At Apttus Accelerate in San Francisco, Raj Verma, COO, Apttus sat with Enterprise Times to talk about where the business is going. Apttus is growing fast, both in terms of customer numbers and the new technology it is introducing. The challenge for Apttus is making sure it can match the two growth vectors without impacting product quality or customer satisfaction.

Verma is happy with it. He calls it a first world problem and says that one feeds the other. Apttus operates in a fast evolving market and that, says Verma, helps feed innovation. Verma believes that the company’s key goal is to help customers prepare for the service economy. Customers and prospects are having to rethink how they sell long standing products as a service.

Raj Verma, Chief Operating Officer, Apttus

At the core of this move to as a service, according to Verma, is how do you configure, price, quote and set SLAs to deliver it.

Verma talked about what was happening with the introduction of Max, the Apttus AI which received a refresh at Accelerate. Kirk Krappe, CEO, Apttus, told the media that uptake of the product was only about 10% of the customer base. Verma explains that this has been because customers, to date, see it as a nice to have. However, that is changing.

The conversation also touched on the deal with IBM and the company’s relationship with IBM including blockchain. There is an increasing amount of technology sharing going on and with IBM announcing its own Apttus practice, that is likely to increase.

To hear what else Verma had to say listen to the podcast.

Where can I get it?

obtain it, for Android devices from play.google.com/music/podcasts

use the Enterprise Times page on Stitcher

use the Enterprise Times page on Podchaser

listen to the Enterprise Times channel on Soundcloud

listen to the podcast (below) or download the podcast to your local device and then listen there