Episode 6 Transcript:

Scott Billows (00:01.824)
Okay, welcome back. Matt, here we are. Episode number six. Yeah, number six. We're releasing this on July 24th and we're unpacking a topic we haven't talked about yet on the pod. One that I would say is near and dear to my heart and one that I've spent a lot of time focused on over the years in the work that we do at Belmar and that is

Matt Hui (00:04.918)
Episode 6.

Scott Billows (00:32.024)
digital transformation in public sector. So for those of you that are in the public sector world, and even those of you that aren't, I'm hoping that some of the ideas that we talked about today are of value and you can walk away with something that you can apply. So.

Matt Hui (00:50.68)
Maybe we just start for the listener, Scott, what is public sector? We'll just start with some definitions and then we can unpack that. We'll start from the beginning here.

Scott Billows (01:00.418)
Yeah, all right. Well, yeah. So what is public sector? That's a great question. So I mean, I guess I would define public sector as our government, these entities that are publicly funded. And I guess there's many different layers to this, but maybe in the context of what is a public sector customer for us?

that would be a government entity, be it federal, state, local, provincial in Canada, city, municipality. There's these different layers of government, but any organization that is collecting taxes and fees from the citizens and providing some form of a service in exchange.

Matt Hui (01:55.352)
Yeah, awesome. So now we got that definition. What is, and we talked about this on previous pods, but if we expand on what's Bellmar's experience in working in the public sector and how does that differ than working in the nonprofit sector or what are the similarities perhaps?

Scott Billows (02:14.616)
Yeah.

I guess that, I mean, what are the differences? Public organizations historically are known to be slow, inefficient.

in some cases, transformative, but in most cases...

It's just like old technology and overall kind of poor experience compared to that of what you get from Amazon or your favorite retailer. So their incentive is not to be cutting edge and compete against a competitor. Their incentive a lot of times is don't screw up and don't get on the front page of a newspaper.

for a mistake that was made. it's an interesting environment to work in. It's one that is made up of great, awesome people, smart people, but they're working in an organizational structure that's typically very risk adverse and is very slow moving.

Matt Hui (03:23.64)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Billows (03:35.661)
Just think of the last time you had to get your driver's license renewed. That was probably a more painful process than you thought it should be, given your ability to order anything off of your phone and have it show up at your front door. At most, a couple of days later, oftentimes within a few hours, it's at your door. So that's just unfortunately the way it is in government.

it's likely never going to change. it's just something you've got to work with. You'd ask, what's the difference between public sector and nonprofit? Nonprofit, on the other hand, most of these organizations are independent. They're arm's length from government. If they're, in fact, getting their funding from government, many nonprofits get no funding from government. They're all private donors and corporations that are donating.

So that kind of cohort of organization is often way more interested in transformation, way more interested in competing against their quote unquote competitors for their share of the pie that's available to them in terms of funding. so they will make investments, they will make bets.

that will move them closer towards their goal and you know, oftentimes that's delivering a better service, delivering a better experience to their customers or their clients or their constituents. you know, the incentives are different, the structures are very different, but what is interesting is the commonality across the two cohorts with respect to their use case. Like what...

what does it look like to receive a service or what does it look like to engage? There is a lot of commonality across those two. with, at least with the Salesforce technology, like nonprofit cloud or formerly NPSP, it actually worked within both organizations to deliver on what they were trying to accomplish.

Matt Hui (06:01.516)
Yeah, and maybe I'll build on, uplevel some of the commonalities because we've been serving both nonprofit and public sector clients for quite some time. I would say another big similarity is just the necessity to have high degrees of governance when it comes to data. mean, donor data, very sensitive. And the last thing that you want as a nonprofit organization is to have a data breach or to have

Scott Billows (06:22.315)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Hui (06:31.056)
a poor experience for your donors who are giving you money on a recurring basis or have bad data. And on the other side of the coin in the public sector, lens, this is citizen data. This is private PII data that is catastrophic if it's leaked. So there's a commonality in that they have high degrees of, they need high degrees of security. And in many cases, nonprofits are working with organizations or individuals who, this is sensitive data.

These are either people that are victims that we just need to protect that data as well. So there's a lot of similarities and I think oftentimes people don't connect the dots in terms of these two, but certainly on the Salesforce side, there's a lot of commonalities technology-wise. So now that we've got the kind of baseline background, what is public sector, given that you work so heavily in this space, Scott, what kind of...

and maybe we'll flip down to the US public sector for the time being, the impact of Doge on the US public sector and the federal space. What kind of trends are you seeing and what's happening in that side of things?

Scott Billows (07:42.582)
Yeah, yeah, it's been interesting since January when Trump term two started and Elon and the team went to work on identifying as they call it fraud, waste and abuse and it was I mean I was expecting it was gonna be rough for

those organizations that Doge was looking into. But it's been very interesting in working very closely with Salesforce and their sales team and just the real change that has taken place in terms of procurement and just what was previously slow.

has become slower and there were, I mean, we've seen it on the news, mean, there's organizations that previously existed and now no longer exist as a result of the work of Doge. And so not to get into that side of the conversation, more into the sort of what impact is this having and what are we seeing as a result of it. there, know, government needs to continue to deliver.

service to the constituents or its constituents. And so that need continues, but now how they go about doing it is quite different. you know, I guess maybe to categorize this a little bit, there were opportunities that we were working on with clients that just completely disappeared. And that was very true for Salesforce as well.

What we've seen, that's kind of morphed into the kind of craziness is over now, things are settling. Now it's, okay, well, we've got to do more with less. We don't have as much as we used to. We're never gonna get what, you know, a year ago we would have got approved today. So we need to find a way to do more with less. And so we're in that zone or that season right now. And so...

Scott Billows (10:07.685)
It's where we can bring an equal or better solution than what already exists at a price that is lower. There is a lot of interest. so we historically have not really been an organization that competes on price. It's more value that we bring. But it's now very much a, here's what we've got.

look at how this is more competitive price-wise than what you're currently paying for, know, likely an inferior product. So, you know, by highlighting that, that's certainly, it's getting attention that, you know, where previously that, you know, that wouldn't have been as important of a factor in their decision process. So it's interesting. And I think where it goes next is, you know, we're in this settling phase where, you know, the chaos is,

I think it's behind us. We're in the settling phase. think we then move probably after the end of the calendar year, maybe as we step into next year. There's going to be projects that have been delayed, things that had just been put on ice that they just now need to be done. So they will have to execute on these. this rebound of, OK, well, we're not as concerned about price. Now we're concerned about.

Can you actually deliver and get this done for me? So I think we get back there, I think it may be a long time before we get back to the way it was. And that's the new reality within the US federal government. Elsewhere, I we don't work as much outside of the federal government. I guess I'm not seeing it because I don't live that day to day.

I think there is a broader correction within government that's happened as a result of Doge. think people are, even if Doge isn't in that level of government, I think there's an awareness that we need to be more efficient, we need to do more with less. So we'll see where this goes, but certainly it's been an interesting last number of months.

Matt Hui (12:29.878)
Yeah, I do like the, and I know you didn't unpack perhaps some of those earlier elements, but I think this theme of doing more with less, I there's a lot of lessons that can be learned from that as well. I kind of contrast that to some of our other clients in the nonprofit space in that there's doing more with less. I mean, the whole, the business case or the use case for something, when you're able to broadcast that powerful tool like Salesforce,

can solve not just the needs of one department, but also another department. Well, I mean, you've two birds, one stone that. You can kind of reconcile that across multiple budgets. And I think that's what we're gonna start to see is that you've got an all-in-one solution versus 10 different point solutions. You've got one robust platform that can solve the needs across variety, thus solidifying the business case for why do we need technology in this space? So if anything, I mean, I love the do more with less kind of mantra.

I think it really just sharpens the tools, if you will, okay, this is why we need something. And if I think there's something to be said about, you should probably have a justification. If you're signing up for a large technology contract, you should be able to speak to that. And I think Salesforce has done a wonderful job at being able to solve the variety of needs. And one of those needs that you've seen a lot of is marketing automation. Do you want to speak about marketing automation and

Scott Billows (13:28.882)
yeah.

Matt Hui (13:59.049)
What do you see marketing automation or where do you see marketing automation being used in? In the in the federal space or in the public sector

Scott Billows (14:06.331)
Yeah, sure. Yeah, I think just to pick up on the ideas I was sharing earlier, there's, you when there is disruption of any type, this, you be this in government, be this in the private sector, wherever there's disruption, there's this whole host of new opportunities that present themselves. you you used to sell a certain way, you used to sell a product to a certain cohort of customers because

That's what they needed at the time. And when that gets all shaken up, there are new customers, as an example, that come to the forefront. maybe previously, our product, our service was not a fit for them because they didn't have that need. But now they do as a result of the disruption. so it's actually really exciting because while it's not business as usual,

we are getting introduced into some really exciting opportunities within the US federal agencies. these are organizations that for many years have bought Salesforce technology. They've bought case management. They've bought, in some cases, email communication and everything in between. But where we're starting to see some

some opening up is within the communications teams within these US federal agencies. So I'm going unpack that a little bit. If an agency is delivering on a particular mandate, of their responsibilities to communicate to the constituents what they're doing. And so sort of

think of it more on the policy side rather than on the political side. If the policy is we're going to go and build more roads, I'm just making up an example here, we're gonna go build more roads. Well, there's a communication strategy that comes with that. You're informing the public about what you are going to be doing, you're informing the public along that path as you, in this case, go out and build more roads. And then,

Scott Billows (16:33.688)
At the completion of that, there's some communication to wrap that up. this is, and again, if think about the US federal agencies, these are not, don't think of these in terms of political parties that are communicating a political message. These are agencies that are delivering a message to the constituents regarding

the work that they are doing. So how do they do that? How do they communicate? Well, in the past, like pre-Doge, there were communication departments, in many cases, each of the, call it business units within that agency. And what's happened as a result of Doge is they've consolidated, in some cases, to

like a single team that is now responsible for communication for that agency. So they need tools that are capable of sending large ZEN volumes, that are capable of segmenting across business units. in the past, some of the tools that were being used.

We're very, think of it kind of as a point solution. We're very specific to a particular use case and a smaller audience. now they're, sort of the aperture is open really wide. They have a very large audience. And they need the ability to segment and to communicate with a much broader audience. So a tool like Salesforce Marketing Cloud fits

incredibly well there and so we've begun to see some really interesting opportunities within the agencies that are trying to address this problem that I just identified. it's been exciting because that's something we're passionate about. It's a service that we've offered for many years and we do great work there and so to have the opportunity to

Scott Billows (18:51.609)
get engaged with these organizations and really help them navigate through these challenges that they're facing has been fun because it's not really optional for them to say, you know what, we're not gonna communicate. They have to communicate, so they need tools and capabilities to be able to go and do that.

Matt Hui (19:13.27)
Yeah, so I guess using a specific example about marketing cloud in the federal space, I mean, what kind of things do you think marketing cloud have a leg up on kind of legacy or prior communication technology that's been used in this space? Because that will translate to citizen impact. Will they be informed more? What kind of differences do you see with Salesforce's solution versus what's already been in there for many years?

Scott Billows (19:43.0)
Yeah, think it's, I mean, we've seen this over the years. Salesforce identify a particular target and when they start, they have little to no footprint in that target and then time goes by and they win and then they win more and then they just become the dominant player in that particular category. We certainly have seen that.

in the nonprofit sector. BlackBot for forever was the solution. The number of customers that we've moved from BlackBot to Salesforce, can't count the number because we've done so many and we continue to get requests constantly. So that example of Salesforce going into a market and then just over time dominating, we've seen over and over again.

we're seeing that now within the federal government and their communication team. the historical tool is known as GranicusGovDelivery. It's everywhere in government. It's pervasive. It's all over the place. And so there's certainly some challenges that customers have faced.

with that tool and so really we are identifying how a Salesforce based solution is going to not only address but improve the challenges that organization is facing. we've been successful within certain agencies at this point and that scope is just.

is growing and opening because of just the amount of implementation that exists of government delivery within the federal government. So it's an exciting time. We've got lots of work ahead, but I think the next year it could be very disruptive in terms of what we're doing. So more to come on that, but it's an exciting time to be attached to

Scott Billows (22:08.246)
the Salesforce marketing engine and delivering a marketing cloud-based solution.

Matt Hui (22:12.184)
Yeah.

Matt Hui (22:15.64)
It's like a rocket ship. You're just strapped onto the rocket ship, because we've seen time and time again, Salesforce is, Salesforce are experts at kind of identifying a pain point and really just solving that as well. awesome. Well, hey Scott, know this is our kind of public sector episode. Why don't you end us off with some exciting announcements? I see FedRAMP on our list here. So, do want to share about that?

Scott Billows (22:17.184)
Yeah.

Scott Billows (22:42.263)
Yeah, yeah, you bet. So within the US federal government, they've got a standard, if you will, of what software applications need to meet. that's known as FedRAMP. And so to have a FedRAMP approved or authorized solution is an important, I guess, validation that

your technology has gone through the appropriate testing and validation. so Salesforce, in the last number of weeks, announced that they have expanded their FedRAMP set of products. I'm struggling for, how best to say that, but the products that they now have as FedRAMP solutions,

include Agent Force, Data Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Tableau, which is exciting because these, when you're in a discussion with a prospective customer, one of the things that comes up pretty quick is, is this a FedRAMPed solution? And so now that box is checked, we don't have to worry about that, and we can get into a more meaningful discussion and not worry about

having to try to navigate around a product not being FedRAMP. it's a pretty significant milestone for Salesforce in the last few weeks and excited that they've achieved that and it's just gonna open up a ton of opportunity within the Fed space.

Matt Hui (24:32.28)
exciting.

Well, hey, maybe that's a great way to wrap on this episode here Scott. Thanks for doing this and we'll catch you on the next All right, talk soon

Scott Billows (24:41.707)
came out. Thanks, Matt.