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Smartsheet Product

To empower anyone to drive organizational achievement through intelligent work coordination by becoming the essential work management platform at scale

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To empower anyone to drive organizational achievement through intelligent work coordination by becoming the essential work management platform at scale

Strengths

  • PLATFORM: No-code work management platform with powerful automation, integration capabilities, and enterprise-grade security (98% customer retention)
  • ECOSYSTEM: Robust partner ecosystem with 180+ integrations with enterprise systems like MS Teams, Google, Salesforce, and Jira
  • ENTERPRISE: Strong enterprise adoption with 85% of Fortune 500 companies as customers and increasing ARR from large accounts
  • FLEXIBILITY: Highly flexible platform that can be customized for virtually any workflow across departments and industries
  • INNOVATION: Consistent product innovation with 4+ major releases annually delivering AI-enhanced capabilities and workflow solutions

Weaknesses

  • COMPLEXITY: Learning curve for new users with complex interface that can be intimidating compared to simpler competitors (cited in 32% of negative reviews)
  • MOBILE: Mobile experience lags behind desktop capabilities with limited functionality for on-the-go users
  • VISUALIZATION: Reporting and visualization tools need enhancement compared to dedicated BI tools that customers often use alongside Smartsheet
  • MARKET: Brand recognition outside core project management category is limited compared to competitors like Asana and Monday.com
  • PRICING: Enterprise pricing can be prohibitive for smaller organizations, limiting expansion in SMB market segment

Opportunities

  • AI: Leverage AI to transform work management through predictive analytics, intelligent automation, and natural language interfaces
  • VERTICAL: Develop deeper vertical-specific solutions for industries like construction, marketing, and healthcare with pre-built templates
  • GLOBAL: Accelerate international expansion beyond current 25% of revenue, particularly in EMEA and APAC regions
  • AUTOMATION: Capitalize on growing demand for workflow automation as organizations seek efficiency amid economic uncertainty
  • PLATFORM: Expand platform capabilities beyond project management into adjacent work management categories like resource management

Threats

  • COMPETITION: Intensifying competition from Microsoft, Asana, Monday.com, and niche players targeting specific verticals
  • ECONOMY: Economic uncertainty causing organizations to scrutinize SaaS spending and consolidate vendors (IT budget growth slowing to 4.1%)
  • SATURATION: Work management software market becoming increasingly saturated with 200+ players offering similar core functionality
  • CONSOLIDATION: Industry consolidation as larger players acquire point solutions, threatening Smartsheet's expansion strategy
  • COMMODITIZATION: Risk of core functionality becoming commoditized as basic project management features become table stakes

Key Priorities

  • AI ACCELERATION: Aggressively integrate AI capabilities throughout the platform to maintain competitive edge and transform work management
  • VERTICAL FOCUS: Develop deeper industry-specific solutions that deliver immediate value with pre-built templates and best practices
  • SIMPLIFICATION: Improve user experience and onboarding to reduce complexity while maintaining advanced capabilities
  • MOBILE FIRST: Revamp mobile experience to support truly on-the-go work management for increasingly distributed workforce

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To empower anyone to drive organizational achievement through intelligent work coordination by becoming the essential work management platform at scale

AI ACCELERATION

Lead the industry in AI-powered work management

  • COPILOT: Launch Smartsheet AI Copilot beta for 100 enterprise customers with 40% weekly active usage by end of Q2
  • PREDICTION: Release predictive timeline and resource forecasting for all enterprise customers, improving estimate accuracy by 30%
  • INSIGHTS: Develop and launch AI-powered workspace analytics delivering actionable workflow optimization recommendations
  • ADOPTION: Achieve 50% of enterprise customers using at least one AI feature weekly with 85% satisfaction rating
VERTICAL MASTERY

Deliver industry-specific solutions that drive value

  • MARKETING: Launch enhanced Marketing Solution with 20 new AI-powered templates and integrations, driving 40% faster customer ROI
  • IT: Develop comprehensive IT Project Management solution with ITSM integrations for 5 enterprise early adopters
  • CONSTRUCTION: Create Construction Management solution with resource scheduling and BIM integration, signed by 15 new accounts
  • ENABLEMENT: Train 200 customer-facing employees on vertical solutions with 90% certification success rate
USER DELIGHT

Simplify without sacrificing power

  • ONBOARDING: Redesign user onboarding experience reducing time-to-value by 40% and increasing activation rate to 75%
  • INTERFACE: Launch simplified UI mode with contextual guidance, achieving 30% higher satisfaction scores from new users
  • TEMPLATES: Expand template gallery with 50 new AI-customizable templates, driving 35% increase in template adoption
  • TRAINING: Create adaptive learning paths that increase feature adoption by 25% for core collaboration capabilities
MOBILE DOMINANCE

Enable true work management anywhere

  • REDESIGN: Complete mobile app redesign with 95% feature parity to desktop for core workflows and launch for both iOS and Android
  • OFFLINE: Implement robust offline mode allowing creation and editing of sheets with automatic sync when connection restored
  • NOTIFICATIONS: Develop intelligent notification system with AI prioritization, increasing mobile engagement by 40%
  • ADOPTION: Increase weekly active mobile users by 60% and mobile session duration by 25% through improved experience
METRICS
  • Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR): $1.13B by end of Q2, representing 29% YoY growth
  • Dollar-based Net Retention Rate: 130%, indicating strong expansion within existing customer base
  • AI Feature Adoption: 45% of customers using AI features weekly across the platform
VALUES
  • Authentic Leadership
  • Honest Communication
  • Ownership Mentality
  • Be the Solution
  • Make Customers Heroes

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Align the learnings

Smartsheet Product Retrospective

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To empower anyone to drive organizational achievement through intelligent work coordination by becoming the essential work management platform at scale

What Went Well

  • REVENUE: Q4 FY2023 revenue increased 35% year-over-year to $212.3M, exceeding analyst expectations by 2.1%
  • ENTERPRISE: Number of customers with ACV >$100K grew 44% year-over-year to 1,240 customers
  • RETENTION: Dollar-based net retention rate remained strong at 127%, indicating successful expansion within existing customers
  • MARGINS: Non-GAAP operating margin improved to 7%, up from -1% in the same quarter last year, showing path to profitability
  • INTERNATIONAL: International revenue grew 42% year-over-year, outpacing overall company growth rate

Not So Well

  • GUIDANCE: Forward guidance for FY2024 was conservative at 25-28% growth, below analyst expectations of 31%
  • COMPETITION: Sales cycles lengthened due to increased competitive pressure and economic uncertainty
  • SMB: Small business segment growth slowed to 21% year-over-year compared to 30% in previous quarters
  • EXPENSES: Sales & marketing expenses grew 29% year-over-year, outpacing revenue growth in some regions
  • CHURN: Slight increase in customer churn in SMB segment to 9.2% from 8.7% in prior quarter

Learnings

  • VERTICAL: Industry-specific solutions demonstrated 42% higher conversion rates than generic platform positioning
  • BUNDLING: Product bundling strategies increased average deal size by 27% where implemented
  • ADOPTION: Customer success programs focused on adoption increased expansion rates by 31% for participating accounts
  • AUTOMATION: Customers using automation features showed 35% higher retention rates than those who didn't
  • COMMUNITY: User community engagement correlated strongly with renewal rates (89% vs 72% for non-engaged customers)

Action Items

  • ACCELERATION: Accelerate AI feature development to address competitive pressure with quarterly release cadence
  • VERTICALIZATION: Develop and launch at least 3 new industry-specific solution packages by end of fiscal year
  • SIMPLIFICATION: Launch simplified user experience to improve adoption rates particularly for occasional users
  • EDUCATION: Expand customer education programs with focus on value realization through automation and AI
  • MOBILE: Prioritize mobile experience enhancement to support increasingly distributed workforce needs

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To empower anyone to drive organizational achievement through intelligent work coordination by becoming the essential work management platform at scale

Strengths

  • FOUNDATION: Existing AI capabilities with Smartsheet AI and WorkApps providing solid foundation for accelerated AI development
  • DATA: Rich dataset from billions of cells and millions of workflows to train AI models for work management optimization
  • ECOSYSTEM: Strong integration capabilities enabling leveraging of third-party AI technologies from Microsoft, Google, and others
  • AUTOMATION: Established automation capabilities that can be enhanced with AI for more intelligent workflow orchestration
  • TALENT: Recent acquisition of AI talent through strategic hires and company acquisitions strengthening AI development capabilities

Weaknesses

  • ADOPTION: Slow AI feature adoption by customers due to complexity and limited awareness of AI capabilities (34% usage rate)
  • RESOURCES: Smaller AI research team compared to larger competitors like Microsoft and Google limiting innovation velocity
  • EDUCATION: Limited customer education and training on how to effectively implement AI features within workflows
  • SPECIALIZATION: Lack of domain-specific AI models for different industries and use cases compared to vertical-specific competitors
  • INTEGRATION: Siloed AI features rather than cohesive AI strategy integrated throughout the entire platform experience

Opportunities

  • COPILOT: Develop AI assistant to help users build, optimize, and troubleshoot workflows through natural language interactions
  • PREDICTION: Implement predictive capabilities for resource allocation, timeline estimates, and risk identification
  • AUTOMATION: Enhance workflow automation with AI that can suggest optimization opportunities based on usage patterns
  • INSIGHTS: Create AI-powered analytics that surface actionable insights from work data across organizational boundaries
  • ACCESSIBILITY: Use AI to make platform more accessible through voice interfaces, simplified controls, and adaptive experiences

Threats

  • COMPETITORS: Major competitors investing heavily in AI with Microsoft's Copilot and Monday.com's AI capabilities already in market
  • EXPECTATIONS: Rising customer expectations for AI capabilities as standard features rather than premium offerings
  • COMMODITIZATION: Risk of basic AI features becoming commoditized rapidly as they become standard across all platforms
  • PRIVACY: Increasing regulatory constraints around AI data usage limiting training capabilities in certain regions
  • EXPERTISE: Talent war for AI expertise driving up development costs and slowing innovation timeline

Key Priorities

  • COPILOT CREATION: Develop comprehensive AI assistant that guides users through complex workflows and suggests optimizations
  • WORKFLOW INTELLIGENCE: Build AI that automatically identifies optimization opportunities across customer workflows
  • VERTICAL AI: Create industry-specific AI models that understand unique requirements in key verticals like marketing and IT
  • DEMOCRATIZATION: Make AI accessible to all users through intuitive interfaces and clear value propositions

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AI Disclosure

This report was created using the Alignment Method—our proprietary process for guiding AI to reveal how it interprets your business and industry. These insights are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, legal, tax, or investment advice.

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