IT Digest Interview With Umberto Milletti, Head Of Engineering at Demandbase

Hi Umberto, could you tell us about your journey in technology?

My journey in SaaS technology started in the mid ‘90s, when I co-founded DigitalThink, an e-learning company. That experience helped me understand the value of software-as-a-service (SaaS) — having a customer come to you to use your product, as opposed to shipping it to them, which was still common in the ’90s. It helped me see what worked for customers and what didn’t, and to understand the interplay between a product and a business model (e.g. product vs. subscription-based).

DigitalThink went public in 2000 and then was sold to Convergys in 2004. Coming out of that experience, I wanted to stick with the concept of enterprise SaaS software and was always frustrated by the lack of optimization in sales and marketing. These critical functions seemed to be treated as an art, while I approached them as a scientist — so there was a lot of room for improvement.

I started focusing on applying technology to sales and marketing and then founded a B2B data and sales intelligence platform called InsideView. Last year, InsideView was acquired by Demandbase and I’ve been running the combined engineering function at Demandbase ever since.

What challenges did the COVID-19 pandemic pose for your team?

While COVID created many disruptions in businesses, engineering teams were probably some of the least affected. For one, engineers don’t rely as much on face-to-face interaction, and often engineers prefer to have as much uninterrupted time as possible, which is hard to do in an open office environment. In fact, the silver lining of COVID was that it meant less overhead and less time spent traveling to and from work, which actually increased productivity. Our Demandbase engineering teams are globally distributed across North America, Asia, and Europe, too, so no longer being bound by strict office hours gave us the flexibility to operate around the clock.

What sets Demandbase apart from the competition?

What makes us different is the fact that we’re the first company that’s providing the connective thread between marketing technology, sales technology, and data. While a number of companies offer some parts of that, none combine them as comprehensively as we do.

We believe the future is about customers being able to optimize their go-to-market across all touches, from advertising to email marketing, to sales interactions, and beyond. Customers need the data and the insights of what is happening to customers and prospects in the market, but also need the software to take that information and put it to work.

So our engineering organization essentially has to develop a very broad set of technologies that would normally be developed by different companies. And we do it under one team, one umbrella that is a data company, an advertising company, a workflow company, an integration company, and more – all rolled into one. It’s a challenge but it’s also a great opportunity to create an environment where engineers can cross train across many areas, as well as develop deep expertise in a single area.

How do your differentiators help in attracting top talent?

Piggybacking off the question above, the fact that our engineers are invited to “cross-pollinate” absolutely helps us attract and retain engineering talent — which is no small feat in today’s environment — because it gives them an opportunity to grow and experience numerous different technologies. Furthermore, we are thoughtful about making sure the work our team does actually ends up in the hands of customers, which is important to engineers (and not the case at many companies).

How do you envisage Account-Based Marketing evolving, in the years to come?

Well, it’s already evolved to the point that we talk about it now as Account-Based Experience (ABX) more than ABM. But even beyond ABX is the more comprehensive idea of focusing on organizations’ go-to-market (GTM). The verbiage matters, because it emphasizes the real crux of where our collective attention should lie. So when we say that we’re powering Smarter GTM™ at Demandbase today, it signals that ABM has gone past marketing and that the entire spectrum of the GTM journey should be account-based.

As a business leader, what metrics do you use to define success?

We run engineering based on OKRs (Objectives & Key Results), which is a standard way to set goals and measure success against them. Then, we cascade those so that every employee understands the most important objectives the company needs to achieve, an individual engineer needs to achieve, their team needs to achieve, and so forth. This ensures that the work our employees do is aligned to where we’re heading strategically from a business perspective (which is ultimately making our customers successful).

How do you see Marketing Automation impacting the traditional sales and marketing funnels?

Just like with ABX, marketing automation shouldn’t be limited to marketing anymore. We’ve gone from thinking about it in terms of just marketing to now embracing that the entire go-to-market should be orchestrated, which is what Demandbase helps organizations do. Streamlined, data-driven orchestration is what fuels smart sales and marketing that gets results.

Could you name one person from the MarTech sector that you would like to see featured here?

Yasser Said, Global Vice President, Go-To-Market Strategy & Operations at Box. He sees the convergence of marketing and sales strategy and operations, and the forming of a combined Go-To-Market team.

What advice would you give to someone who aspires to be a Business Leader?

I think it’s important, especially if you want to be a leader in engineering, to understand that being technically competent or even talented is not sufficient. You really need to develop the right soft skills too; the people skills that will help you attract engineers and talent from areas where you don’t have a lot of expertise, so you can build a well-rounded team that thrives, and the motivational skills that will inspire them to do exceptional work.

Thanks Umberto!