Octiv is defining a complex and fragmented industry
The Indianapolis-based sales productivity software maker formerly known as TinderBox made a splash with its new brand name, Octiv, a couple weeks ago. Governor Pence even highlighted the tech company’s impressive growth in one of the largest job creation announcements of the year so far.
It’s the “why” behind these major announcements and vision for solving sophisticated problems that make for such a promising and interesting story, as Octiv stakes its claim as the enterprise software provider of choice in the complex and fragmented sales productivity software industry.
A complex and fragmented industry
Investments in corporate data systems like customer relationship management (CRM), configure price quote (CPQ) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) continue to grow by the billions every year. Companies rely on these critical data systems — which are often deployed independent of one another — for all manner of operations, including sales, customer retention and performance tracking.
However, one singular platform optimized for sales that leverages all of these data sources has been painfully elusive. Sales teams have had to rely on disparate, discrete tools that may or may not integrate with their data systems, and often amidst a complex web of online/offline and hybrid sales documentation and processes. Octiv streamlines complex workflows like these for more than 400 current customers by connecting critical data resources, tech solutions that sales teams actually use, and customers.
Dustin SappCo-founder and CEO
What Industry Leaders and Customers Have to Say about Octiv
“Through our relationship with TinderBox, we are able to utilize workflows that improve productivity, offer consistency, ease of use and reliability to our internal teams and our customers,” said Justin Smith, Director of Sales Enablement at Siemens. “With its new identity, the team at Octiv is demonstrating a commitment to offering a world-class customer experience for its most mature enterprise customers.”
“When it comes to thinking of ways to serve a market as challenging as ours, we can’t just think outside the box. There is no box. Octiv offers the creative collaboration we need to keep our customers happy,” said Michelle Vasko-Sparks, Director of Business Development and Marketing, Relevant Solutions.
“Our relationship with [Octiv] made it possible for us to scale our sales team, and drastically increase efficiency in our sales process,” said Josh Mayes, Enterprise Technology, Angie’s List.
Octiv’s customers report large increases in accelerated sales cycles and invaluable insights into the entire sales process that ultimately help them close more deals, even after usage periods as short as a single quarter. One such customer, Scale Computing, attributed a 53 percent increase in revenue in large part to using the platform.
Renewed upward growth trajectory
As Octiv upshifts to targeting more mid- to large-sized enterprises with its new comprehensive platform, it’s also beginning a new growth trajectory starting from the top of its previous double-digit growth highs.
Octiv: It’s Time for New Business from Studio Science on Vimeo.
Octiv had already doubled in size from 2014 to 2015 and raked in more than $12 million in venture capital to keep up with market demand for its three primary software-as-a-service products (previously named Pitch, Propose and Close), which are now rolled up into the singular Octiv platform.
The company will invest $3.2 million adding new office space to its downtown Indianapolis headquarters, leaving room to grow from 68 employees to 332 in the next five years. The state of Indiana offered Octiv $5.1 million in conditional tax credits if they create 224 planned new Indiana jobs, as well as up to $200,000 in training grants.
Building and expanding the Octiv team
On the heels of the brand name change and state incentives deal, Octiv also announced that Brad Gillespie joined the company as chief marketing officer. He is a 20-year business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing veteran whose hiring signals that Octiv is reinforcing its team to achieve its stated goals of continued rapid growth.
Gillespie, whose experience includes growing business units by 250 and 300 percent, will lead the marketing function at Octiv. Most recently, he led global marketing and events for the research and advisory firm SiriusDecisions, a global market leader serving sales, marketing and product leaders in B2B industries.
“Brad has developed a deep understanding of the sales SaaS ecosystem, which makes his move to Octiv a significant one,” Sapp said. “His experience building marketing teams for fast-growth companies will help us capitalize on the large market opportunity in front of us. We’re grateful and excited he has joined our growing team.”
Octiv is actively seeking engineering talent and after about six months of remaining on the quiet side while working through the brand name change, the company is ready to restart recruiting aggressively.
“Our engineering team is amazing and what they have accomplished with the Octiv platform is critical to the growth we have planned,” Sapp said. “Now we need even more engineers to help us accelerate everything we’re doing and to anticipate and deliver the kinds of powerful features and functionality our customers need, before they even know to ask for it.”
In an effort to raise the visibility and accelerate the growth of Indiana tech companies, each week we will spotlight a growing company with a compelling story. In particular, we will spotlight scale-up companies that are rapidly emerging and could become our community’s future success stories. Visit this page to learn more the Tailwind program and see if your company qualifies.
The Tailwind program is supported by grants from the Indiana Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (OSBE) and the JPMorgan Chase Foundation.
