Adil Dittmer

Manta

I help organizations understand their data to make better decisions and measure their impact. 

As part of Equal Opportunity Ventures, we believe helping organizations learn and apply data science will unlock economic opportunity and close opportunity gaps across America.

Head of Customer Success

Success in Black

Success in Black is a community platform promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion while elevating Black Customer Success professionals to help them advance their careers.

Founding Team - Content Editor

NCAA

NCAAW Basketball Referee

TestBox

TestBox gives your customers reliable, personalized, AI-generated product demos and instant sandboxes so they can quickly get a hands-on experience with your products solutions

Tropic

Director of Customer Experience

Director of Customer Success

Senior Customer Success Manager

On Deck

On Deck Customer Success (ODCS) is a continuous community for senior CS leaders and operators.

On Deck Customer Success - Founding Fellow

Signal Vine, a Modern Campus Company

FY '20 - 124% NRR (#1 Team Attainment)
FY '19 - 109% NRR

Account Manager

Customer Success Manager

Inside Higher Ed

Account Development Representative, Careers Platform

Phi Gamma Delta

Change Management Consultant/Field Secretary

Virginia Tech

Supervisor, Recreational Sports Intramurals

Experienced Customer Success leader focused on providing strategic value for software companies. My professional interests include leadership theory, revenue growth, fundraising, start-ups, and building community through my work.

CS Consultant

Allma provides a suite of tools that allow companies to seamlessly manage and deploy AI to their employees to ensure consistent and optimal use of AI templates to help accomplish their daily tasks. The Allma platform offers companies the power to save, refine, and collaboratively employ AI templates across their teams.

I am committed to building the reputation and value of procurement in the Tech sector.  I launched a respected procurement organization at Qualtrics by leveraging my global procurement experience from different industries.  I hire great leaders and collaborate with business partners to source and deliver innovative solutions that creatively solve business problems, mitigate risk, improve supplier performance, and make significant contributions to the financial health and performance of the company.

Michael Shields

Last week, I posted about not having a savings goal and another procurement leader reached out to talk about it. Apparently his savings goal is 15% next year. 

Me: “Based on what?”

Him: “Based on…. the fact that this year we’ll likely surpass the goal we set (15% vs 13% goal). 

Me: “That’s kind of dumb… possibly irresponsible.”

Here’s why: 
🔸 savings goals without linking to spend growth, inflation, or strategic initiatives is uneducated and risky. 
🔸 risk is introduced when savings are measured on price variance alone without TCO/risk weighting.
🔸 suggests that savings are greater than value. 
🔸 Over-rotation can occur when savings goal isn’t based on data.  

I have seen first hand how savings can get harder to achieve YoY (unless the company is scaling quickly).  That’s when creativity kicks in (and not the good kind of creativity). Suddenly questionable business choices are occurring… ones that favor short term gains over long term value. 

What if instead the goal was a combination of: 

price optimization (leveraging data to quickly achieve what is sustainable for both parties)

value creation (measuring increased ROI, time savings, etc) 

and improved supplier performance (better and stronger results)?

I'd argue the top line would benefit as much as the bottom line. Suppliers would help their customers achieve a competitive advantage. 

For example, the company spends more but it’s with a better performing supplier that is delivering higher ROI.

That’s actually great. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-savings. Done right, they will still come and can be tracked. But not at the expense of ROI, quality and supplier performance.

Vice President of Procurement @ Tropic | Spend Management Enthusiast | Speaker | Advisor | Professor. On a mission to change the perception of Procurement. In tech and beyond.

I was left to interpret the pricing change.  

Here’s the email I got. “Hey, wanted to shoot over the renewal contract before I go on vacation next week. Take a look and let’s grab some time when I get back the week of the 5th.”  

I looked it over. It looked different. 

The pricing was 17% higher. One of the SKUs looked new. Another seemed to have disappeared. 

Without context, I filled in the blanks the best I could…

Guess what I did the week he was on vacation?

I talked to his competitors.  

No way we could absorb 17% increase.  

This is a bit of an extreme example I’ll admit. But I see it in other ways:

Pricing saved until the last 5 minutes of a call. No time to understand impact or reinforce value. 
SKU changes presented but not well explained. 
Uplifts proposed but value didn’t increase (perception or reality). 

I’m not saying every pricing change needs a full whiteboard session. But interpretation is a dangerous thing. You might end up in a situation straight out of that Key & Peele sketch where they are texting each other. Same words. Completely different tone interpreted. One guy thinks they’re making plans to have fun. The other shows up to the meeting point with a baseball bat.  

I’m convinced that the best sellers are those that frame in a way that re-inforces value and helps the buyer logically understand the pricing and the value. It naturally incentives the buyer to move quick. 

Take-away: 

If you leave buyers to build the story themselves, don’t be surprised when the ending isn’t the one you wanted.

I wore a collared shirt and jacket in an effort to fit in with the finance crowd at the FATE conference in NYC. 

The goal was to have me talk to finance leaders about the value of procurement + finance. 

Three thoughts: 

1. Booth duty is a grind. Shout out to sellers who do this on the regular. 
2. Decent conversations make the grind worth it (I think).
3. I regret my wardrobe choice (not true to who I am…)

Next time I think I’m going to wear a custom t- shirt. I’m debating between a few options. 

A. “Stop Saying No to Good Spend.”
B. “In CFO We Trust. In Procurement We Verify.”
C. Procurement: The Growth Lever You’re Ignoring.”
D. Slash Waste. Not Headcount.”
E. I Audit Feelings With Data.”

The highlight was meeting a CFO who had decent visibility to his spend but it came at a big cost of time and effort. 

His company is scaling and his home grown solution isn’t. 

His big fear? He’s saying “no” to good spend. He doesn’t see his job as cutting costs or saying no. He knows that GOOD spend can help his company grow. Which spend will push the business forward and achieve core goals. 

That’s why an alliance between finance and procurement is so powerful. Finance defines the strategy; procurement operationalizes it so every buying decision aligns with that strategy.

It was fun to show him how Tropic plays a critical part through process (routed to the right people with the right context) and data (ensuring the price is fair, the terms are market, and the spend is actually justified). 

So which t-shirt is best? Or is there a better idea all together?

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If you are a seller, you might think your buyer is being difficult (“ugh, procurement…”). 

If you are a buyer, you might think your seller is being greedy (“ugh, they are just trying to maximize their commission”). 

This market is kind of crazy.  The pressure on margins is insane. 

Revenue pressure is strong.  But budgets are being cut.  And as a result, negotiations are getting pretty tense…. and drawn out. 

Here’s where things are actually getting done:

Companies that actually deliver more value AND can articulate that value are the ones that will see consistent success.  

(Both of these MUST be true). 

Their close rates won’t just be higher, they’ll actually gain a market advantage.  

They are the ones closing deals quicker while their competitors are dealing with longer, more drawn out negotiations… and costly churn.  

Value isn’t just the great equalizer. It’s the only thing that accelerates deals when economic headwinds are slowing them down.

So while it might feel like buyers and sellers have opposing goals, the irony is that both sides are running toward the same place and don’t realize it.

Sellers might indeed feel pressure to raise prices but in order to do this, they need to deliver more value.   Buyers might think they need reduce cost but what they really need is higher ROI.  
 That’s a great unifying insight.

Sound too good to be true?

Tropic’s co-founder is pretty strict when it comes to budgets.  

But I watched him approve a deal that was signficantly more (in excess of 20%). 
 Because the technology had changed dramtically.  And the rep did a great job of showing how the ROI increased much more than 20%.

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The Battle

Adil Dittmer

Michael Shields

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The Battle

Adil Dittmer

Michael Shields

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Engagements

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Michael Shields's LinkedIn Performance

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