Category: Press Release

Press Releases


MEDIA ALERT: LinkedIn to Discuss Driving 100 Percent Revenue Growth in Latest Installment of Cloud9’s Expert Webinar Series

Image for MEDIA ALERT: LinkedIn to Discuss Driving 100 Percent Revenue Growth in Latest Installment of Cloud9’s Expert Webinar Series

November 8, 2011

Cloud9, the leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions, today announced that LinkedIn’s Brian Frank, vice president of global sales operations, will be the featured guest in the next installment of the Cloud9 Expert Webinar Series.

The webinar, “What Secrets Lie in your Sales History?” will focus on how the professional networking site is driving 100 percent revenue growth using Cloud9, a leading sales forecasting and pipeline management solution. Frank also will leverage his experience implementing Cloud9 to outline best practices and flag potential pitfalls for new and potential users.

Registrants of this webinar will learn in-depth, anecdotal information about how LinkedIn uses Cloud9 to:

  • Predict future outcomes and improve overall forecast accuracy;
  • Drive high-performance revenue growth and implement tighter business plans; and
  • Set quotas more effectively and increase achievement across the sales team.

Additional Details

Who: Brian Frank, vice president of global sales operations, LinkedIn

What: “What Secrets Lie in your Sales History?,” part of the Cloud9 Expert Webinar Series

When: Thursday, Nov. 17, at 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST

Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/436795417

About Cloud9

Cloud9 is the world’s leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions. The company’s solutions allow users to actively manage sales performance with intelligence – going beyond traditional CRM applications. Cloud9 allows users to dramatically improve the predictability of their sales forecasts, gives them visibility into exceptions and changes, and allows them to identify risks and opportunities. The result is more accurate forecasts, higher win rates, and accelerated revenue. Cloud9 solutions deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, maintenance, or support from IT. Cloud9 customers include Avaya, BMC Software (NASDAQ: BMC), Computer Associates (NASDAQ: CA), EMC2 (NASDAQ: EMC), Siemens (NASDAQ: SI), Splunk, Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK), Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO), and Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI). The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.cloud9analytics.com.

About LinkedIn

Founded in 2003, LinkedIn connects the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. With more than 120 million members worldwide, including executives from every Fortune 500 company, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network on the Internet. The company has a diversified business model with revenue coming from member subscriptions, marketing solutions and hiring solutions. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, LinkedIn also has offices across North America, as well as throughout Europe, Asia and Australia.

Cloud9 Recognizes Leaders in Sales Forecasting and Pipeline Management with Customer Achievement Awards

Image for Cloud9 Recognizes Leaders in Sales Forecasting and Pipeline Management  with Customer Achievement Awards

Comcast Digital Entertainment/Fandango, Stanley Black & Decker and Websense achieve high visibility into changes in sales pipeline, actively managing sales performance

Redwood City, Calif., August 31, 2011

Cloud9, the leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions, today announced the winners of its second annual Customer Achievement Awards. Comcast Digital Entertainment/Fandango, Stanley Black & Decker and Websense were recognized on Tuesday at the company’s 2011 Customer Summit for their successful implementations of Cloud9 forecasting and pipeline management solutions, enhanced best-practice sales processes and positive impact on their organizations’ bottom line.

“Cloud9 is committed to providing rock-solid forecast accuracy and productive sales processes that enable our customers to focus on the activities that directly increase revenue,” said Jim Burleigh, chief executive officer of Cloud9. “Comcast Digital Entertainment/Fandango, Stanley Black & Decker and Websense represent the best uses of Cloud9 solutions in very distinct ways. Each of their achievements highlights not only the direct effect of managing the sales process more efficiently, but also the flexibility of our solutions. Congratulations to these customers for their achievements.”

Award Winners

Comcast Digital Entertainment/Fandango, took home the Most Innovative Deployment Award for its ability to configure Cloud9 to best meet its unique business requirements. The company’s dynamic and complicated digital advertising business means complexity when it comes to sales forecasting. They have implemented Cloud9’s pipeline management solution in a way that allows them to better forecast revenue across multiple sites on a monthly basis.

Stanley Black & Decker, an S&P 500 company and a diversified global provider of tools and hardware, won the Sales Process Improvement Award due to the company’s significant improvement in sales processes for forecasting calls, weekly sales meetings and one-on-one coaching that have resulted in a significant, quantifiable increase in sales. Just one quarter after implementing Cloud9, the Stanley Black & Decker team experienced a 47 percent increase in closed deals, a 65 percent reduction in expired deals and a 74 percent improvement in pipeline activity.

The final winner, Websense, a global leader in unified web, data, and email content security, received the Business Results Improvement Award for its considerable increase in business results. The company’s GAAP revenues increased 11 percent year-over-year due to Cloud9’s ability to offer transparency into the pipeline. This transparency allowed Websense to shorten the sales cycle and considerably increase customer retention rates.

The 2011 Cloud9 Customer Summit was held as part of the company’s activities at Dreamforce 2011, the industry’s leading global cloud computing event, in San Francisco. Cloud9 will be demonstrating its pipeline management and sales forecasting solutions from Aug. 30 through Sept. 2, at Moscone Center in Booth 1121.

About Cloud9

Cloud9 is the world’s leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions. The company’s solutions allow users to actively manage sales performance with intelligence – going beyond traditional CRM applications. Cloud9 allows users to dramatically improve the predictability of their sales forecasts, gives them visibility into exceptions and changes, and allows them to identify risks and opportunities. The result is more accurate forecasts, higher win rates, and accelerated revenue. Cloud9 solutions deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, maintenance, or support from IT. Cloud9 customers include Avaya, BMC Software (NASDAQ: BMC), Computer Associates (NASDAQ: CA), EMC2 (NASDAQ: EMC), Siemens (NASDAQ: SI), Splunk, Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK), Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO), and Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI). The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.cloud9analytics.com.

Cloud9 to Host Customer Summit and Several Breakout Sessions at Dreamforce 2011

Image for Cloud9 to Host Customer Summit and Several Breakout Sessions at Dreamforce 2011

Dreamforce 2011
Cloud9 2011 Customer Summit

Redwood City, Calif., August 30, 2011

(BUSINESS WIRE)-Cloud9, the leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions, today announced the details of its upcoming Customer Summit, as well as several breakout sessions during Dreamforce 2011.

“At Cloud9, our customers are leaders in their industries - from technology to science, energy to manufacturing. Our Customer Summit is a strategic networking event for Cloud9 customers including Avaya, BMC Software, Computer Associates, Informatica, LinkedIn and Stanley Black & Decker. Users will discuss best practices that have driven bottom-line results for their companies,” said Jim Burleigh, CEO of Cloud9. “It’s also an opportunity for our customers to be briefed on our new intelligent sales forecasting solution and learn how they can leverage this new solution to improve the accuracy of their sales forecasting and ultimately accelerate revenue.”

Cloud9 2011 Customer Summit Details
The Cloud9 Customer Summit is an annual gathering of Cloud9 customers to share best practices and network with Cloud9 executives and fellow users.

Event Details:
When: 8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. PDT, August 30, 2011
Where: The W Hotel, 181 3rd St., San Francisco

Agenda:
8:30 a.m. – noon: Cloud9 University Customer Workshops (concurrent sessions for sales executives and sales operations managers)
Noon – 1 p.m.: Lunch
1 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.: General Sessions (open to customers, media and analysts)

  • Cloud9 Commitment and Vision – Jim Burleigh, CEO, Cloud9
  • Product Direction – Neil Mendelson, vice president of product management, Cloud9
  • Best Practices For Higher Sales Performance – Bob Sanders, president and COO, Axiom Sales Force Development
  • Cloud9 Case Study – Scott Johnson, sales operations manager, Stanley Black & Decker
  • Cloud9 Customer Leadership Awards

4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.: Cocktail Networking Reception

Cloud9 Dreamforce 2011 Details:
Where: Dreamforce 2011
Moscone Center North, South and West
747 Howard St., San Francisco

Cloud9 Breakout Sessions Details:
How Best-in-Class Companies Deliver Rock-Solid Forecasts

12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. PDT, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011
Irene Von Toussaint, vice president of operations for CA Technologies, and Peter Ostrow, research director of sales effectiveness for Aberdeen Research, explore how best-in-class companies leverage the past and visualize the future to drive greater forecast accuracy and predictability. Learn how CA has leveraged Cloud9’s sales forecasting and pipeline management solution to provide its executives, sales leaders, product managers and finance department with a clear view into emerging risk and opportunity in the pipeline, resulting in more accurate forecasts.

Show & Tell: Marketing Dashboards for Success
5 – 6 p.m. PDT, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011
Tracy Eiler, chief marketing officer of Cloud9, and other marketing leaders share case studies that highlight straightforward marketing dashboards that have helped companies gain visibility across campaigns.

The Top 3 Secrets to Delivering Rock-Solid Forecasts
6:30 – 6:45 p.m. PDT, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011
Cloud9’s vice president of customer experience, Tracey Kaufman, will deliver a lighting talk covering the top three secrets for companies to deliver rock-solid forecasts – including using historical close rates to improve forecast accuracy and managing by exception – allowing managers to focus their attention on the areas where they can make the most impact.

How Best-in-Class Companies Deliver Rock-Solid Forecasts – Part II
11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. PDT, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2011
Join this lively panel discussion with Irene Von Toussaint, vice president of operations for CA Technologies; Brian Frank, director of global sales operations for LinkedIn; Bob DeSantis, vice president of sales for DocuSign; and Jake Hofwegen, vice president of global sales strategy and operations for Websense, as they discuss how best-in-class companies leverage the past and visualize the future to drive greater forecast accuracy and predictability. Learn how these companies have transformed the way they manage their sales pipeline and forecast process to provide their executives, sales leaders, product managers and finance with a clear view into emerging risk and opportunity in the pipeline, resulting in more accurate forecasts.

About Cloud9
Cloud9 is the world’s leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions. The company’s solutions allow users to actively manage sales performance with intelligence – going beyond traditional CRM applications. Cloud9 allows users to dramatically improve the predictability of their sales forecasts, gives them visibility into exceptions and changes, and allows them to identify risks and opportunities. The result is more accurate forecasts, higher win rates, and accelerated revenue. Cloud9 solutions deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, maintenance, or support from IT. Cloud9 customers include Avaya, BMC Software (NASDAQ: BMC), Computer Associates (NASDAQ: CA), EMC2 (NASDAQ: EMC), Siemens (NASDAQ: SI), Splunk, Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK), Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO), and Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI). The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit www.cloud9analytics.com.

Cloud9 Announces New Intelligent Sales Forecasting Solution

Image for Cloud9 Announces New Intelligent Sales Forecasting Solution

New features increase sales performance by giving sales teams visibility
into changes in the forecast

Redwood City, Calif., August 23, 2011

Cloud9, the leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions, today announced a new solution for intelligent sales forecasting. Part of the Cloud9 Sales Performance Suite, the new forecasting solution gives customers the ability to go beyond simply reporting the state of their sales activity to actively managing their sales performance. The result is more accurate forecasts, higher win rates, and accelerated revenue.

“It is appalling how little visibility and control sales teams have into their sales forecasts today,” said Jim Burleigh, CEO of Cloud9. “Customer relationship management applications have allowed them to track activities, opportunities, and contacts. But what about seeing change in the forecast and taking fast action, or creating a more accurate forecast? Sales teams deserve better than the blunt tools of Excel and traditional business intelligence. Cloud9’s new forecasting application allows customers to run the cadence of their entire sales management operation so they can focus on the actions that increase revenue.”

Cloud9’s solution includes:

Pipeline Management – Users can go far beyond what is available in CRM applications such as those from Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and use Cloud9 to view sales pipeline data from multiple perspectives. This is particularly critical for complex sales organizations, such as those with a matrix reporting structure, broad geographic scope, vertical sales teams, or overlay contributors. Users can review:

  • Time-based views, comparing multiple points in time. Managers can answer the question “What has changed in my pipeline since the beginning of this period?”
  • Historical trending
  • Complex views including split or shared deals across multiple reps and multiple currencies
  • Team-based matrices, allowing alternate hierarchies depending on the complexity of the sales organization
  • Alerts on pipeline exceptions and updates on key deals, delivered as watch lists as well as a classic pipeline “waterfall” report

Forecasting – Sales teams need to understand how their organizations meet, exceed, or fail to meet their numbers and the root causes behind their performance. Cloud9 allows users to:

  • Look at the forecast in whatever time period best matches the cadence of their business (weekly, monthly, quarterly)
  • View deals by forecast category, stage, and probability
  • Analyze the conversion rate between stages in the pipeline
  • Review both deal level and aggregate level on/off model exceptions, helping managers identify risk and where to take action
  • Compare deals to historical models of success, both at an individual deal level, and a broader view across the entire pipeline.

The new release adds several key features:

  • The ability to apply management judgment (overrides) to people, products, and opportunities. Users can change values on a number of variables including stage, percent, forecast category, close date, and amount.
  • A Chief Sales Officer console, which gives sales managers a central place to see all problems, exceptions, and changes based on current and historical information, and the comparisons between them.
  • The ability to compare each aggregate judgment to coverage by sales stage and gross coverage models. Users can then compare data against historical norms, other regions, and other reps.
  • A sales rep “scorecard,” allowing managers to compare the performance of individual sales representatives, such as quota attainment.

The Cloud9 Technology Platform – Cloud9’s Sales Performance Suite is based on a robust platform that includes:

  • An historical, time-versioned database that records and stores all changes to all CRM data
  • Sales analytics that aggregate historical operational data from CRM or other systems
  • Cloud data extraction technology, which pulls any data needed from the CRM system, actual data from the ERP system, and any other data required such as quota information from compensation systems or spreadsheets.

The new product is expected to be available for limited release in early 2012. The product is deployed in the software-as-a-service model, requiring zero installation, maintenance, or support from IT.

Supporting Analyst Quotes

“While traditional business intelligence has become a critical IT imperative to support the enterprise, it is not designed to address the challenges sales executives and sales operations face in today’s marketplace,” said Mark Smith, CEO and chief research officer at Ventana Research. “The sales department needs actionable analytics from pipeline to forecast across the entire sales process – past, present, and future. With the new sales forecasting solution from Cloud9, with just a few clicks, sales teams can focus on exceeding their revenue targets and quotas.”

“Investing in a robust sales forecasting solution is a standard in best-in-class sales organizations. Our research shows that this investment leads directly to bigger deals – on average, more than 50 percent – and quota attainment of nearly 100 percent among sales reps,” said Peter Ostrow, research director of Aberdeen Group. “Companies with leading sales organizations invest twice as much in sales forecasting and analytics when compared to lesser-performing competitors. Quite simply, they have more visibility and are able to quickly make critical changes that impact the bottom line. Sales teams that are not using these solutions are missing a key competitive differentiator.”  

“We’re always looking for the next improvement for CRM,” said Denis Pombriant, managing principal at Beagle Research. “More than ever we need to do more than collect customer data, we need better ways to turn data into information that we can use in our business processes. Nowhere is that more true than in revenue generation. Collaborative forecasting tools are the next big thing in CRM and revenue generation.”

About Cloud9

Cloud9 is the world’s leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions. The company’s solutions allow users to actively manage sales performance with intelligence – going beyond traditional CRM applications. Cloud9 allows users to dramatically improve the predictability of their sales forecasts, gives them visibility into exceptions and changes, and allows them to identify risks and opportunities. The result is more accurate forecasts, higher win rates, and accelerated revenue. Cloud9 solutions deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, maintenance, or support from IT.
Cloud9 customers include Avaya, BMC Software (NASDAQ: BMC), Computer Associates (NASDAQ: CA), EMC2 (NASDAQ: EMC), Siemens (NASDAQ: SI), Splunk, Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK), Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO), and Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI). The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.cloud9analytics.com.

Cloud9 Announces Gold Sponsorship of Dreamforce 2011

Image for Cloud9 Announces Gold Sponsorship of Dreamforce 2011

The cloud computing event of the year will showcase how businesses can tap into the power of social, mobile and open technologies to become social enterprises

Redwood City, Calif., August 11, 2011

Cloud9 today announced it will be a gold sponsor of salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2011 conference, the world’s largest cloud computing event. The conference will be held Aug. 30 – Sept. 2, 2011, at Moscone Center in San Francisco. Cloud9 will exhibit in Booth 1121 in the Dreamforce Expo.

Cloud9 is a leader in sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions. With Cloud9, customers can increase win rates, improve forecast accuracy and better manage exceptions in the sales pipeline.

“Cloud computing offers tremendous business value to sales organizations of all sizes, across a variety of industries,” said Jim Burleigh, CEO of Cloud9. “Dreamforce is the place for industry luminaries in the cloud computing space to come together, and Cloud9 is thrilled to be a returning sponsor. We look forward to demonstrating how our cloud-based sales forecasting solutions deliver productivity and predictability to our customers.”

“A social revolution is under way, creating a massive shift in how businesses collaborate, communicate and share information,” said Kraig Swensrud, chief marketing officer, salesforce.com. “Those who attend Dreamforce will be able to see firsthand how partners like Cloud9 can help them become more collaborative and more responsive to their customers, the hallmarks of a social enterprise.”

Dreamforce 2011 is the cloud computing event of the year. The ninth annual conference will welcome more than 30,000 customers, partners and developers to the new world of the social enterprise. With more than 450 sessions and 250 cloud companies in the expo, Dreamforce offers the content and educational opportunities that enable attendees to tap into the power of the social enterprise.

Additional Information

  • Register for Dreamforce: www.dreamforce.com
  • Become a fan of Dreamforce on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dreamforce.
  • Follow @Dreamforce on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dreamforce

About Cloud9 Analytics

Cloud9 is the global leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions for Salesforce CRM. The company delivers these revenue performance management applications directly to line–of–business users to dramatically improve the predictability of their sales forecasts, the effectiveness of their one-on-one sales rep coaching, and productivity of their weekly sales meetings. The result is higher win rates, better CRM adoption, and accelerated revenue. Cloud9 solutions deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, zero maintenance, and zero IT support. Cloud9 customers include EMC, Siemens, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Thomson Reuters. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.cloud9analytics.com.

Tracy Eiler Joins Cloud9 as Chief Marketing Officer

Image for Tracy Eiler Joins Cloud9 as Chief Marketing Officer

Eiler joins Cloud9 with more than two decades of executive and marketing leadership experience for technology companies including both start-ups and billion-dollar organizations

Redwood City, Calif., August 9, 2011

Cloud9, the leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions, announced today the appointment of Tracy Eiler as the company’s new chief marketing officer. Reporting to Cloud9 chief executive officer Jim Burleigh, Eiler will lead the company’s global marketing strategy with a focus on demand generation, product marketing, and awareness.

Eiler brings more than 25 years of enterprise software marketing experience in sales-driven companies. Prior to joining Cloud9, Tracy was the senior vice president of marketing for MarkLogic, where she managed all aspects of marketing strategy and grew the team from a small, tactical organization to a highly productive demand generation engine. Previously, Eiler was vice president of global marketing at SaaS-company Postini, where she created a closed-loop lead-to-sale process that resulted in rapid revenue growth. Before that Eiler spent more than 10 years at business intelligence leader Business Objects, as vice president of corporate marketing, driving global awareness. During that time the company grew from 65M to more than 1B in revenue.

“Tracy is an accomplished marketing executive with impressive credentials. She brings fantastic energy and focus to Cloud9,” said Jim Burleigh, chief executive officer of Cloud9. “Tracy is joining Cloud9 at a pivotal time as we broaden our offerings for sales forecasting and work with our customers to optimize their sales organizations. Tracy’s expertise and proven track record in scaling companies for growth and success will help accelerate Cloud9’s position in the market.”

“I really wanted to be with an organization that is fundamentally changing the way companies do business,” said Tracy Eiler, chief marketing officer at Cloud9. “In my early conversations with Cloud9 customers, I’ve heard some incredible stories about how fast they see Cloud9’s value in optimizing their sales process, and how they now have visibility into things they’ve never seen before. I’m so impressed. I really look forward to ramping our demand generation engine and helping to fuel the company’s growth.”

Eiler will speak at the upcoming Dreamforce conference, August 31, 2011, in a session called “Show & Tell: Marketing Dashboards for Success”.

About Cloud9 Analytics

Cloud9 is the global leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions for Salesforce CRM. The company delivers these revenue performance management applications directly to line–of–business users to dramatically improve the predictability of their sales forecasts, the effectiveness of their one-on-one sales rep coaching, and productivity of their weekly sales meetings. The result is higher win rates, better CRM adoption, and accelerated revenue. Cloud9 solutions deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, zero maintenance, and zero IT support. Cloud9 customers include BMC Software, EMC2, Siemens, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Thomson Reuters. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.cloud9analytics.com.

Cloud9 Selected as an AlwaysOn Global 250 Winner

Image for Cloud9 Selected as an AlwaysOn Global 250 Winner

Recognized for Creating Technology Innovations for the Global Silicon Valley Community

Redwood City, Calif., July 21, 2011

News Facts

Cloud9 Analytics, the leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions, today announced that it has been chosen as an AlwaysOn Global 250 winner. Cloud9 is recognized in the “SaaS and Enterprise” category alongside a prestigious group of peer companies including Appirio, Couchbase, Jive, Lucid Imagination, Marketo, Splunk, Workday and Zuora.

The AlwaysOn Global 250 represents the top emerging companies in the Global Silicon Valley that are demonstrating significant market traction and pursuing game-changing technologies in digital media, mobile, social media, cloud and SaaS computing.

The AlwaysOn Global 250 winners were selected from thousands of domestic and international technology companies nominated by investors, bankers, journalists and industry insiders. The AlwaysOn editorial team conducted a rigorous three-month selection process to finalize the 2011 list.

The AlwaysOn Global 250 winners can be found at: http://www.aonetwork.com/AOStory/Announcing-2011-AlwaysOn-Global-250. Cloud9 and the AlwaysOn Global 250 companies will be honored at AlwaysOn’s ninth annual Innovation Summit at Santa Clara University on July 28, 2011, at the Louis B. Mayer Theatre at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif.

Supporting Quotes

“Cloud9 is honored to again be recognized alongside the industry’s fastest-growing technology companies,” said Jim Burleigh, CEO of Cloud9. “Cloud9 helps customers increase win rates, improve sales forecast accuracy and better manage exceptions in the sales pipeline. It’s all about helping companies accelerate their revenue.”

“This year’s AlwaysOn Global 250 are companies driven by the biggest mega-trends, including the growth of mobile users, cloud computing and SaaS offerings, globalization, and the socialization of commerce and basically everything online,” says Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn. “This year’s winners clearly represent some of the highest-growth opportunities we’ve seen in the private company marketplace in the history of the Global Silicon Valley.”

About Cloud9 Analytics

Cloud9 is the global leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions for Salesforce CRM. The company delivers these revenue performance management applications directly to line–of–business users to dramatically improve the predictability of their sales forecasts, the effectiveness of their one-on-one sales rep coaching, and productivity of their weekly sales meetings. The result is higher win rates, better CRM adoption, and accelerated revenue. Cloud9 solutions deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, zero maintenance, and zero IT support. Cloud9 customers include Covad Communications, EMC2, Siemens, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Thomson Reuters. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.cloud9analytics.com.

About AlwaysOn

AlwaysOn is the leading business media brand networking the Global Silicon Valley. AlwaysOn helped ignite the social media revolution in early 2003 when it launched the AlwaysOn network. In 2004, it became the first media brand to socially network its online readers and event attendees. AlwaysOn’s preeminent executive event series includes the Innovation Summit, OnMedia, OnHollywood, Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic / IMPACT 2011, OnDemand, Venture Summit Silicon Valley, Venture Summit East, GoingGreen Silicon Valley and GoingGreen East. The AlwaysOn network and live event series continue to lead the industry by empowering its readers, event participants, sponsors and advertisers like no other media brand.

DocuSign® Selects Cloud9 to Boost Forecast Accuracy and Sales Rep Performance

Image for DocuSign® Selects Cloud9 to Boost Forecast Accuracy and Sales Rep Performance

World’s Most Trusted Electronic Signature Network Implements Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator

Redwood City, Calif., July 12, 2011

News Facts

Cloud9, the leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions, announced today that DocuSign, Inc., the world’s most trusted electronic signature network with more than eight million customers, has selected Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Suite to provide sales analytics and consistent pipeline visibility across its global sales team.

Seeking a more complete solution beyond reporting and metrics, DocuSign is implementing a strategy that extends Salesforce CRM with an analytics tool that provides visibility into pipeline movement while driving critical data entry from sales. For DocuSign, Cloud9’s ease of use, robust features and superior user interface were preferred over other options. After an extensive evaluation of other competitive solutions, DocuSign chose Cloud9 because it comes as a purpose-built pipeline management application that needs minimal configuration, can be deployed in days instead of months and provides sales managers with a comprehensive performance management dashboard.

Leveraging Cloud9, DocuSign has experienced several key benefits:

  • Improved sales forecast accuracy
    • Enables analysis of pipeline and forecast changes over time including a comprehensive snapshot of what changed within the opportunity that is quickly visible without having to drill into the record
    • Provides visibility to pipeline outlier data, such as expired deals, aged deals and deals with changing close dates
    • Delivers useful weekly summaries via email of pipeline changes allowing sales managers to quickly drill into what is affecting the forecast
  • Improved performance management of sales reps by providing a mechanism to track forecasted deals against quota and pipeline coverage against quota
  • Greater flexibility in configuring quotas for various business models, including multiple layer sales teams, renewal quotas, churn quotas and specific partner-related quotas

Additionally, Cloud9 allows DocuSign’s sales leaders to identify changes in their pipeline in the previous week, month, or quarter; compare this to sales quotas and bookings; and focus on deals that present the greatest opportunity.

Supporting Quotes

“Cloud9 delivers on our need for forecast accuracy and drill downs with the right level of analysis in an easy to use environment,” said Bob DeSantis, Vice President of Sales at DocuSign. “As an industry leader with a proven sales forecasting and pipeline management solution, Cloud9 was the best choice for our sales team.”

“We are proud to have been selected by DocuSign and look forward to helping the company sustain its industry-leading business growth,” said Jim Burleigh, CEO of Cloud9 Analytics. “Using the easiest and most in-depth pipeline and forecast management solution will help DocuSign accelerate its sales cycle and drive operational efficiencies, all by extracting meaningful and actionable data from their Salesforce CRM.”

About DocuSign, Inc.

With more than eight million customers, DocuSign is the world’s most trusted electronic signature network—accessible anytime, anywhere from any Internet-connected device. DocuSign offers customers the easiest, fastest and most secure way to send, sign, track and store documents in the cloud. DocuSign fundamentally improves how people work and connect with each other while accelerating business results by replacing slow, expensive paper transactions with fast, efficient and completely digital solutions. DocuSign’s electronic signature network improves sales cycle times, reduces cost and drives operating efficiencies through end-to-end electronic document and signature management solutions, including forms, signer authentication, data collection, signature capture, workflow automation and document storage—all in the cloud. For more information, visit www.docusign.com or call (866) 219-4318. Subscribe to the DocuSign blog at www.docusign.com/blog and follow DocuSign on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

About Cloud9

Cloud9 is the global leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions for Salesforce CRM. The company delivers these revenue performance management applications directly to line–of–business users to dramatically improve the predictability of their sales forecasts, the effectiveness of their one-on-one sales rep coaching, and productivity of their weekly sales meetings. The result is higher win rates, better CRM adoption, and accelerated revenue. Cloud9 solutions deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, zero maintenance, and zero IT support. Cloud9 customers include EMC, Siemens, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Thomson Reuters. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.cloud9analytics.com.

Cloud9 Announces Summer’11 Release of SaaS Forecasting and Pipeline Management Solution for Salesforce CRM Customers

Image for Cloud9 Announces Summer’11 Release of SaaS Forecasting and Pipeline Management Solution for Salesforce CRM Customers

Summer’11 Release optimizes forecast and pipeline management process for larger sales organizations

Redwood City, Calif., June 16, 2011

News Facts

Cloud9, the leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions, announced today its Cloud9 Summer’11 Release. This semi-annual release specifically addresses the unique forecast and pipeline management process challenges faced by larger sales organizations. Sales operations personnel now will have the ability to pre-configure and organize forecast and pipeline views that they then can share with groups or individual sales leaders, sales reps or sales analysts through the Cloud9 application tab in Salesforce CRM.

The result is that Sales Operations gains more control over defining and managing the forecast and pipeline management process, while sales leaders and sales reps enjoy a simplified user experience that minimizes the effort to find answers related to their forecast and opportunity pipeline questions. For larger, global sales organizations these new Cloud9 features provide a scalable solution to maintaining a highly efficient forecasting and pipeline management process.

Simplified User Experience

The Summer’11 Release makes Cloud9’s core forecasting and pipeline ”what’s changed” features more accessible to non-technical sales leaders and sales reps. Now, when users select the Cloud9 tab in Salesforce CRM, they see a homepage that presents pre-configured bookmarks that link to answers to commonly asked forecasting and pipeline management questions. These bookmarks can be arranged according to their sales organization’s forecasting and pipeline management cadence to focus the sales organization on the most relevant activities at various points during the week, month or quarter. Clicking on a bookmark takes the user to a pre-configured view of Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator, Cloud9 Dashboards or Cloud9 Commitments. To enhance the user’s experience, bookmarks are coded as New, Favorite and Updated.

Increased Administrator Control

The new release introduces an Administrator Console that allows an application administrator to pre-configure, organize and share views of Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator and Cloud9 Dashboards. This benefits non-technical sales leaders, sales reps and business analysts by eliminating the duplication of effort involved with large numbers of user individually defining the same view and supports the dissemination of forecasting and pipeline management best practices throughout the sales organization.

Caching Queries

To provide maximum response to large numbers of queries requested by larger sales organizations, the Summer’11 Release adds persistent cache technology that extends system cache to virtual memory stored on high-speed disk drives. This eliminates the need to discard queries made by one user that may be useful to another user between data warehouse refreshes.

In addition, this release adds a new feature that “warms up” frequently requested queries after each (typically nightly) refresh, to minimize query processing time.

Supporting Quotes

“Cloud9’s Summer’11 Release offers larger sales organizations the means to achieve an entirely new level of forecasting and pipeline management process excellence,” said Neil Mendelson, vice president of products at Cloud9. “This latest release addresses our customers’ desire to share their best practices across the entire sales organization, enabling all users to gain insight and take action at the appropriate time throughout their sales cadence.”

Availability

Cloud9 Summer’11 release will be available in July.

About Cloud9

Cloud9 is the global leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions for Salesforce CRM. Cloud9 delivers these revenue performance management applications directly to line–of–business users to dramatically improve the predictability of their sales forecasts, the effectiveness of their one-on-one sales rep coaching and the productivity of their weekly sales meetings. The result is higher win rates, better CRM adoption and accelerated revenue. Cloud9 solutions deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, zero maintenance and zero IT support. Cloud9 customers include EMC, Siemens, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Thomson Reuters. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.cloud9analytics.com.

Cloud9 Customer Brainshark Wins Technology ROI Award from Nucleus Research

Brainshark receives the award for its implementation of Cloud9’s Pipeline Accelerator, which drove compelling changes to its sales cycle

Redwood City, Calif., June 9, 2011

News Facts

Cloud9, the leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions, today congratulates its customer Brainshark, the leader in online and mobile video presentations, on being selected as one of the 2011 recipients of the Nucleus Research Technology ROI Award. The award recognizes Brainshark’s implementation of Cloud9’s Pipeline Accelerator, a robust pipeline and forecasting solution, that provides complete visibility into changes in an organization’s sales pipeline.

Now in its eighth year, Nucleus Research’s Technology ROI Award recognizes skillful deployments of IT solutions that produce positive, bottom-line financial return on investment.

This year, after careful evaluation, Nucleus Research determined that Brainshark has clearly demonstrated the link between IT strategy and business goals with its use of Cloud9’s Pipeline Accelerator.

Also, Cloud9 will be hosting a webinar with Rebecca Wettemann of Nucleus Research titled “Building the Business Case for Sales Analytics” on Wednesday, June 22 at 10 a.m. PDT / 1 p.m. EDT. An expert on the financial analysis of technology, Ms. Wettemann will discuss how the use of analytics brings productivity and predictability to the sales pipeline. Click here to register now.

Supporting Quotes

“Along with the recognition of being a high ROI achiever for improved sales productivity and effectiveness, Brainshark should also be noted as a best practice leader in IT deployment. Brainshark combined quick deployment and dramatic ROI with a highly scalable SaaS solution that positions Brainshark well for continued, efficient growth,” said Dave Roth, research director of Nucleus Research.

“Finding ways to improve bottom-line business performance is invaluable,” said Dave Fitzgerald, executive vice president at Brainshark. “By deploying Cloud9’s Pipeline Accelerator, we improved our forecast closure rate and realized roughly $400,000 of found money every three months. We appreciate the results that Cloud9 has helped us achieve and are truly honored to receive this recognition from Nucleus Research.”

“We congratulate Brainshark on this recognition as the company has demonstrated that IT solutions can fundamentally alter the sales process for the better,” said Jim Burleigh, CEO at Cloud9. “We are pleased to be part of their success as we move forward with helping many more companies stay competitive in a continuously fast-changing business landscape.”

About Cloud9

Cloud9 is the global leader in on-demand sales forecasting and pipeline management solutions for Salesforce CRM. The company delivers these revenue performance management applications directly to line–of–business users to dramatically improve the predictability of their sales forecasts, the effectiveness of their one-on-one sales rep coaching and productivity of their weekly sales meetings. The result is higher win rates, better CRM adoption and accelerated revenue. Cloud9 solutions deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, zero maintenance and zero IT support. Cloud9 customers include Covad Communications, EMC2, Siemens, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Thomson Reuters. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.cloud9analytics.com.

About Brainshark, Inc.

Brainshark provides the leading cloud-based software for creating, sharing and tracking online and mobile video presentations. With Brainshark, businesspeople can easily transform static content such as PowerPoint® documents into voice-enriched video presentations that can be accessed anytime, on-demand. Customers can also obtain extensive viewing details, enabling them to measure the effectiveness of their content and follow up accordingly. Thousands of companies – including a third of the Fortune 100 – rely on Brainshark to increase the impact and reduce the cost of their sales, marketing, training and HR communications. For more information, visit www.brainshark.com.

We increased our close rates by 5%, resulting in $400k found money every three months.
Dave Fitzgerald,
EVP
Dave Fitzgerald,<br>EVP