Cloud9 Analytics Defines New Class of Performance Management Applications that Accelerate Revenue Growth.
Business Analytics Applications Delivered as an On-Demand Service Directly to the Front Office

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., May 18, 2010 - Cloud9 Analytics, a leading provider of SaaS business analytics for line-of-business managers has defined a new category of performance management applications for the front office and today unveiled a strategic, 24-month product roadmap. These new performance management applications align with the principles of traditional corporate performance management (CPM) applications but rather than controlling costs in Finance, they drive revenue growth by automating the planning, executing and optimization process for front office managers. For too long, front office managers have gone without automation for key management processes, resulting in use of labor intensive, disconnected and uninformed tools. This lack of automation leads to wide variation in performance across front line management teams. The next wave of corporate productivity gains will come from enabling a smarter management process and Cloud9 will accelerate the realization of these gains for customers.
To support its strategy, Cloud9 is announcing its customer-driven roadmap: • Enhancements to the company’s flagship Pipeline Accelerator product • The availability of a new suite of Performance Management applications for the
enterprise, to be released in phases over the next 18-24 months • Fully-automated support for additional CRM systems and data sources • An open and extensible SaaS analytics platform for development of third-party vertical
applications • A robust mobile solution to extend front office applications from the desktop to the
“phone-top;” For more details on Cloud9’s portfolio of products, visit www.cloud9analytics.com
A Roadmap for Front Office Success
Cloud9 Analytics Performance Management applications are designed to deliver end-to-end support for the planning, execution and optimization of front-office management activities directly to managers running customer-facing business functions. These solutions will allow business managers to set goals, execute, handle exceptions, evaluate progress and adjust quickly to changing conditions. Key target analytic applications include: sales pipeline management, forecasting, lead optimization, and territory management and planning. A recent IDC Research report put today’s SaaS business analytics market at just under $1 billion, with a forecasted 22 percent CAGR for the next five years1.
“By working closely with our customers over the last three years, it became clear that what they are really looking for are performance management solutions for the front office that enhance management’s ability to effectively optimize their teams’ activities and drive revenue,” said Swayne Hill, President and CEO of Cloud9 Analytics. “Transactional CRM systems do not retain history, so managers can’t see change and have no means to quickly identify emerging risk or opportunity in the business – strong performance is often just a happy coincidence. Based on customer demand, we have outlined and will deliver a strategic product roadmap that will help companies of all sizes maximize revenues by giving managers the solutions they need to run a smarter management process.“
“The front office of sales, marketing and service has not had the sophistication of performance management solutions available to the back office and the high cost and lengthy IT deployments of BI have not met the specific front office process and metric needs, ” said Mark Smith, CEO and executive vice president of research at Ventana Research. “Cloud9 Analytics has demonstrated through their meeting the needs of sales and revenue with their cloud-based applications focus that they can enable front office performance management for the mission of meeting revenue objectives.”
Cloud9 Performance Management Solutions for the Front Office
Cloud9 Analytics performance management applications provide a system of record for critical management processes with complete historical “what’s changed” information that is instantly relevant to line of business managers. Unlike BI tools or platforms that require specialist resources and lengthy development cycles, Cloud9 delivers complete solutions out-of-the-box that immediately add value to team productivity and performance.
Leveraging a unique cloud-based platform capable of automated data warehousing, mass configuration, zero administration, and cloud scalability, Cloud9 Analytics and its partners will deliver a range of performance management solutions that solve operational effectiveness problems leading directly to new revenue levels for customers.
Today, the company is unveiling a strategic roadmap to address the large and emerging market opportunity for performance management applications for the front office, beginning with significant enhancements to Cloud9’s flagship product, Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator. The Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Suite delivers everything sales leaders need to become “dynamic pipeline management” experts, including applications, report automation, and pipeline management best practices for complete sales pipeline visibility anytime, anywhere - including critical, real-time “what’s changed” information.
More than 90 customers today are using Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator to expose highly-relevant pipeline movement information, enabling them to focus on deals at risk and strategic new opportunities, run more effective sales meetings, and improve one-on-one rep coaching. Unlike transactional CRM systems, Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator captures full history on every object in the CRM system every night so that sales managers, sales operations, and sales teams can view pipeline movement for any previous time period, such as what has changed in the pipeline since the beginning of the month.
Enhancements to Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator include:
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A new, easy-to-consume user interface Discussions and notes for collaboration Personalized watch lists with email alerts
• Integration of goals and projections • The ability to self-configure across multiple hierarchies and data to support enterprise
matrix management.
“Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator has brought an entirely new level of insight into our sales and management processes that we never thought possible with conventional BI or CRM solutions – particularly given the complexity of our sales organization,” said Dave Fitzgerald, Executive Vice President at Brainshark. “Cloud9’s data management automation performs all the heavy lifting for us so we can provide highly-relevant pipeline information to both our sales teams and executive management right out of the box. We are excited about Cloud9’s performance management initiatives particularly for lead optimization, collaboration and mobile delivery, and can clearly see where these solutions can accelerate revenue across the entire front office.”
Cloud9’s roadmap for performance management applications for the front office also includes: • Enterprise Sales Forecasting
o Enterprise Sales Forecasting will help companies maximize revenue by aligning forecast stakeholders behind company goals, providing workflow support for managing scenarios and bringing historical patterns to bear in simplified forecast triangulation. This will dramatically reduce the time it takes for sales teams – reps, managers, and executives – to complete accurate forecasts and more importantly with complete change visibility, timely re-forecasts during the quarter as business requirements dictate.
• Lead Pipeline Performance Management o Cloud9’s Lead Pipeline Performance Management application will help marketing
managers direct multi-channel team activities behind a complete view of the revenue cycle pipeline. For the first time, marketing management can set targets, monitor execution, handle exceptions, look for success/failure patterns and adjust on the fly – optimizing the marketing team’s activities.
• T erritory Management and Planning o Cloud9’s Territory Management and Planning application will help business
operations leaders optimize the deployment of sales resources and improve sales efforts by analyzing the geography and historical characteristics, mapping
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that to external market data and projected future performance of sales territories and resource assignment. These capabilities will enable business operations leaders to engage all stakeholders: sales management, executives and finance, to easily make data-driven territory assignment decisions that maximize revenue and team performance.
Support for other CRM systems including Oracle CRM On Demand An open and extensible SaaS Analytics platform for development of third-party vertical applications. A robust mobile solution to extend front office applications from the desktop to the “phone-top;”
For more information, please contact:
Don Tyler Cloud9 Analytics (650) 561-7854 don.tyler@cloud9analytics.com
About Cloud9 Analytics
Nicole Colwell The Racepoint Group (415) 694-6702
ncolwell@racepointgroup.com
Cloud9 Analytics is the global leader in SaaS performance management applications delivered directly to line-of-business managers. The Cloud9 Pipeline Accelerator Suite enables sales management and operations to more effectively manage their sales pipeline and forecast. The result is a dramatic increase in forecast accuracy, increased win rates and higher CRM adoption. Powered by patent-pending row-versioning database technology, Cloud9’s applications deliver value in just 24 hours and require zero installation, zero maintenance and zero IT support. Cloud9′s customers include Covad Communications, Data Domain, Siemens, Thermo-Fisher Scientific, and Thomson Reuters. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, California. For more information, please visit www.cloud9analytics.com