April 13, 2023
A Forrester report has revealed that the top software vendors experienced growth in Q1 despite economic uncertainty. Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, and Workday all experienced double-digit year-over-year revenue growth.
Meanwhile, IBM, Microsoft, and SAP had single-digit revenue growth. The report shows that while enterprise spending on software is not expected to slow down, vendors have felt the pullback as executives increase scrutiny on spending and look to consolidate software.
The report also highlighted that software vendors have adjusted their strategies in response to these challenges. For example, many vendors focused on executive and board changes, as well as sustainability and diversity initiatives.
However, the revenue growth was not evenly distributed among the software vendors. According to the report, SAP had the lowest revenue growth, increasing by just 1% year over year due to “declining license and maintenance revenues as it shifts to cloud models.”
Despite this, the report emphasized that the ongoing shift to the cloud remains a key initiative, especially in laggard categories like ERP. The report also highlighted the leadership movements in the software vendor space, including Workday’s transition to have Carl Eschenbach as its sole CEO by the beginning of next year.
The report concluded that customers should see these moves as part of software vendors’ general focus on operations and efficiency. It also stated that software vendors are expected to continue adjusting their strategies to remain competitive in the changing market.
The sources for this piece include an article in CIODive.
