Planview’s growth plans with a view for success in APAC

According to Harsh Vardhan, Chief Strategy Officer at Planview, because of the differences in the levels of maturity of organizations across the region, Planview takes several different approaches when working with partners in Asia Pacific.

As a leading platform for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) and Digital Product Development (DPD), Planview recorded strong momentum through 2024, marked by customer growth, product innovations and industry recognition.

According to Harsh Vardhan, Chief Strategy Officer at Planview, expansion plans into the Asia Pacific market begin three years ago, with the regional headquarters set up in Singapore. Since then, Planview has moved very quickly into Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.

“Everywhere we expand in the region is through a partner route. We are in Hong Kong now and also started seeing a lot of traction between us and South Korea. Australia has always been a bedrock for Planview because we have 250 plus customers and are growing very strong in both Australia and New Zealand,” said Vardhan.

Identifying itself as a platform-driven company and not a product company, Vardhan explained that Planview is focused on providing that platform of visibility for businesses, especially on how they’re spending their budget and growing the business.

“If you're looking at a holistic digital transformation perspective, the questions which are coming from most of the large enterprises, especially from the board-level, are questions on spending on digital transformation. There was an era when businesses kept talking about AR, VR, then blockchain and now AI. This journey is not going to stop. And the money which is being pumped into technology is only exponentially increasing,” explained Vardhan.

With boardrooms continuing to demand explanations, especially on ROI from all their investments, businesses will need to provide a transformational experience. While there are big consulting firms that are capable of providing this holistic perspective to a large customer, Vardhan pointed out that Planview offers more of a platform.

“We are a platform. We don't like to call ourselves a tool. We are a very integral part which helps large enterprises execute their strategy top-down and bottom-up. There is no organization on this earth which will say we have unlimited resources and have unlimited capital. Everybody has a constraint. Where do you put the capital? Where do you put the resources to get the best bang for your buck? The platform gives you those scenarios and gives you those forward-looking scenarios,” explained Vardhan.

As businesses continue to plan and discuss strategies quarterly and yearly, they need a tracker to achieve their goals. This is where Vardhan believes Planview’s platform provides those capabilities.

“We help you keep that tracker on you all the time. Whether you are a finance head or an R&D head or a manufacturing head or a sales head, it does not matter which department you are in. You are sitting right at the top of the board level and getting that view. And because we are a platform and because it's a journey which enterprises have to embark on, the partners play the critical role of doing the transformation as we focus on platform development and more enrichment on a cloud platform,” added Vardhan.

Growth and success with partners in the region

For Vardhan, growth in Asia Pacific is not possible without relying on partners. However, Vardhan also pointed out that because of the differences in the levels of maturity of organizations across the region, Planview takes several different approaches when working with partners.

According to Vardhan, there are different levels of maturity for the enterprises, for leveraging platforms like this. Compared to the rest of Asia, Australia is fairly advanced as Vardhan pointed out. They mirror more or less what happens in the US and customers are already on the journey of transformation. Vardhan added that Australian customers already want to measure their transformation and hence there are SIs acting as consulting advisory companies to assist them in their journey.

“We have partners, and it takes time for them to see that value that we have to have the larger size. It's very easy for us to get partners as they listen to us, and they quickly want to become partners and getting them onboarded is not a challenge. However, we are being very sharp, focused on terms of how many such enterprises are really having the pulse of the client to ensure that transformation exercise. It can be the ease of this larger size and more than a handful of accounts where they're doing a large transformation exercise,” explained Vardhan.

Otherwise, Vardhan believes most partners are just doing a lot of transactional accruals and SAP migration or some data warehousing projects and some application development projects.

“That is going on all the time, and the companies are growing, doing well. But do they really have a strategic point of view with the CEO of the client? For example, a very large bank. Are partners really advising that bank in terms of their business strategy? And that typically happens only with the BCGs, and McKinley's of the world and the SIs come into execution. So, we have that level of maturity in Australian and New Zealand markets,” said Vardhan.

He also stated that all the large GSIs want to work with Planview.

“We work a little more focused with them because sometimes the SI in Australia is not very active, but very active in the US. But sometimes they're very active, like Infosys would be very active in Australia, not so much in the US. Then we would have Wipro very active in the US, but not so active in Australia. It's all dependent on whether they're able to get the ear of the CEO of that organization because we need to sell this platform at that strategy level,” added Vardhan.

For department level sales, Vardhan highlighted that Planview works with resellers who are very actively forming the market. As Planview is a leader in the Magic Quadrant, Vardhan believes it gives them an edge as customers recognize this and immediately call Planview at the department level. Planview then automatically goes to the reseller, or the reseller connects with the client to close the deal.

Meanwihle, in Southeast Asia and India, Vardhan feels that maturity levels are still low, so it's very heavily reseller driven.

“We are trying to mature the market by talking at the department level. Also, at the same time, we have a very small sales team. The sales team supports the discussions through the partner. It is not necessary that we like to sell directly. The sales team works along with the partner to make the sale happen,” added Vardhan.

For Vardhan, his aim for success this year is mostly to achieve deep penetration in the market in the region. This includes increasing the adoption of Planview’s platforms to ensure the customers are getting business value.

“We are a SaaS platform. If we do not have that 95% speed for growth, adoption has to keep constantly increasing. And that’s where our partners play a huge role in ensuring it. It's a platform for life within an organization. It depends on the use cases which need to be adopted. We are obviously growing very fast. We would like to grow much more,” said Vardhan.

Vardhan also stated that nearly 70 percent of Planview’s revenues come from partner-driven or partner-influenced. And while they may not all be connected, the partners are still working on Planview’s platform, either directly or through consulting companies. And this would be the main goal to further enhance growth in the market, Vardhan concluded.