams. They possess the skills and experience we need to best serve our customers in these vital areas, and we are thrilled to have them on the Accela executive team,” said Accela’s Executive Chairman Mark Jung.

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Dennis Michalis has been hired as Accela’s Chief Revenue Officer. He has held senior leadership positions at top technology companies including Oracle, Microsoft, Infor Global Solutions and Fujitsu. Dennis has long been in leadership roles at the intersection of product, go-to-market, and field sales strategies and execution for compelling, competitive solutions that create lasting, value-based relationships with customers.

Dave Rusconi has been hired as Accela’s Senior Vice President of Cloud Operations. He has held senior management roles focused on SaaS, engineering and operating some of the world’s most secure, compliant, mission-critical, massive scale and highly available cloud services, including Zuora, GE Digital, Cisco and Microsoft. In his role at Accela, he is responsible for overseeing the company’s SaaS and IT strategy, ensuring the highest possible standards for service availability, performance, and security for a global customer base, as well as evangelizing the benefits of SaaS, which include more reliability, zero infrastructure investment, and security and compliance by design.

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Ankur Ahlowalia has been hired as Accela’s Senior Vice President of Revenue Operations and Enablement. He has more than 15 years of high tech and software experience in sales, revenue operations, business development and engineering in senior roles at Motorola, Apttus, and Saba. In this role, he is responsible for transforming the company’s operating model to focus on client outcomes with tighter linkages from sales through delivery.

Earlier this year, Accela launched SaaS solutions designed to modernize and improve the service delivery of state and local governments. While specific needs may vary across cities, counties, provinces or states, SaaS offerings provide radically faster time to deployment and lower total cost of ownership than traditional solutions. In addition to SaaS solutions, Accela recently announced a collaboration with Microsoft that will enhance and further promote Accela’s solutions. Accela’s government customers will leverage Accela’s industry-focused solutions with Microsoft Azure.

Accela is committed to providing the best services to customers and building the best team in the industry. Today’s executive announcement pushes both of those goals forward and continues Accela’s forward-thinking leadership position in powering governments so communities can thrive.

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