
How aligned is your organization when it comes to driving growth—are internal silos or misaligned goals or expectations holding you back from reaching your full potential? Today, we’re joined by Robert Chatwani, President and General Manager of...
Loading summary
T-Mobile Advertiser
Breaking news T Mobile Network outperforms expectations in all sectors because T Mobile helps keep you connected from big cities to your hometown on America's largest 5G network. Switch now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off at the $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. Last 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service port in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required card is no cash access and expires in six months.
Navy Recruiter
You are no dummy, but you're kind of acting like one. You used to crush it in school, outsmarting opponents on the field, and now, well, you're still smart, but not exactly challenging yourself. You could be advancing nuclear engineering in the world's most powerful navy. You were born for it. So make the smart choice. You can be smart or you can be nuke smart. Become a nuclear engineer@navy.com nukesmart America's Navy by the Sea the Agile Brand.
Robert Chadwani
Welcome.
Greg Kilstrom
To the B2B Agility Podcast where we look at the factors that drive success in B2B marketing with a focus on the people, processes, data and platforms that make B2B brands stand out and thrive in a competitive marketplace. I'm your host, Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, marketing operations and CX best selling Author and speaker. Now let's get on to the show.
Podcast Host
How aligned is your organization when it comes to driving growth? Are internal silos or misaligned goals or expectations holding you back from reaching your full potential? Today we're joined by Robert Chadwani, President and General Manager of growth at DocuSign. Before joining DocuSign in 2023, Robert was the Chief Marketing Officer at Atlassian, where he helped scale the business to nearly 3 billion in revenue. He also held leadership roles at ebay where his team supported 35 billion in annual trading volume. Welcome to the show, Robert.
Robert Chadwani
Thank you Greg. Great to be here.
Podcast Host
Yeah, Looking forward to talking about this with you. Before we dive in though, why don't you start by giving us a little more about your background and your role at DocuSign.
Robert Chadwani
Yeah, you bet. I have a mixed background in consulting. I started my own company is what moved me out to Silicon Valley, but spent most of my time in consumer e commerce at ebay and other e commerce companies where I really fell in love with marketplace business models and the role of using technology to help entrepreneurs be successful, but then soon ported that expertise over to an enterprise software company, Atlassian, where we took a lot of the principles that helped build some of the world's most powerful consumer platforms and apply them to an enterprise software business. And now at DocuSign, really figuring out and finding ways in which to take some of the best of growth principles from B2B and consumer and bring them together to help grow the DocuSign business.
Podcast Host
Great, great, wonderful. Well, yeah, let's dive in here and want to start by talking about expanding a brand. And, you know, so DocuSign is certainly a brand known. I know it well. I feel like I use it almost every day. You know, brand, yeah, a brand known for leadership in E signatures, for instance. What opportunities and challenges arise when expanding a brand and marketing beyond that singular product focus?
Robert Chadwani
Well, you know, DocuSign is a company that's 20 years established and pioneered what we call the E Signature category and has been wildly successful in sort of doing that, both in terms of market share, the number of signers and senders who've engaged with our platform. Over a billion people globally have signed with DocuSign. But as you know, technology companies really need to think about how their roadmap and technology vision can continue to serve their mission. And so that's exactly what we've embarked on here at DocuSign is defining the next act for the company. And so our mission is really redefining how the world comes together and degrees, you know, making agreements smarter, easier, and more trusted. And so while Signature is certainly part of that, the change that we've embarked on is really thinking about agreement management, and specifically intelligent agreement management as a pioneering new SaaS category for DocuSign. Now, the unique challenge we have there is we are known for signature, and it's certainly something that is the core of our business. But with a company that actually has sign in its name, when you embark on something that stands for much broader than just signature, in this case intelligent agreement management, or what we call iam, we really have to think about a combination of taking the existing customers we have, both those who sign with DocuSign and send with DocuSign, and introducing them to sort of this new frontier of where we're headed, bringing them along, and also helping them succeed in what we think is a really exciting new way to look at agreements, which is the way people and companies create agreements, commit to and sign agreements, and then manage agreements. And that's certainly a lot more than signature. And so we have a number of challenges around repositioning the brand, telling a new company narrative, reframing the product strategy, thinking about international expansion at markets at different levels of maturity, and hopefully we'll unpack some of this. But this is a challenge we've embarked on.
Podcast Host
Yeah. And so, I mean, in. In doing that, it sounds like the one, one good way of doing that is the framing it as agreements. You kind of broaden. It doesn't. It doesn't get rid of your core offering, or it doesn't, you know, but. Or it doesn't diminish the core offering, but it kind of expands it. You know, how. How should you know? There's marketers listening out there that might be in similar enough situations where, you know, they need to expand. How should they be thinking about expanding without diluting what, you know, what you just said, what people are really what people know them as?
Robert Chadwani
Yeah, look at the brand. Equity is extraordinarily difficult for most companies to create, preserve, and then grow. And so this is really the heart of the challenge that we have here. And I think there's a few lessons. One is we decided that it was time to really shape and create a new category of software. And so what does that actually mean? One is it allows organizations, maybe who are existing companies who want to reframe what their market opportunity might be to really think about a new problem or a new challenge to solve. And so for us, it was really trying to identify, looking at our existing customers, what is it that they struggle with, what is the opportunity, the challenges that they have to face, and how can we better articulate and name that, what that is? And so for us, we decided and discovered that our companies do business with DocuSign and have agreements, tens of thousands, often hundreds of thousands of agreements. They have a lot of information trapped in those agreements, a lot of value and a lot of information that's trapped. And there's no organization or company that's really serving that need. And so we started by really naming the villain. Like, what is it in this new frontier that we want to identify that our customers are challenged with the most? And so we call that the agreement trap. And so, you know, one step around thinking about reframing the opportunity for companies and organizations is looking at the next frontier of problems, often creating language that doesn't exist in the world to name that. Secondly, we sized it, which is, how big is that problem? We did some research work that ended up sizing that global economic opportunity of value that's trapped in agreements at nearly $2 trillion. Right. So you could start measuring that as a percentage of global GDP and break that down by industry and vertical and function like hr, procurement or sales, and then effectively creating stories around why it's so challenging and why it's so complex to solve that problem. And earlier this year, in April, we decided to have what we call a lightning strike moment, which is the convergence of our research, our new product strategy, those stories of both challenges and opportunities, sizing of that problem, and bring it all to life at an event. Our annual customer event is called DocuSign Momentum. And it was a convergence of all of those things I just described to unveil and reveal the new journey that we're on to create this new SaaS category. And so this category creation process has been tried and tested at a lot of remarkable companies, companies like Qualtrics, like Cloudflare and elsewhere. And we were fortunate enough to work with a fantastic team called Play Bigger. And they were our partners in this journey. But really, I think it starts with conviction and ambition, the senior leadership team at any organization or company, or even the founder, to say we want to reinvent and challenge ourselves to dream one size bigger about how we can fulfill our mission and rethink what that future could look like.
Podcast Host
Yeah. And I think, you know, what makes sense to me about it is that it feels organic. It doesn't feel like all of a sudden you had. You had another bright idea and it's all the way over here and wouldn't it be nice if we also did XYZ or whatever? It's. It feels like an organic expansion. Was that, Was that part of the thought process as well?
Robert Chadwani
You know, it was. And I think that is important to have and hold two things equally true, which is to think about reinventing your company or your business unit, even in a way that is authentic, incredible, so that you have the capabilities to deliver on that new promise and simultaneously be audacious enough to think about the opportunities as a bet the company type move, meaning it's all or nothing. And it is really hard to reconcile both of those because one might lend you to incremental thinking and the other might lend you towards an existential crisis of a company not existing. But if you could manage the tension between both of those things simultaneously, say, how do we do this? Credibly, such that our customers will not only trust us, but bet on us. And it's not so far afield that we don't have that authenticity to the core brand values while still thinking and dreaming big enough to bet the company. And I think that's both the art and the science of how to do this.
Podcast Host
Yeah, yeah, love it. So another thing you touched on was geographic expansion and you know, certainly in your experience, not only at DocuSign but in some of your past experience certainly led teams doing campaigns and marketing across the the globe. Scaling digital strategies across geographies industries brings both internal as well as external challenges. In your experience, you know, in, in your career, what, what are some of the key hurdles that you've seen in these kinds of, of challenges and you know, how do you, how do you think about approaching them?
Robert Chadwani
Well, one is just to acknowledge that it's hard. Difficult. Right? Yeah. There isn't a go to market leader that I've met who doesn't tell me that they're in the and business versus the or business.
Podcast Host
Yeah.
Robert Chadwani
So what I mean by that is hey, we're pursuing large enterprises and mid size and small companies or we have a growth strategy that requires us to accelerate growth in our most mature markets, let's say North America and invest in emerging markets to think about planting seeds for future growth. Or we have a core platform strategy that's designed to scale and help us reach as many customers as possible and we're targeting industries and verticals and folks listening to this and the endless can go on. And by the way that's true in enterprise businesses and it's true in consumer. You know, back at ebay it was like, you know, we're about fashion, motors, electronics and sporting goods. You know, about every country in the world and building a global marketplace. So one just acknowledge that it is, it is fundamentally hard. I believe that there's nothing more powerful than prioritization when it comes to thinking about how to balance delivering the present and creating the future. And my brain tends to simplify things into categories. And by that what I mean is inevitably you want to build a business that's going to deliver on the commitment that you make to your investors or to your employees or to your stakeholders or to yourself. If you're a private company or founder led company in the short term, right. You have those milestones that are actively non negotiable whether it's around growth or efficiency. However, it's also your responsibility to ensure sustainable long term growth and create that future. And so I like to think about these two categories and for every company what's present and what's future might vary, but to think about resource allocation, people and dollars across those two buckets and then within them get down to a point where you are force ranking your prioritization of what's most important and then aligning those prioritization decisions across functions and teams in the company and it won't be considered a success. Meaning this exercise won't shouldn't be considered a success until it's painful where you are making decisions of what falls below the line or what gets under resourced relative to the the things that you're going to bet on. And I have yet to find a company or team that is successful without going through the painful exercise of making tough choices. Ultimately, it's what separates the companies with the most successful strategy and execution from those that do a lot but can't seem to win.
T-Mobile Advertiser
Breaking news T Mobile Network outperforms expectations in all sectors because T Mobile helps keep you connected from big cities to your hometown on America's largest 5G network. Switch now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualified unlock device, credit service report in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required card is no cash access and expires in six.
Ryan Reynolds
You're pretty smart when people talk about you. Too smart comes up a lot. So why are you trying to prove them wrong? Why aren't you pushing the limits of science and powering the nuclear engines of the world's most powerful Navy? If you were born for it, isn't it time to make a smart choice? You can be smart or you can be nuke smart. Become a nuclear engineer at navy.com/nuke smart. America's Navy forged by the sea.
Podcast Host
Yeah, yeah, totally agree. I mean it's, you know, if everything's a priority, nothing's a priority, right? So it's definitely important to be able to do that. But, but to your point, it's tough to be able to do that because there always is that and we also want to do this or what about. What about this? Or, you know, there's, there's a lot of those kinds of kinds of things. How do you. I think a lot of this also comes from, from leaders showing by example as well of, of how to do this and how to make, make good decisions. How do you think of it as a leader, you know, to kind of set an example of doing the right things, you know, finding the right priorities and you know, what are, what are your thoughts there?
Robert Chadwani
Yeah, I, I think, you know, strategy and prioritization is a, is a team sport and so we're going through this at DocuSign, my teams at Atlassian and at ebay typically do it in the annual planning process. I think some of the world's most agile companies do it as an ongoing process and, and that's what I encourage. But I say it's a team sport because the decisions that emerge from prioritization strategy exercises in most companies, right, they affect a lot of people. And so some of the principles that we use here is progress over perfection, meaning it's, you know, continuously iterating on the thinking in and really being willing to challenge that and drop assumptions at certain points in time when you get new data. Second is to manage the process radically open, so with extreme openness. So even teams who are not directly involved in some decisions have visibility into the journey by which those decisions and trade offs get made. And I think that one fosters a lot of trust once those final decisions are made. And maybe not everything on people's wish list or expectations made it to the biggest bets that a team or a company is going to make. And I think the road is clarity around what success looks like, you know, whether that's, you know, using an OKR methodology or measurement. So that folks know, okay, if we've decided to pursue something, how do, what's the yardstick by which we can measure that? So this is the approach we take at DocuSign, flexible, agile, open and transparent. And then, you know, measured. And then, you know, one of the risks is when priorities are communicated that there's a clear understanding of what that means. Which is just because something might not be on a go to market leader or company's top priority list doesn't necessarily mean that those things aren't getting done. It simply means that the things that we choose to invest in get a disproportionate amount of investment focus. And when trade offs have to happen, these are the things that we make sure get resourced first. And I think it really gives permission to leaders to ensure that all teams working on important projects and programs in a company still feel connected to what needs to get delivered today and then for the future. And so that clarity around communication and understanding, if something's not on that priority list doesn't necessarily mean it's not critical and important. That's separate, that's a stop list. Right. Or a reduction in investment. And so just having parameters around this stuff is important.
Podcast Host
Yeah, yeah, I love that. So the last topic I want to talk about, it's a big one, but I want to talk about product LED growth and team alignment to help lead that growth as well. So first thing there is just breaking down some of those silos and you've talked about the importance of aligning product engineering data and operating teams to execute this product led growth strategy. How do you think about breaking down some of those traditional silos to achieve this level of cooperation?
Robert Chadwani
Well, maybe what I'll, I'll focus on is, you know, agnostic of the go to market motion. Whether it's sales led, partner led or marketing led or product led, every organization and company will have sort of a unique go to market formula that works for them. Yeah, and what I've typically seen is that changes over time. Now you know, in the consumer world, back in my ebay days, it was very much traditional marketing lovers that would drive a lot of growth. Plus organic traffic at Atlassian intensely centered on product led growth. And product is the vehicle by which to make that, make that, you know, top line and customer acquisition number grow. Here at DocuSign, it's a real hybrid. We're very sales driven and that has incredible advantages. We're introducing product led motions and product led sales now, which is sort of the convergence of both of those. But agnostic of the go to market motion. I think a few things hold true, which is one, this question of how do you create, retain and grow a customer? And in most complex organizations that's going to require teams across an organization and company rowing in the same direction. And that is incredibly hard. And in fact, the larger an organization is, the harder it is to get that alignment. So to your question, how do you break down those silos? There's a few things that I think are really powerful. One is whenever possible have a North Star metric or a set of metrics that can be shared between teams ultimately meaning know, aligning those goals. The second thing I love to think about is we use a DRI model here at DocuSign which is an individual is effectively the direct, directly responsible initiative owner. And effectively what that means is the point person that gets to play the role of orchestration and choreography of all the people and resources needed to achieve that shared outcome. And typically it means it's a person who might sit somewhere in a product team or in a growth team or in a sales team and frankly often doesn't matter where they sit, they influence more than they control, but they're effectively the leader who is responsible for bringing together all the resources needed to support the outcome. And then, you know, the last thing I would say is really powerful. This is something, something I learned from teams over at Airbnb, which is looking at the handoffs between teams and whenever possible having a shared metric at the intersection where let's say a marketing team and a product team intersect or a sales team and a growth team and finding ways to look at that end to end customer journey with a shared metric and that handoff metric so everyone understands how their work contributes to the overall growth and to delivering a unified customer experience. And this is, I think the real magic happens when you can share metrics across teams, share the journey across teams, and you can build a lot of empathy when teams across that journey really understand what does it take in the step prior, the step after, whatever they're responsible for.
T-Mobile Advertiser
Breaking news T Mobile network outperforms expectations in all sectors because T Mobile helps keep you connected from big cities to your hometown on America's largest 5G network. Switch now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com keepandswitch up to 4 lines of your virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service port in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required card has no cash access and expires in six.
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try.
T-Mobile Advertiser
@Mintmobile.Com Switch upfront payment of $45 for.
Ryan Reynolds
Three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com yeah, definitely.
Podcast Host
I mean, I see, I think a lot of what creates silos, or at least perpetuates them is different goals and incentives and things between teams. Right. For those listening and you know, listening to this and they're like wow, this sounds great but I got like super entrenched silos and you know, I'd love to do this. Like what would your advice be like, what's maybe a practical step or two to like get there, you know, because I, I would imagine, you know, it's not going to happen overnight for, for organizations that are really kind of stuck in their ways, but there are some steps they could take. What, what might you recommend there?
Robert Chadwani
Yeah, look, it is, it is hard but what I, you know, What I've learned and appreciated is most of the challenges and problems across teams and companies tend to be very similar across industries, across company size. And they often come down to things like team health. In my prior life, we did some research and some of the data showed that if you ask leaders and people on teams a very basic question, which is on a spectrum of health, is your team healthy? And only 13% of teams go back and say, we're, we're feel like we're optimizing, we're really healthy. And if you deconstruct that and sort of what's the root cause? Then it's the basics. It is, do you have a foundational model, like a daisy or a raci model of who is a driver of a particular project, who's the approver, who should be consulted, who should be informed? Right. Oftentimes those things don't exist. And so it's messy middles where you might have multiple people who think that they're the owner, initiative, driver of a particular project. And you don't have that uncomfortable conversation at play, clarifying that that amplifies as the team gets larger. Or there's a missing project poster, which is, somebody new joins the team, what's the one pager where they can look at and say, what's this project about? What are the metrics? What are the measures? How long is it going to last? Or there is a lack of adequate accountability through retros, which is, we're going to deliver a project and then take time after that project to do a look back and to assess how well did we do, what could have been done better, what could we improve next time? And it's not about fault finding, but really elevating the team's capabilities. One of the things we've tried here at DocuSign is pre mortems, which is before you kick a project off, get all the key stakeholders in a room, spend 15 minutes going through all the things that can go wrong. And, you know, sometimes those end in feeling like this incredible disaster because you've just identified how everything is going to fail.
Podcast Host
Right.
Robert Chadwani
And then you remind yourself, oh, wait, we haven't even started the project yet. Right. But effectively what you have is a diagnostic of things that you can improve. So we spend a docuSign a lot of time on not just what we do, but ways of working and how we do it. And to point to some assets that are available for free for those who are listening. And I'm very open about this. And Atlassian, my prior company, shared Something called an Atlassian team playbook. And all of these templates and resources are available for anybody who wants to discover them. And these are great ways to just spend five minutes finding some team rituals and practices that I think can make a big difference between a team chugging along and delivering on what's expected of them versus a team that's thriving and really has that force, multiplier effect of achieving great outcomes that many people may have thought weren't even possible. Oftentimes it just comes down to ways of working.
Podcast Host
Yeah, yeah. So the last thing I want to touch on here is the, the role of data in all of this. And just, you know, there's a lot of emphasis on data driven decision making and relying on this. A lot of what we've talked about just now is team collaboration. And a lot, a lot of that happens, you know, whether it's virtually, but it's still, you know, people communicating with other people. But data, you know, is playing a bigger and bigger role for, for lots of reasons. How should leaders be thinking about maximizing their human team members contributions as AI capabilities, you know, machine learning, predictive analytics, like all of these other things are also making a bigger and meaningful impact. Like how, how should a leader think about balancing these, these, these two things?
Robert Chadwani
Greg, I think it's a great question if you know, anybody listening, if this isn't at the forefront of something they have to think about, you know, monthly, weekly or sometimes even daily, then they need to just pause and reflect. Because across every type of company, including B2B companies and SaaS companies, this is probably the most foundational shift, seismic shift around how to generate revenue, create growth. That is, that is important. You know, especially right now. One of the most important relationships I think that exists within any organization is between the go to market or sales or marketing leader and both the CFO and either the CTO or the cio, where data responsibilities off instead. And what I would say is we think a lot about this at DocuSign. And you know, there's a maturity model of companies and it depends on what type of company you are and where you are. The maturity model of having data as part of the culture of running the business, so agnostic of that because companies are at different stages of maturity. Let's take an example of a company that's far enough along where high quality data is available to anybody who needs to use it to make decisions. And if you're not there, that should be part of your journey. But assuming that's the case, I would say you know, what we do here at DocuSign is one, we spend a lot of time thinking about AI specifically and in our go to market and sales teams. How can we identify use cases that we think can benefit from better data or better automation or better use of AI? And the good news is that that exercise tends to be a lot of fun. Lots of different use cases that can be identified. And secondly, stack ranking those use cases and then asking, you know, how can we make improvements to use either data or applied AI to actually automate some of these capabilities to improve the experience for team members or for customers. And then lastly, how do we translate a lot of those applications into results defined by better growth, which is, you know, revenue growth or customer growth or efficiency, productivity, instead of really translating the use of applied data and AI into business benefits. And, you know, a lot has emerged from that. We're still very early in our journey here, but, but we've been able to identify a lot of experiments that we use to do inbound and outbound prospecting. We're now embarking on how to use better product behavior data to inform better sales experiences and interactions with customers. Some of the table stakes of consumer platforms. We're using data about product behavior and browsing behavior to drive better targeted personalized experiences both on DocuSign.com and our global properties, but also within the product. And so, you know, there's an infinite number of use cases and applications, but I think this is a whole new exciting trend here where enterprise and software companies are headed.
Podcast Host
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, lots of, lots more to to discover here. So definitely. Well, Robert, thank you so much for joining today. Got one last question for you. I like to ask everybody this, this question here. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
Robert Chadwani
That's a great question. I would say be open to a lot of new ideas that emerge that challenge conventional ways of working and conventional ways of operating. And I found that more so than having the answer or believing, you know, myself or anybody on my team knows what to do. Our superpower is the ability to respond to new information that comes our way and translate that into better execution and better teamwork.
Podcast Host
Love it.
Robert Chadwani
Love it.
Podcast Host
Well, again I'd like to thank Robert Chadwani, President and General Manager of Growth at DocuSign. You can learn more about Robert and DocuSign by following the links in the show notes.
Robert Chadwani
Thanks Greg.
Podcast Host
Thank you so much.
Greg Kilstrom
Thanks again for listening to the B2B Agility podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show more easily. You can access more episodes of the show at www.b2bagility.com. That's b2bagility.com while you're there, check out my series of best selling Agile brand guides covering a wide variety of marketing technology topics. Or you can search for Greg Kilstrom on Amazon. Until next time, stay focused and stay agile.
Robert Chadwani
The Agile Brand.
T-Mobile Advertiser
Breaking News T Mobile Network outperforms expectations in all sectors because T Mobile helps keep you connected from big cities to your hometown on America's largest 5G network. Switch now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to 800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualified unlocked device, credit service port in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required card is no cash access and expires in six months.
Navy Recruiter
You are no dummy, but you're kind of acting like one. You used to crush it in school, outsmarting opponents on the field, and now, well, you're still smart, but not exactly challenging yourself. You could be advancing nuclear engineering in the world's most powerful Navy. You were born for it. So make the smart choice. You can be smart, or you could be nuclear nuke smart. Become a nuclear engineer@navy.com nukesmart America's Navy forged by the sea.
Mint Mobile Advertiser
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big Wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
Ryan Reynolds
Of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com.
Podcast Summary: B2B Agility™ with Greg Kihlström
Episode #35: Aligning Organizations for Success, with Robert Chadwani, President, DocuSign
Release Date: January 7, 2025
In Episode #35 of B2B Agility™, hosted by Greg Kihlström of The Agile Brand, the focus is on organizational alignment and its critical role in driving growth within B2B marketing. The episode features an insightful conversation with Robert Chadwani, the President and General Manager of Growth at DocuSign. Chadwani brings a wealth of experience from his previous roles, including Chief Marketing Officer at Atlassian and leadership positions at eBay, where he contributed to substantial revenue growth and supported significant trading volumes.
Robert Chadwani opens by sharing his diverse background, transitioning from consulting and consumer e-commerce at eBay to enterprise software with Atlassian, and now leading growth initiatives at DocuSign. His passion lies in leveraging technology to empower entrepreneurs and applying growth principles from both B2B and consumer sectors to drive DocuSign’s expansion.
Chadwyani discusses DocuSign’s evolution from being synonymous with e-signatures to pioneering Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM), a new SaaS category aimed at redefining how agreements are created, committed to, and managed.
Mission Evolution:
“Our mission is really redefining how the world comes together and degrees, you know, making agreements smarter, easier, and more trusted.” [03:35]
Challenges in Repositioning:
Balancing the established brand identity with the expansion into IAM poses challenges in changing the company narrative, repositioning products, and managing international market expansions.
Category Creation Strategy:
Chadwanni emphasizes the importance of creating a new software category to articulate and name emerging customer challenges—specifically addressing the “agreement trap”, where valuable information is locked within agreements.
“We call that the agreement trap. And so, you know, one step around thinking about reframing the opportunity for companies and organizations is looking at the next frontier of problems, often creating language that doesn't exist in the world to name that.” [06:25]
When asked about expanding the brand organically without diluting its core offerings, Chadwani underscores the delicate balance between authenticity and audacious growth.
Balancing Reinvention and Authenticity:
“It feels organic. It doesn't feel like all of a sudden you had another bright idea and it's all the way over here.” [10:12]
Managing Incremental and Bold Moves:
Aligning the ability to deliver on new promises while being ambitious enough to consider transformative changes requires reconciling incremental thinking with bold, company-wide bets.
Chadwyani addresses the complexities of scaling digital strategies across various geographies and industries, drawing from his experiences at eBay, Atlassian, and DocuSign.
Acknowledging the Difficulty:
“There isn't a go to market leader that I've met who doesn't tell me that they're in the and business versus the or business.” [12:04]
Prioritization as a Solution:
Effective resource allocation through prioritization is essential. Chadwani advocates for categorizing initiatives into present and future-focused buckets, prioritizing based on strategic importance, even if it involves making tough decisions on what to under-resourced.
“I have yet to find a company or team that is successful without going through the painful exercise of making tough choices.” [15:04]
Discussing the role of leadership in setting priorities, Chadwani emphasizes that strategic decision-making should be a collective effort, fostering transparency and shared understanding across teams.
Strategy as a Team Sport:
“Strategy and prioritization is a team sport.” [16:48]
Principles for Effective Prioritization:
Chadwyani explores strategies to dismantle traditional silos between product, engineering, data, and operations teams to facilitate a cohesive product-led growth strategy.
Shared Metrics and Ownership:
Implementing shared metrics and Designated Responsible Individuals (DRIs) to orchestrate cross-functional collaboration ensures alignment towards common goals.
“Whenever possible have a North Star metric or a set of metrics that can be shared between teams ultimately meaning know, aligning those goals.” [20:20]
Enhancing Empathy Through Shared Journeys:
Encouraging teams to understand each other’s roles in the customer journey fosters empathy and cohesive execution.
Addressing team dynamics, Chadwani highlights the importance of foundational models, clear ownership, and reflective practices to enhance team health and collaboration.
Foundational Models:
Establishing clear roles (e.g., RACI models) to prevent ambiguity in project ownership.
Pre-Mortems and Retrospectives:
Conducting pre-mortems to anticipate challenges and retrospectives to evaluate project outcomes without assigning blame, thereby enhancing team capabilities.
“We spend a lot of time on not just what we do, but ways of working and how we do it.” [27:30]
Chadwyani emphasizes the pivotal role of data and AI in modern B2B growth strategies, advocating for their integration into every aspect of decision-making and operational efficiency.
AI and Data as Growth Drivers:
Identifying and implementing AI use cases that enhance data quality, automate processes, and translate into measurable business growth.
“We spend a lot of time thinking about AI specifically and in our go to market and sales teams. How can we identify use cases that we think can benefit from better data or better automation or better use of AI?” [29:20]
Translating Data Insights into Business Benefits:
Focusing on how applied data and AI can lead to tangible outcomes like revenue growth, customer acquisition, and increased productivity.
In closing, Chadwani shares his approach to staying agile in his role, emphasizing openness to new ideas and the ability to adapt to new information.
Embracing New Ideas and Adaptability:
“Be open to a lot of new ideas that emerge that challenge conventional ways of working and conventional ways of operating.” [33:02]
Responding to New Information:
Valuing the capacity to respond to new data and translate it into improved execution and teamwork over having all the answers upfront.
Episode #35 of B2B Agility™ provides a comprehensive exploration of organizational alignment, brand expansion, and the integration of data and AI in driving B2B growth. Robert Chadwani offers valuable insights from his extensive experience, emphasizing the importance of strategic prioritization, cross-functional collaboration, and maintaining agility in leadership. His strategies for breaking down silos and leveraging data-driven decision-making serve as actionable guidance for B2B marketers and organizations striving to become category leaders and achieve optimal results.
Robert Chadwani [03:35]:
“Our mission is really redefining how the world comes together and degrees, you know, making agreements smarter, easier, and more trusted.”
Robert Chadwani [06:25]:
“We call that the agreement trap. And so, you know, one step around thinking about reframing the opportunity for companies and organizations is looking at the next frontier of problems, often creating language that doesn't exist in the world to name that.”
Robert Chadwani [10:12]:
“It feels organic. It doesn't feel like all of a sudden you had another bright idea and it's all the way over here.”
Robert Chadwani [12:04]:
“There isn't a go to market leader that I've met who doesn't tell me that they're in the and business versus the or business.”
Robert Chadwani [15:04]:
“I have yet to find a company or team that is successful without going through the painful exercise of making tough choices.”
Robert Chadwani [16:48]:
“Strategy and prioritization is a team sport.”
Robert Chadwani [20:20]:
“Whenever possible have a North Star metric or a set of metrics that can be shared between teams ultimately meaning know, aligning those goals.”
Robert Chadwani [27:30]:
“We spend a lot of time on not just what we do, but ways of working and how we do it.”
Robert Chadwani [29:20]:
“We spend a lot of time thinking about AI specifically and in our go to market and sales teams. How can we identify use cases that we think can benefit from better data or better automation or better use of AI?”
Robert Chadwani [33:02]:
“Be open to a lot of new ideas that emerge that challenge conventional ways of working and conventional ways of operating.”
This summary encapsulates the core discussions and insights shared by Robert Chadwani on aligning organizations for success, offering actionable strategies and profound reflections on growth, leadership, and the transformative power of data and AI in B2B marketing.