With earnings season in full swing, we highlight data reviews for Snowflake, Workday, Splunk, and Zoom. The spending intentions data cited in this article is derived from our most recent July 2023 Technology Spending Intentions Survey (TSIS), which collects 2H23 spending intentions from our qualified IT decision-maker community. If you would like to access any of ETR's proprietary data and research, begin your own free trial with just one click.
Snowflake. For the sixth survey in a row, Snowflake’s Net Score has declined, signaling a slowing spending velocity as positive indications shift to flattening spend as the vendor becomes more entrenched in the enterprise. Net Score remains very high in absolute terms, but growth is lagging behind sector peers in year-over-year change metrics. Snowflake is also facing increased competitive challenges from Databricks, Microsoft, and AWS. As such, we removed the positive outlook on Snowflake’s data set for 2H23.
Its Net Score is still very strong at 47.0%, but for the first time in several surveys, Snowflake is no longer among the very top Net Scores in the entire TSIS vendor universe after declining every survey since JAN22. The decline in spending velocity is due to shrinking Adoption and Increase spending indications, while negative spending indications have crept up. Largely, Snowflake is stabilizing as an entrenched vendor in many organizations, as positive spending gives way to Flat spending indications.
More than a third of Snowflake’s respondents are from Global 2000 organizations, and Net Score among this customer cut has dropped sharply by 30% since OCT22, down to 46.6% in this survey. Again, this data set is more about the rate of change and growth slowing than the absolute levels, which remain healthy.
Workday. Workday’s citation-weighted Net Score has seen a further 4 percentage point decline year-over-year, which is larger than the 2 percentage point decline seen across the Enterprise Apps sector. At 35.7%, Net Score now sits at the lowest levels seen in Workday’s survey history but remains ahead of TSIS vendor averages and sector peers on an absolute basis in JUL23. Consolidated Pervasion continues to see steady gains within the sector, with a 2.1 percentage point gain year-over-year, representing the largest gain of its kind in recent survey history in JUL23.
The year-over-year Net Score decline can be mostly attributed to few existing customers indicating they plan to Increase spend on Workday. An uptick of Flat respondents has left Increasing respondents at near low levels in recent survey history. Negative spend indications, including churn, remain at very low levels. Workday continues to outperform peers on an absolute basis, and higher Adoption indications year-over-year across segments are a bright spot. However, we removed our positive outlook on the dataset given the recent consistent declines in Net Score across all three product areas that we track.
Zoom. On an aggregate basis across both sectors in which we track the vendor, Zoom’s Net Score came in at 7.4%, in line with the 2H data from JUL22. This marks the first stabilization in Zoom 2H spend in three years. However, the true bright spot comes in the survey-over-survey analysis, where the Net Score jumped 8 percentage points from all-time lows of -0.3%, thus finally ending a streak of 12 consecutive declines.
Across key customer samples, we see a similar trend. Among Fortune 500 customers (16% of citations), Zoom’s Net Score rebounded to 11%, driven by notably fewer Replacements. Impressively, Pervasion within the Fortune 500 has grown from 34% to an all-time high of 50%. Among Midsize & Small respondents (41% of citations), the aggregate Net Score bounced from all-time lows of 1.8% to 8.7%. Pervasion here remains above 56%. With such a vast installed base, if Zoom could capture any incremental spend, the impact would be swift and accretive.
The Net Score reprieve off all-time lows was consistently driven by an easing of Negative spend indications transitioning to Flat spend intent, coupled with slight improvements in Increase spending. While acknowledging the continued dominance of Microsoft in all of Zoom’s critical markets, the easing negativity seen across the entire data set, the returning optimism with the IP Telephony sector, and the continued Pervasion strength makes one ponder if the worst is finally over for the vendor.
Splunk. Splunk’s Net Score has declined for two surveys but remains higher than all-time lows in OCT22. In both sectors, Splunk has an above-average Net Score but is in the middle of the pack against observability peers. Despite year-over-year declines, Pervasion remains healthy and ahead of all observability peers, but Adoption rates are relatively poor.
After sinking to an all-time low Net Score in OCT22, Splunk has seen a bit of a rebound, up 6% since OCT22 to 25.7%. As Adoption and Replacement indications hold steady and Decrease spending indications have risen, Increase spending indications have grown to make up for it, leading to this modest rebound in Net Score relative to 2H22 levels. Among Global 2000 organizations, however, which comprise more than a third of Splunk respondents, Net Score slightly declined since OCT22 to 25.1%.
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Enterprise Technology Research (ETR) is a technology market research firm that leverages proprietary data from our targeted IT decision maker (ITDM) community to provide actionable insights about spending intentions and industry trends. Since 2010, we have worked diligently at achieving one goal: eliminating the need for opinions in enterprise research, which are often formed from incomplete, biased, and statistically insignificant data. Our community of ITDMs represents $1+ trillion in annual IT spend and is positioned to provide best-in-class customer/evaluator perspectives. ETR’s proprietary data and insights from this community empower institutional investors, technology companies, and ITDMs to navigate the complex enterprise technology landscape amid an expanding marketplace. Discover what ETR can do for you at www.etr.ai.