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| Home - CEO Spotlight - Apr 06 Issue |
CEO Spotlight: Janice Anderson, Onyx Software Corporation
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Angel Mehta: You mentioned that Pat is a world-class leader. Tell me about some of the things you took away from her about leadership. What stays with you today?
Janice Anderson: Pat really taught me the value of the team. That's her approach; it comes out in her actions all the time. She's the kind of leader that inspires loyalty, great performance and teamwork. That's what I learned from her.
The other fundamental principle I have about leadership is that it's about looking for things that aren't being done, and doing them. Leadership, in my mind, requires having an attitude that looks to create things that aren't there. Leadership isn't restricted to any one person or a role per se; it's a phenomenon and it can be called forth by anybody at any time. People can say, 'I'm going to lead this outcome: what could be doesn't exist right now, but that's what I'm going to commit to and make happen." People in our company do it all the time.
Angel Mehta: Let's talk a little bit about Onyx; the general perception about CRM is that the market is saturated. True or false, in your experience so far? Is there still a growth opportunity here?
Janice Anderson: Yes, we think that there's a great growth opportunity for us and the reason is that the market's fairly sizeable; it's still a $3.5 billion software market a year; It's growing at a modest rate of approximately 7% a year. We focus on mid and large-scale companies that are in the services sectors, such as financial services, insurance, business services, healthcare, and government. Organizations in those areas need an enterprise-caliber supplier. Because of the consolidation in the industry, we feel that there's been only one supplier available for enterprise deals, which is Oracle (based on their Siebel acquisition). Our sense is that their market share is going to drop as Oracle combines its many CRM product lines, which means there will be more opportunities opening up. We'd like to go from a small portion of this market to an 8-10% market share and we think that over the next several years it's more than possible to do that.
So the short story is that it's still a big, relatively healthy market. Yes, it's competitive – but all markets are. We're all consumers, and we know that everyone feels there has to be a strong #2 that is a great alternative to Oracle. We think that's going to be Onyx.
Angel Mehta: What are some of the changes you made at Onyx after coming in?
Janice Anderson: One area of change was focusing the company away from survival mode, which it had been in for a few years, to more of a growth mode. We grew our software license business 26% last year, which was the first time in a long time. We want to grow our partnerships and expand distribution. Growth requires taking more risk. The team is focusing on the right investments and generating the right yield on our time and spending. Moving our team from one mode to the other was a key priority for me.
Angel Mehta: What's involved in doing that? Tell me about the challenge of a leader walking in, finding a company that has been in crisis mode for 2 years, and wanting people to change their paradigm. Where do you start?
Janice Anderson: There were several things we looked at. One was the team at the top: what were they committed to, and where were they coming from, and did they have the skills and the commitment to do what was required. So quite a bit of leadership change was required. We've brought in some new people over the last 2 years who have played key roles. So changing the team was the first element.
Number 2, we needed to get people thinking about the business and owning the outcomes. There are really two ways of thinking about where you are: you're either in charge of where you are, or someone or something else is in charge of where you are. Either something is happening TO you, or you're out there making it happen. We didn't have a proactive mentality in the company, for understandable reasons… but that kind of thinking had to change. We pushed out accountability of the business and the financials to the right owners in the business by generating plans from the working groups and building out how we were going to operate going forward.
Angel Mehta: But how did it change? What did you do to make it happen?
Janice Anderson: I encouraged people to look at the market, and make proactive choices about what to turn on, what to turn off, then communicated those choices to the rest of the organization. We did a much more robust operational business plan for the '05 year based on team leaders" views. We hadn't previously prepared plans at the operating team level. So we created business plans to support the goals we wanted to achieve, outlining the work required to get there. It was more than just, 'Here are the numbers, go make them." The numbers represent items that are going to happen because each of us is going to MAKE them happen. Just sitting down and going through that exercise is very powerful.
Angel Mehta: How have you personally evolved as a leader over the years? What do you know now that you wish you knew then?
Janice Anderson: Very early on it was important for me to learn the energy that you can create with a team – the sheer power that a great team has at its fingertips to create amazing results and enjoy it along the way. This was probably the most significant evolution I've ever had.
Janice Anderson is CEO of Onyx Software Corporation. She is a seasoned business executive, strategist and entrepreneur with global operations experience. Her career spans 22 years and encompasses executive management positions in the telecommunications and CRM arena with Lucent Technologies and its predecessor organization AT&T Corporation as well as two technology startups. For interview feedback, contact Janice at jpanderson@Onyx.com
Angel Mehta is Managing Director of Sterling-Hoffman, a retained executive search firm focused on VP Sales, VP Marketing, and CEO searches for enterprise software companies. He can be reached for feedback at amehta@sterlinghoffman.net
 
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