A Cinderella Story

By Will Roche

A number of year's back I had the honor of being on Microsoft's founding worldwide retail industry team. My role was to lead a team of industry professionals working with the largest retail and hospitality solution providers on the planet. Our mission was to convince them to use Microsoft's product stack and to use Microsoft's development tools when bringing new products to the market. We traveled the world working closely with these companies bringing in technical, financial and marketing resources helping to advance the cause!

We also were continuously looking for new and emerging companies who had game-changing solutions using Microsoft's .Net. There were many up and comers we engaged all wanting Microsoft to pull them out of the muck and save them from the dreaded period required to build evidence and credibility. That rarely ever happened and most of those companies disappeared after the money ran out. There were a number of companies that did survive and grow doing it the old fashioned way with hard work, superior products, and great customer service. Two that come to mind as I look out at the winners and losers in 2016 are Orckestra and Profitect. I met with both of these companies and internally supported them within Microsoft providing meager assistance with technical, financial and marketing support. Both of these companies are on a strong path of success bringing real value and a trusted partnership with their customers. I am very proud of both of these teams and their leaders!

I want to talk about Profitect in this article, but please check out Orckestra. Profitect is a Boston-based company providing predictive analytics along with machine learning and actionable alerts. Without getting into the weeds, this means instead of a few folks looking at dashboard's and reports the insights gained are turned into actionable alerts which are then followed, reported and with machine learning turned into new insights with ever more refined alerts. You and your company get smarter as more and more of your company uses the solution. It feeds off operational execution! What a novel idea!

I very recently met with the CEO and Chairman of Profitect, Guy Yehiav who I have known since my Microsoft days. There is much I could go on about what I used to call the "feeds and speeds," but you can find that out for yourself if you choose. The huge thing Guy shared is many customers (massive ones) are buying their solution. In just the last quarter Profitect signed on four new companies, six in the last four months. Additionally, these customers are evangelizing about Profitect and their solution. Watching one of Profitect video's discussing their solution with Weis markets Guy was asked to give the top reasons to buy their solution. His answers were spot on!

1) Live in days.

2) Pattern seeking, machine learning technologies to find opportunities at the lowest levels of operation not known by first level management.

3) Accountability! Actionable alerts are sent and followed up by the software.

4) ROI: The system itself can tell you what financial gains you actually made.

The big takeaway from my conversation with Guy is that Profitect's ability to grow and profit from their SaaS solution is based on the customer signing up for years two, three and four. This means if they are not great at execution then they cannot make money. Customer satisfaction is everything! Many companies sell licenses up front and let you beg for them to answer your calls. I know firsthand working for companies modeled like this and I am sure you know what I mean.

Anyone that can claw their way out of the muck and rise to the attention of this massive retail market has done something different and better. Cinderella stories like these are far and few between, but this is one which has me excited about the possibilities to truly do things that have never been done before.