Do we plan to get also customer feedback in the next step to have the "outside-in view"?
@JessicaHorsch -- there is no plans to do this at this time. We've priced JMP competitively in the marketplace, while at the same time setting up recurring subscription growth to support the growth of our business over time, letting us invest in R&D to continue to drive innovation in the product. We will monitor the KPIs related to the rollout (downgrades, cancellations, upgrades, JMP Pro, Clinical and Live sales and overall revenue growth and potentially make changes/adjustments as required in pricing rollout phase 1.5 when we move to our own JMP systems next year and revisit the pricing for Jan 1 2024 next summer).
Last month JMP conducted a global survey on the pricing rollout that took place on Oct. 1 with the move to flatline pricing. The survey asked two questions to help better understand some of the challenges and opportunities with the rollout:
- What are the five main obstacles in JMP’s new pricing model?
- What is the top obstacle in JMP’s new pricing model and why?
The survey was sent to all JMP sales teams and managers worldwide, with 96 responses.
Of the 96 respondents, 45 were from the Americas, 38 were from AP, and 13 were from EMEA.
“It was nice to have global representation in the survey,” Product Management Director Dan Valente said.
As a follow-up to the survey, the Deal Support Team and global sales managers met Nov. 14 to validate and go through some of the survey results. The main obstacle categories are as follows:
Validation of tooling frustrations
It was frustrating to not have the tools in place for sales teams to be able to quote upgrades to customers without having to go through business operations. The tools are in place now and everything is running smoothly.
“We are extremely grateful for Business Operation’s keeping deals moving, getting quotes out and closing business, and taking on the additional workload to calculate upgrades manually,” Valente said. “And we look forward to a future state where we are completely on our own systems and able to configure, price, and quote [you may have heard of this referred to as CPQ] – all in Salesforce.”
Q4 Multipliers and true-up for sales reps
During the meeting, JMP CEO Jon Weisz explained the Q4 Multipliers again, discussed target setting for 2023 and the true-up in Q1 2023. When the new pricing model rolled out in 2022, 12 months of trailing transactions were re-priced on the new pricing model, both for new annual licenses and upgrades. Re-pricing this way with historical data is what generated the multipliers, which are then used to convert Q4 invoices with new pricing into old pricing for target achievement and elite qualification.
Again, in the beginning of 2023, all Q4 invoices will be analyzed to assess earned sales credit (based upon legacy pricing). If there are gaps, sales credit will be adjusted upwards.
2023 targets will be based on new pricing. With the “restating” of more than a years' worth of invoices (new and upgrade), JMP has a good basis for establishing 2023 targets with the new pricing.
“There were and continue to be lots of questions about manually calculating equivalent deal-size based on 2022 price lists or using tools like c-calc or the salesforce calculator,” Valente said. “Those tools have been deprecated and won’t be turned on again. Sales teams shouldn’t be re-pricing individual deals on old pricing.”
Legacy Presentation Virtualization account considerations and upgrade
There continues to be confusion about legacy Presentation Virtualization (PV) sites and the new packaging of JMP for the Cloud. So long as legacy PV sites are greater than $10,000 USD and thus don’t move to new pricing by business rules automatically, these legacy sites can continue to renew and upgrade without having to adopt the new JMP for the Cloud model.
JMP for the cloud feedback and possible process improvement
As we position and sell JMP for the Cloud for new annual licenses using the new pricing model, we will continue to monitor the loss tracking report for challenges. Please ensure that you are accurately accounting for losses in Salesforce as that loss report will drive potential process improvements/changes.
“We may make pricing/packaging changes, deemed pricing rollout phase 1.5, when we move to our JMP-only systems,” Valente said. “The packaging for JMP for the Cloud is on the list to re-visit when we make that switch.”
Finally, late last week all the pricing tables for 2023 have now been published worldwide so that futures can be sent out for all offerings, except academic. As previously mentioned, the changes made on Oct. 1 in terms of the pricing model, fees, packaging, and currency conversation rates will remain fixed until the end of 2023.
Thanks to everyone who filled out the survey and voiced their concerns, questions, and feedback. The feedback cycle helps us understand the challenges and consider improvements in the future.
Questions? Contact Dan Valente (@Daniel_Valente).
@JessicaHorsch Please collect any feedback from your customers and provide to @Daniel_Valente. JMP wants to be easy to do business with, easy to understand our pricing. etc. With that said, we need to ensure we are competitive in the marketplace and have pricing that ensures we have enough profit to serve our customer in the future.
It can be a hard balancing exercise to hit all these goals, so feedback is always needed and welcome.
Just a reminder that there were a few deals signed in Q3 on the new pricing model. Please look at Q3 and Q4 to assess the earned sales credit. I have 3 deals in my territory that were signed in Q3.
