Steelwedge recently announced that we’ve expanded our management team to support rapid growth and ensure a high level of customer satisfaction.  We will be profiling each of our new executives starting today with our Vice President of North American Sales, Pier Barattolo.

Pier comes to Steelwedge from Right90 where he Vice President of Sales and drove rapid customer growth. Prior to Right90, Barattolo was Vice President of North American EPM sales for SAP Business Objects, where he helped grow annual license revenue by 82 percent, and Vice President of Sales at IBM Cognos Adaytum where he drove sales from $1 million to over $64 million.  Pier has also held executive positions at Rolls Royce and General Electric.

Steelwedge: Why did you choose to join Steelwedge?

Barattolo: I was impressed with Steelwedge’s market leadership and deep S&OP and business planning expertise.  The Integrated Business Planning (IBP) and sales and operations planning (S&OP) technology space is exploding as companies continue to focus intently on perfecting their demand-supply planning in response to recessionary pressures.  The opportunity to help Steelwedge quickly scale its sales organization to meet market demand presented an exciting challenge.

Steelwedge: What is driving the adoption of IBP and S&OP technology?

Barattolo: As I talk to business leaders across the country, it is evident that the recent economic turmoil exposed the unfortunate fact that many companies lack the processes and technology to cope with unexpected events — whether good or bad.  The lack of an integrated operational and financial planning approach meant that executives lacked an early warning system and could not adjust quickly to changing circumstances.  The financial, operational and customer satisfaction implications of this shortfall have been huge.  Now, as companies are forced to do more with less, they must become more efficient and effective in managing their limited resources to take advantage of any market opportunity.  IBP is fast becoming the tool of choice to help solve this problem.

Steelwedge: Why are companies looking to leverage the cloud?

Barattolo: Faster time to value, a lower total cost of ownership, and the ability to do more with fewer internal resources are the biggest factors driving companies to embrace cloud computing.  In our fast-changing environment, companies can no longer waste time and money with lengthy ERP-type deployments.  Expectations around time to value have increased dramatically and the dearth of internal IT resources means that the cloud is often the best and most realistic option.  Also, the pay-as-you-go model that characterizes cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings compels the vendor to drive value through the application day-in and day-out – not just before the sale.

Steelwedge: What should companies consider when evaluating S&OP solutions?

Barattolo: Given the highly collaborative and complex nature of the S&OP process, companies should partner with a technology vendor that brings deep domain expertise and knowledge of best practices.  It is the right balance of people, process and technology that ultimately will make the S&OP process successful in an organization.  From a technology standpoint, companies should distinguish between a purpose-built solution versus one that is stitched together — as this would clearly impact time to value, overall complexity, project risk and total cost of ownership.  When companies scratch below the label all will be revealed.  Companies also have to rate user adoption high on their criteria list as end users will naturally prefer a solution that leverages a familiar and intuitive UI.