What I learned on my recent trip

I’ve just come back from a pretty big trip. While it’s not the first time I’ve been to the US, Germany, the UK and Japan, in many ways this was a trip of firsts for me.

The trip came off the back of the launch of Yellowfin 9 and the feedback I received about this release was exceptional. It’s the first time that I’ve ever had customers running up to me to say that they can’t wait to migrate to our platform. This was really unusual, especially in Japan as customers there are usually happy to wait a year or two before migrating, but so many were keen to do it sooner rather than later.

While the release itself involves some substantial changes as well as some small tweaks, in combination it takes Yellowfin to another level. We’ve resolved many things that people have been asking for - we essentially went through a massive shopping list of everything that customers wanted and addressed about 95% of them. For example, we’ve resolved the design and what the software can do in a way that’s really elegant. Because we’ve given customers so many of the things they wanted and added some great new features, they’re really excited about it.

The trip also gave me the opportunity to speak to our partners and it’s so great to see the excitement from everyone in each location. There’s a deeper understanding now of what we do and how we’re different.

For our partners, what I think has really been key is that we’ve built something that is materially different to what is available today. Everyone wants to sell something that's different because they can put their hand on their heart and say that there is nothing like it in the market. I haven’t seen our partners so enthusiastic before and I think it’s because they can now really see what problems their customers can solve and that allows them to sell with more confidence. They can also see the opportunities that arise from this release and feel like they can build a unique offering to take their customers. That’s an exceptional business opportunity that we will be pushing hard next year.

Finally, it was amazing for me to see how excited our sales organization is about Yellowfin 9. They have clarity over our value proposition and are keen to do new and interesting things in the new year. While it’s not unusual for people to get a bit excited with a new release, this is the first time I’ve seen a release give everyone in the organization a real lift regardless of their location. As an organization, I think this is a sensational result going into the next year.