Epicor - Woman of the Year in Sales
Company: Epicor, Austin, TX
Entry Submitted By: Ogilvy
Company Description: Epicor Software Corporation equips hard-working businesses with enterprise software solutions. For nearly 50 years, Epicor customers in the manufacturing, distribution, LBM, retail, and automotive industries have trusted Epicor to help them do business better. Innovative Epicor solution sets are carefully curated to fit customer needs and built to respond flexibly to their fast-changing reality.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Woman of the Year in Sales
Nomination Title: Lisa Pope
Lisa Pope is the ExecutiveVicePresident, Americas Sales at Epicor, where she leads cloud-first, market-growth initiatives. She boasts extensive knowledge of the software industry and the essential businesses across the supply chain Epicor serves, starting with her first role as presales engineer in the late 80’s.
She is one of a few female sales executives who has achieved 30+ years of success in a male-dominated software industry, as well as selling into a male-dominated customer base across manufacturing, distribution, and retail. Consequently, Pope developed a strong mentor program for female colleagues, and she also mentors women college students exploring careers in tech. Currently, six women Pope mentors have reached the Vice President level. Additionally, since joining Epicor, she has increased diversity at the leadership level, promoting and hiring women for key roles, now comprising 20% of her management team.
Before Pope joined in 2017, Epicor's revenue declined by 1-2% annually. Today, fueled by her leadership and growth strategies, Epicor consistently achieves 5% annual revenue growth, and the company is closing in on an annual revenues of $1B. Despite the economic uncertainty from COVID-19, Epicor delivered double-digit software-as-a-servicegrowth - Pope and her team generated 85% of this total revenue.
1. Customer-Centric Approach: Pope plays an integral role in creating a customer-centric culture. She was a staunch supporter of providing customers in-person vs. remote support and sales during Covid-19, which resulted in improved client retention over 98%.
2.Annual Revenue Growth: Revenue increase by 5%year-over-year.
3.Strategic Partnership: Last spring,Pope helped close the largest software transaction of her career – both in terms of sale price and length of contract.
4. Scale Through Strategic Partnership: Pope played an integral role in the recent acquisition of Epicor by private-equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice to further expand Epicor’s product portfolio and address customers’ evolving digital transformation needs.
5.Leading Customer Engagement: Pope designed theEpicor Customer Value Exchange Workshop (CVEW),which establishes long-term partnerships with customersbycontinuously helping them better leverage Epicor software/services through businesses growth and evolution.
6.Cloud Growth: Pope established and runs the Executive Cloud Council, an executive level advisory board for Epicor’s top clients who assist in strategic product development. Pope was also instrumental in developing and deploying a value-based cloud conversion program to assist existing clients with converting applications to the cloud, resulting in an average 1.8 multiple on current maintenance revenue due to 3-year business return on investment.
Because Epicor customers were deemed “essential” during Covid-19, Pope advocated that her teams still meet and support clients in person where possible. By rearranging sales territories and responsibilities, customers were allowed choice, while sales team members were supported for travel preference and remote work needs. This differentiated Epicor in the market, leading to substantial revenue growth and increased customer loyalty.
Popeleda revenue mix of 74%recurring revenue – including an industry-leading SaaS business growth rate of 60%year-to-date.
ACE Hardware committed to an additionalfiveyears with Epicor asits designated point-of-sale solution, which is currently installed at 3,400+ Ace Hardware stores – improving overallcustomersatisfaction by 20%.
With Pope’s strategic leadership,Epicor secured $4.7Bin private equity.Working closely with Epicor’s CEO, Popehelpednarrow thesearch, ultimately partnering with CD&R due to the firm’s industry focus and strategic growth plans. Epicor was the largest enterprise software company to be acquired in 2020.
Pope’s CVEW is now implemented across all verticals. Over 500 workshops have been conducted with C-levelexecutives andfunctionaldepartment heads – generating strong customer loyalty, improved success scores, and $30+million in incremental software and services revenue.
This program became a necessity for many Epicor clients during the pandemic as they rushed to move employees to home offices and provide full-system access to work remotely. Over 424 Epicor customers made this transition in the last year alone, providing increased workforce flexibility and improved system security to essential businesses.
Award-winning Women Executives: Lisa Pope –Women of the Year in Sales”
https://www.epicor.com/en-us/newsroom/news-releases/celebrating-our-award-winning-women-executives/
Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Acquisition of Epicor Software Corporation –Transaction Valued at $4.7B
https://www.epicor.com/en-us/newsroom/news-releases/clayton_dubilier_rice_acquire_epicor/
Epicor and Ace Hardware Extend Strategic Partnership –Epicor Eagle POS partnership
https://www.epicor.com/en-us/newsroom/news-releases/ace_strategic_partnership/
Silver Stevie Award, “Woman of the Year in Sales –2021 Stevie Awards
https://stevieawards.com/sales/2021-stevie%C2%AE-award-winners
50 Most Powerful Women in Technology
http://top50tech.org/2021/index.php
“Beyond Video Calls: A New Sales Paradigm for the Second Wave” –Nasdaq
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/beyond-video-calls%3A-a-new-sales-paradigm-for-the-second-wave-2020-11-19
“Selling in a Covid World” – Dave Brock podcast
https://brockda.podbean.com/e/selling-in-a-covid-19-world/
“A Conversation with Epicor” –Enterprise Times
https://www.enterprisetimes.co.uk/2020/12/22/a-conversation-with-epicor/
“Lisa Pope Recounts How Epicor's Sales Teams Stepped Up to Support Their Essential Business Customers” –Game Changers podcast
https://salesgamechangers.libsyn.com/328-lisa-pope-recounts-how-epicors-sales-teams-stepped-up-to-support-their-essential-business-customers
“Women in Sales….From Early Sales to Executive – How to Navigate Each Rung on the Corporate Ladder” –SalesTech Star
https://salestechstar.com/guest-authors/from-early-sales-to-executive-how-to-navigate-each-rung/