Q&A with Shafqat Islam, CEO at Welcome

Shafqat Islam, CEO at Welcome, is a product and sales guy at heart, with a deep technology background. He loves to manage great teams and lead organizations through/above/around walls. Somehow he has combined optimism and perseverance to build the leading company in his industry. He is also a small angel investor in a few companies, including HomePolish, Engagio, Workflowy, Parsec and Snowe.

Only two things matter when building a startup: the product, and the people. I would say focus on the people first. And everything else will follow



MEDIA 7: Can you please take us through the professional journey that made you a successful entrepreneur today?
SHAFQAT ISLAM:
I only had one job before becoming a CEO — I worked for Merrill Lynch, leading a technology team. It was a really great opportunity that gave me a chance to develop my leadership skills. (As an aside, I always encourage people to get a job before becoming an entrepreneur. That way, you know what it’s like to have a “good” boss vs. a “bad” boss — and hopefully, it becomes easier to emulate those better qualities). After Merrill Lynch, we founded NewsCred. That was an unbelievable ride, and we learned a lot along the way simply by “doing” — until we eventually sold that business and spun out Welcome!


M7: Gartner recognized Welcome, for the fourth year, as a leader in the industry in the 2021 CMP Magic Quadrant. What has been the strategy behind achieving such prestigious recognition?
SI:
We take a lot of pride in our leadership position — that’s a big part of it. We strive to be 1% better every day, knowing we have some stellar companies out there trying to chase us down.  Of course, it helps that our product is world-class. Not only is it rooted in core content features across ideation, editorial planning, creative workflows, publishing, measurement, and more, but we also offer deep campaign planning, asset management, and work management solutions. Together, it’s a product strategy that has propelled us to the very top of the quadrant and the #1 ranking in CMP use cases for four consecutive years.

It’s all part of our mission: to unleash the potential of marketers. We want to help all kinds of marketing teams reimagine the way they plan campaigns, create content, and measure their value. So, we’re always humbled by Gartner’s recognition. We believe it’s a testament to both our product capabilities of today and our vision for tomorrow. But while it’s been a remarkable journey for us so far, our mission is not yet complete!


In order to find a qualified audience, you need to start by understanding who they are, and providing a very clear, immediate value.



M7: How does Welcome help marketing teams optimize their operations using a single workspace?
SI:
First and foremost, Welcome is purpose-built for marketing teams — so everything is designed and engineered with the marketer in mind. We’re not some generic project management tool masquerading our platform for a myriad of departments! Instead, we focus relentlessly on giving marketing teams a single workspace that helps them execute their entire campaign and content lifecycle— from planning to production to measurement and back again. All from within Welcome. All with really thoughtful, purpose-built functionality. 

Specifically, we help marketers:

·    Set, share, & visualize the entire marketing plan

·    Centralize collaboration, manage resources and get more done (together)

·    Create compelling, high-quality content and campaign assets

·    Publish content to every channel, from one location

·    Store assets to make it really easy to find and reuse content

·    Leverage analytics and insights to work smarter, faster, & better


M7: What are the top challenges you see for the industry in general and Welcome this year?
SI:
We speak with thousands of marketers — of all kinds, in all industries, and across the world — and the common themes (challenges) we often hear are around visibility, speed, and measurement. And the symptoms, we believe, can be boiled down to silos. Team silos, process silos, and tech silos.

·    When everything is decentralized, it’s difficult to know what the plan is (or even, has the plan changed?), who is doing what, and where things stand — i.e. visibility.

·    When everything is decentralized, it’s harder to collaborate with the team members you rely on to get your campaigns and content out the door — i.e. speed.

·    When everything is decentralized, it’s (near) impossible to understand what’s working (both from an operational and performance standpoint) — i.e. measurement.

Most of us know (and feel) this reality. Being a marketer today is straight-up difficult. Business demands (e.g. more production, faster growth) are on the rise. But if we’re going to overcome these challenges and meet these expectations, we need to reimagine how we (as marketing teams) work, and the tools we use to help us execute. That’s why Welcome exists.


Being a marketer today is straight-up difficult. Business demands are on the rise. 



M7: What according to you is the best way to find a qualified audience for your product?
SI:
In order to find a qualified audience, you need to start by understanding who they are, and providing a very clear, immediate value. If you do that well, your audience will find you, engage with your brand and/or product, and become advocates (helping to attract other, qualified individuals)! That’s why we launched a completely free version of our product.

Our target audiences are core marketing and creative professionals. And we know the folks moving into leadership roles within those teams are part of a new breed — they’re a new type of buyer. In many cases, they are savvy marketers who want to “feel”, “see”, and “touch” — i.e. they want to be confident they’re making an informed decision. By offering a completely free version of our product, we’re able to provide them immediate value — sometimes in the very first interaction with our brand!


M7: Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your younger self?
SI:
Only two things matter when building a startup: the product, and the people. And in fact, the product is built by the people. So really, the only thing that matters is putting together an amazing team — one that is highly skilled has great core values, and makes it fun to come to work every day. So, I would say focus on the people first. And everything else will follow!

ABOUT WELCOME

Welcome transforms how marketers run marketing. It is the leading marketing orchestration platform used by the world’s most ambitious brands to strategically align teams, take the friction out of execution, and demonstrate meaningful results. Only Welcome offers a platform purpose-built for the complexities of modern marketing that can scale to support the largest teams in the world. It is a new layer of the marketing technology stack where marketers can work better together, connect other MarTech tools, and measure performance. Welcome unleashes the potential of marketing.

If you’re interested, you may visit them at www.welcomesoftware.com, watch a quick 2-min product overview video, and/or get started (for completely free) today!

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Business Wire | January 24, 2024

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Partners can acquire the new Specializations by showcasing a combination of product and sales expertise through customer wins and a go-to-market strategy. The new Partner Specializations showcase partners’ unique strengths in the market and encourage innovative ways to continue to grow their ServiceNow practice. “Last year at this time, we made a massive commitment to our partner community by completely transforming our partner program to ensure that partners are front and center in everything we do as a company,” said Erica Volini, senior vice president, global partnerships at ServiceNow. “With the launch of Specializations, our customers can easily identify partners with the best experience and expertise they need to help solve some of their biggest digital transformation challenges.” Obtaining a Specialization will help partners in three critical areas: Differentiate among the ecosystem:Partners will receive badging that will appear across their ServiceNow profiles with increased visibility on the ServiceNow Partner Finder. Prospective customers will also be able to search partner experts in Partner Finder based on the current Specializations. Unlock new revenue opportunities:Each Specialization addresses a pressing customer need that presents a large, untapped market opportunity and high year-over-year growth. Earn benefits to grow ServiceNow practices:ServiceNow will offer additional benefits for partners to build and grow their business through invitation to the ServiceNow Partner Advisory Council to ensure their needs and counsel are being addressed across the broader ServiceNow ecosystem. Qualifying partners will also have access to ServiceNow co-marketing programs and the ServiceNow Partner Development Fund announced last January. The program is launching with three Specializations, Service Operations, Serve the Customer and Power the Employee, that present large market opportunities with high year-over-year growth and a large total addressable market (TAM). All Specializations can be obtained at the regional and global level as well as two levels of achievement for further differentiation. Additional Partner Specializations are expected to be launched in 2024. The three Partner Specializations are expected to be available for partners to obtain starting in ServiceNow’s second quarter of 2024. Many partners have already expressed their feedback on the importance of the ServiceNow Partner Specializations including: Jason Rosenfeld, Senior Vice President at Cask: “ServiceNow’s new Partner Specializations offer an opportunity for Cask to showcase our unique consulting expertise and change management solutions to drive digital transformation across enterprises. Program updates like subsequent badging and product line achievements provide greater reach and visibility with organizations looking for the best partner to meet their specific needs. We believe Specializations and the partner finder are a winning combo for connecting customers with the right support and implementations.” Michael Lombardo, Chief Executive Officer at GlideFast Consulting: “We’re thrilled about the new designations to ServiceNow’s Partner Program. With new Partner Specializations, we can continue expanding our technical consulting services and delivering deep ServiceNow expertise to new markets. We look forward to helping customers find value in the Now Platform.” Michael Vadini, Chief Executive Officer at Infocenter:“Today, organizations are looking for a collaborative partner for support with the adoption and scale of new technologies. ServiceNow’s new Partner Specializations will help Infocenter build industry-specific solutions and accelerate technology for customers and their businesses more quickly. We are excited about the enhanced benefits offered by ServiceNow and the continued focus on partners.” Jon Reynolds, Senior VP Global Alliances & Corp Development at Thirdera, a Cognizant Company:“As our company looks to further expand our work across different industries, we’re focused on differentiating our services and ServiceNow platform expertise. ServiceNow's comprehensive Partner Program provides valued guidance and incentives to improve how we advise, implement and optimize technology for businesses worldwide. ServiceNow sets a standard for what it means to be an innovative partner.” ServiceNow is also launching a brand-new partner channel on LinkedIn. Join the new social community for the latest ServiceNow partner news here. For more information on the ServiceNow Partner Specializations visit here. About ServiceNow ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) makes the world work better for everyone. Our cloud-based platform and solutions help digitize and unify organizations so that they can find smarter, faster, better ways to make work flow. So employees and customers can be more connected, more innovative, and more agile. And we can all create the future we imagine. The world works with ServiceNow™. For more information, visit: www.servicenow.com.

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