to develop their higher-level skills versus wading through hours and hours of conversational data in the hopes of extracting pertinent actionable insights is incredibly strategic and will be for years to come. Adaptive CPQ & Renewals Automation Friction is the enemy of execution in any sales process, regardless of sales cycle length, price point or industry vertical. The last step in the process of any sale is the proposal stage, and when a prospect raises their hand to say they’re ready to buy, you need to be ready to present a framework that makes sense, share it with them in a digestible format, and maintain agility by being able react/respond to make changes quickly and efficiently as you drive to closing. While the longstanding configure, price, quote (“CPQ”) arena rarely graces the cover of TechCrunch, we believe the innovation happening in this segment is notable. Several vendors in the space are catalyzing a transformation of the status quo, evolving from PDFs being the predominant medium for contracting to a modern, dynamic format that is integrated into all relevant systems of record (CRM, accounting/finance, ERP) to ensure changes made to a given proposal ate automatically tracked across the business. Inking the initial deal, however, is only half the battle. Software-as-a-Service is aptly named… SaaS vendors are not selling hard iron on premise in a one-time fashion then collecting 20% maintenance thereafter. SaaS is definitionally software sold as a service, priced as a recurring subscription. By virtue of that, maintaining, renewing, and potentially expanding a customer’s business is something that needs to be earned continuously. - 21 -