For the following questions, we are looking for your insightful responses that paint a realistic picture of the role played by Kirk Krappe, Chairman and CEO of Apttus in leading the organizations and taking it ahead of the competition. After covering all the questions, please feel free to share your views and opinion on any other topic that we may have missed and you think our subscribers should know about. 

APTTUS

1. In your opinion, what should be the focal point of the article? Is there a certain aspect about Kirk Krappe, Chairman and CEO of Apttus that you would like us to highlight in this article?

Under CEO Kirk Krappe’s leadership, Apttus pioneered and defined the Quote-to-Cash and Contract Lifecycle Management markets and is a leader in these segments. Now with the advent of Max, Apttus’ artificial intelligence agent, the company has redefined this market yet again. Max’s creation was entirely driven by Kirk’s vision, as he believed ultimately AI and machine learning driven sales advancement tools would become commonplace. As a result, he facilitated a strategic partnership with Microsoft and by leveraging the technology leader’s engineering resources, and in working with some of the largest enterprises in the world, Max was successfully brought to life.

After creating analyst recognized solutions in Quote-to-Cash for the last decade, Kirk and Apttus have once again pushed the software industry forward with its advancements in AI, true examples of cloud automation that drives tangible results. Apttus brings the future of artificial intelligence and machine learning to a business audience, by pioneering new and cutting-edge ways to interact with business software – automating selling strategies and incentives that adjust in real-time and positively impact revenue.

2. Kirk Co-founded the SaaS Company, Apttus the categorydefining Quote-to-Cash software company. How has his leadership driven the vital business process between the buyer’s interest in a purchase and the realization of revenue for the company?

A veteran of enterprise software with over two decades of SaaS experience and a two-time Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, Kirk Krappe is co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apttus, the category-defining Quote-to-Cash software company. Kirk has been the driving force behind Apttus’ successful growth since its 2006 founding, and while there are several successful “Unicorn” founders in Silicon Valley today, according to Morgan Stanley, Kirk is the only one in the space to have hit this valuation milestone while still remaining CEO. To date, the company has raised $329M in 5 rounds and while the extra capital has allowed for momentous growth. Kirk attributes a large amount this success to the strong foundation he and his co-founders established when bootstrapping the company during its first six years.

3. Apttus’ offerings are fueled by the Apttus Intelligent Cloud, which maximizes the entire revenue operation by streamlining and improving business processes, aligning and driving revenue winning behaviors and recommending relevant, intelligent actions. Kindly discuss?

Utilizing a patented combination of SaaS-based applications, Apttus offers the industry’s only Intelligent Cloud Platform, maximizing revenue and business outcomes for companies of all sizes, including 100 of the Fortune 500. Enhanced by Machine Learning and Max, the world’s first and only Quote-to-cash (QTC) Virtual Assistant, Apttus offers the market’s most comprehensive QTC footprint, spanning solutions for: configure price quote (CPQ), contract lifecycle management (CLM), revenue management, e-commerce, analytics and Salesforce/Microsoft integration (X-Author). With more than 600 enterprise customers and over 1 million users worldwide, Apttus is the industry’s fastest-growing provider of QTC solutions. 

4. What are some of the unique solutions that you offer to the market which are curbing the growing challenges of the organizations in your technological arena?

Apttus’ decade-long leadership of the Quote-to-Cash industry uniquely qualifies it to help enterprises automate and improve business processes. One of Apttus’ differantiators involves the leveraging advanced technologies like applied artificial intelliegnce, machine learning, and augmented reality to its Quote-to-cash software. AI on the Apttus platform consists of conversational user experiences, like Apttus Max, to facilitate adoption and efficiency, as well as machine learning to support the consistent execution and automation of best practices across contract management processes. 

As the only intelligent agent on the market for sales, legal and finance, Max is designed to manage and help automate any aspect of the Quote-to-Cash process, by listening to voice commands, understanding texts, and interacting with people in augmented reality environments (rendered inside Microsoft HoloLens). Additionally, Apttus’ latest product, Intelligent Enterprise Contract Management, powered by Microsoft Azure, is the only such solution on the market and can greatly benefit Law departments by intelligently reducing contract cycle time, enhancing agreement risk management, and automating third-party paper.

5. Could you please provide us a case study where Apttus’ methodology or techniques have provided the highest quality services and has surpassed an organization’s expectation?

A $3.4B division of its parent company, Thomson Reuters Legal (TRL) is the leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals in the legal industry. For over a decade, TRL had experienced disappointing customer satisfaction surveys claiming the organization was simply “too difficult to do business with.” The division’s tens of thousands of SKUs, lack of standardized templates/ pricing, and overly-complex Ts and Cs, led to a negative customer buying experience and presented compliance issues. Additionally, TRL surveyed its sales force and found that only 56% of their time was spent with prospective customers and the remainder – a whopping 44% – was spent on “administrative burdens” of preparing for valuebased selling discussions. So, when the VP of Sales Enablement received a charter to turn TRL’s customer experience into something more positive and to better enable his global sales force, he knew he needed to modernize his entire “Order Capture” strategy.

After a rigorous 6-month evaluation process, TRL selected Apttus’ industry leading Quote-to-cash solutions. In February, TRL went live with its 1000+ sales professionals responsible for $200M of annual incremental new businesses and annual renewal revenues of $600M. Since the deployment, TRL has experienced incredible results:

* 70% reduction in held orders, drastically improving speed to market

* 55% fewer exceptions, resulting in increased quoting accuracy

* 50% reduction in sellable products, simplifying the business in meaningful ways 

* 8X increase speed for assembling product orders, providing an improved customer buying experience

* 44% increase in legacy customer net promoter score (NPS) results

* 14 sources of information - legacy systems, browsers and information repositories consolidated into 1 main system: Apttus

Today, Thomson Reuters is in the also in the process of rolling out Apttus to the rest of the divisions within legal, and is currently deploying it in both its Finance/Risk business, as well as its Tax business.

6. Even the most competent of organizations tend to face market competition. What are the strategies employed by you to thwart this competition, and what according to you are the company’s key differentiating factors? 

Quote-to-Cash is today’s most important business process, because it is the process ultimately responsible for driving revenue for an organization. From a high-level perspective, the Quote-toCash process connects a customer’s intent to buy (“front office” CRM systems like Salesforce), to a company’s realization of revenue (“back office” ERP systems typically dominated by SAP/Oracle) – encompassing the entirety of sales, contract, and customer relationship lifecycles. Historically, these processes have been disconnected and siloed, leading to manual and tremendously inefficient sales cycles, ultimately putting deals at risk.(“back office” ERP systems typically dominated by SAP/Oracle) – encompassing the entirety of sales, contract, and customer relationship lifecycles. Historically, these processes have been disconnected and siloed, leading to manual and tremendously inefficient sales cycles, ultimately putting deals at risk.

As the category defining leader in Quote-to-Cash and only true “middle office” bridge between CRM and ERP, Apttus offers the market’s most comprehensive QTC footprint, spanning solutions for: configure price quote (CPQ), contract lifecycle management (CLM), revenue management, e-commerce, analytics and Salesforce/ Microsoft integration (X-Author). While today there are many point solutions on the market that try to address each of these specific segments separatelty, Apttus uniquely brings them all together in an integrated data platform that can address the entire revenue lifecycle of a company. And if you think about the revenue cycle, QTC is really the only set of functions that can actually address revenue increases for customers.

7. If you were to draw an analogy between your personal hobbies/traits and the way to steer Apttus, what would that be? Kirk’s main hobby is rowing: it gets him up early, gives him time to focus and plan out his day, and is metaphorically apt for the effort and continued success of Apttus.

8. What is your advice to the future entrepreneurs who want to make it big in the market?

Don’t take funding – even from friends and family – if you can help it! In a recent Sandhill.com interview Kirk elaborated on the initial decision to bootstrap Apttus for its first 6 years:

“From the very beginning, we were passionate about building something great, an industry, not just getting in and out when the money was right. By bootstrapping, we were able to avoid giving away significant stakes in the company just to get through some tough times. Funding ourselves allowed us to take calculated risks, go where others weren’t willing to; and that belief in ourselves worked out. It wasn’t easy – maxed-out credit cards and all, (but) I wouldn’t have done it any other way. It allowed our product suite and staff the time to evolve and mature before the time was right to seize a very real and robust market opportunity.” Also, never risk corrupting your brand trying to win clients, it is the worst thing you can possibly do. You have to be controlled and trust your product first and foremost.

9. Kindly elaborate on any upcoming projects/plan that would benefit your customers in the end.  

Upcoming customer benefit projecs are principly industry-focused:using our decade of experience to develop stronger, more specific solutions for customers in areas such as Manufacturing and Health and Life Sciences, etc.

10. Would you like to highlight any other interesting insight that we may have missed in this questionnaire?

Kirk’s vision and dedication have truly solidified the Quote-to-Cash (QTC) category and Apttus’ reputation as the undisputed leader in the market. A term coined by Kirk and Apttus, QTC signifies the end-toend sales process starting from the buyer’s intent all the way to the collection of revenue. And as of late, the analyst community has begun to take notice. For example, earlier this year, Forrester analysts named Apttus a leader in The Wave for Configure-Price-Quote Solutions, a strong performer in The Wave for B2B Commerce Suites, and in Q3 of 2016 Apttus was named a leader in The Forrester Wave for Contract Life-Cycle Management.

In Q2 under Kirk’s leadership, Apttus was also named a leader by IDC in the 2017 MarketScape for Worldwide Manufacturing Configure, Price, Quote Applications, and a visionary in the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce. Most recently, Apttus was named a strong performer in The Forrester Wave™: Recurring Customer and Billing Management, Q3 2017. With other prestigious awards like the Forbes Cloud 100, Deloitte Fast 500, US Microsoft Dynamics ISV Partner of the Year, Montclare SaaS 250, and Business Insider 50 Companies to Bet Career Your On, Apttus continues to lead the Quote-to-Cash space with its consistent yearly growth. Kirk is also author of the Amazon best-selling book “Intelligent Quote-to-Cash: The Outcome-Based Approach to Transforming Your Business,” which help users understand why Quote-to-Cash is the most valuable part of business. Ideal for any reader involved in driving significant business outcomes within sales, marketing, legal, finance, IT, or management operations, “Intelligent Quote-to-Cash” is the only book on the subject and has been distributed to thousands of readers worldwide.

Fostering a world class mentality internally and externally also plays a huge part in Apttus’ booming success, and as a result, Forbes handpicked Kirk as the “2015 Unicorn’s Class – Entrepreneur of the Year.” As CEO, Kirk successfully inspires his employees to authentically believe in the company’s mission – Tier One Everything. He is dedicated to creating a diverse work environment and is a strong supporter of women - he is one of the only “Unicorn” CEO’s that has staffed his most technical and financially focused positions with female leadership - CFO, SVP of IT, General Counsel and SVP Marketing. It is this type of infectious mentality that has enabled Apttus to double every year, recently breaking the 1,200-employee mark, and signing over 600 customers, including 100 of the Fortune 500.