It’s been a cold and rainy August in Melbourne, which gave me the opportunity to take my kids up to the snow. While it didn’t compare to the beautiful Idaho snowfields, I was kept warm by the performance of our global sales team who really smashed their numbers this month (I’m allowed to make Dad jokes as it was Father’s Day in Australia last weekend).
On the HR front, Yellowfin has continued to grow with new starters in the UK and a new marketing leader in Australia. In the US, we’ve bought an inside sales team on board.
Building our global sales and marketing capabilities
The US market is a major priority for us so we are dedicating more resources towards it. We’ve put a lot of emphasis into building our marketing capabilities and developing a strong sales pipeline. Now we need to build our ability to execute throughout the sales cycle, which is reliant on having a great inside sales team.
This month we’ve added a US focused inside sales team by bringing on board a great group of people who have skills and experience in the BI industry. This has got us off to a running start.
From a marketing perspective, our CMO, Chris Benham, was in Australia this month with Mark Jordan, our Creative Director. That gave us the opportunity to spend time brainstorming ideas and deeply thinking about our brand. It was a really productive exercise that lays the foundations for us to take the Yellowfin brand to the next level globally.
Getting involved with our communities and the planet
While we’ve had a lot of great customer wins this month one really stands out.
Planet Footprint is a great Australian organization that helps businesses track over $500 million in energy and water spend. This enables them to understand their environmental footprint better and be smarter about how they use their resources. They’ve integrated Yellowfin into their entire process to deliver analysis back to their customer base.
It’s a fast growing business with a great story and broader purpose. We’re really proud to be associated with an organization that is doing something good for the community and our planet.
At Yellowfin, we’re committed to being involved in the communities in which we operate. This month we’ve done a lot of work with the Smith Family, holding events that focus on helping kids get involved in the STEM space. It’s something that I really care about and believe is important for Australia’s future.
In Idaho, our team has been spending more time outdoors giving back to their community. They’ve sponsored a mountain bike team that races weekly against their peers around the state. They’ve been smashing it so we’ve all got our fingers crossed that they continue to win.
Gearing up for the launch of our 7.4 release
It’s less than two months until we launch our 7.4 release and the whole business is ramping up for it. Over the next few weeks we’ll give some customers the opportunity to preview the release as we roll out customer demos and beta versions. I’m looking forward to their feedback as I believe it will make a real difference to our customers.
There’s also a huge marketing and sales effort associated with the launch. Sales is gearing up for product training and all hands are on deck in marketing. It’s been a phenomenal effort and watching everyone pull together and bring it to life has been a real highlight for me this month.
There’s a lot more to do that will keep us all busy over the coming month. It’s an exciting time, and I’m looking forward to it. See you then!