Ep. 140: Jackie Joelson, Oracle NetSuite | Data and Technology as Growth Levers in Private Equity

0:00Shiv: Hey everybody, before we get started with today's episode, I want to take an opportunity to tell you about my new book, AI Marketing Blueprint. It just hit number one bestseller status across multiple categories on Amazon, and it walks you through a proven framework that we are taking our clients through here at How to SaaS and how to stay relevant and visible in a world with AI platforms. One of the biggest problems that we have seen across clients and companies is that the traditional channels that they relied on, like paid search or SEO, have declined significantly or are getting more expensive and competitive.

0:33Shiv: The reason for this is that a lot of buyers are starting to self-educate themselves and research on AI platforms. So a lot of that volume that was previously going to those channels is now moving to these new AI platforms. So to stay relevant, the book walks you through seven new rules that companies in all kinds of verticals and industries need to consider so that they can continue growing their pipeline and revenue and ultimately their enterprise value. So if this applies to your business or one of the companies that you've invested in, I definitely recommend that you pick up a copy. It's available on Amazon, on Apple Books, on Barnes & Noble, and even share it with your teams.

1:10Shiv: Grab a bunch of copies so that you can kind of consume the content together and start to apply it to your business. And with that said, let's move on to the episode. Welcome to the Private Equity Value Creation Podcast, where we interview leading investors, operators, bankers, and advisors to help you answer one question. How do we increase the enterprise value of our companies? My name is Shiv Narayanan, and each episode, I will dive deep with a guest to help you become a better value creator and capital allocator. So with that said, let's jump right in and let's get started with today's episode.

1:45Shiv: My guest today is Jackie Jolson, and she is the head of private equity partnerships at Oracle NetSuite. And I really wanted to do this episode because we often have operating partners and GPs on this podcast, but we very rarely have other players in the ecosystem, especially on the technology side. And because Oracle NetSuite has a dedicated private equity practice, I wanted to bring them on to understand how are they actually working with PE firms to help them navigate some of the biggest technological challenges that they're having? And how are they helping them figure out the best fit cases or situations where they can support PE firms, drive more enterprise value with technology, especially with AI and data and integrations and carve outs and roll ups and everything that's happening in the market today.

2:36Shiv: I think technology is one of those value creation levers that doesn't get talked about enough. But it's one of those areas that if you focus on in the right way and you set things up in the right way, can deliver a ton of value creation and revenue growth and even margin expansion for companies. So it's a really great conversation. And Jackie had a ton of great insights. And I'm sure you'll learn from it just as much as I did. So with that said, I'll leave you to it. Enjoy the episode.

3:09Shiv: All right, Jackie, welcome to the show. How's it going?

3:12Jackie Joelson: Good. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

3:15Shiv: Yeah, excited to have you on. So why don't we start with your background and your role at Oracle NetSuite and then let's take it from there.

3:22Jackie Joelson: Yeah, absolutely. So I won't go too far back to birth, but I'll start a little bit after that. So my background was in hospitality, and then I made the move over to selling software for mergers and acquisitions. Naturally, that's the progression from housekeeping to selling M &A software. I then parlayed my experience working with investment banks and private equity firms at that former employer over to NetSuite, which I've been at NetSuite for eight and a half years. I joined as an individual contributor on our private equity team, moved into a manager role, and then moved into a role leading the team a little over three years ago.

4:19Jackie Joelson: That I sit here in Chicago. All that we do is that we work on supporting our private equity community. We work with about 750 firms within North America around NetSuite strategy.

4:36Shiv: I've been the CM of a business that exited to private equity. And through that, I learned how much capital was being deployed in the private equity markets against these B2B companies or all these other sectors. And I saw marketing as one of those levers that could have been pulled that they weren't pulling as much. And so the primary way we've gone to market is partnering with those private equity groups because they have this mandate to lead transformation initiatives inside these companies. And the flow of capital kind of almost makes it it's a forcing function to go after those value creation levers, whereas like 25 years ago, that didn't exist.

5:15Shiv: So that forcing function really changes the opportunity. And as I've learned about that, it's really surprised me that more firms and more companies don't have this practice. Like in our world, like there are large consulting firms like McKinsey and Bain and those types of folks that do have a PE practice. But we don't really see competition in the marketing space as much because people haven't figured out what private equity really cares about. And so I'm curious, like for you guys as Oracle NetSuite, when you're coming in, you're almost like this technology partner. So what are the value creation vectors or angles that you're taking with the GPs or the operating partners as a way to help them understand like, hey, here's how we can help you create more enterprise value for your companies and how we can be a partner for you in these transformations?

6:01Jackie Joelson: Yeah, I think it's always I look at it from like we're not we don't want to be overly prescriptive and we want to be really dynamic in how we work with our P firms, because how they work with their portfolio companies is really going to differ. and each of their portfolio companies could have a different dynamic in terms of the cap table. Is it a traditional buyout? Do they own majority of this business or is this more of a growth equity play? That plays into the dynamic as well, too. So when we're working with PE firms, we're always asking them, what is their dynamics with their portfolio companies?

6:41Jackie Joelson: Because we really take the lead from them first and foremost. but traditionally it's thinking about, okay, what is, what is the growth? What are you expecting to do from a growth capacity with this business? And it's, um, it's pretty simple because there's kind of a couple playbooks that you can run in terms of growth, whether it's thinking through, okay, this is going to obviously carve outs can be one component. Is this going to be an M and is this going to be really high growth through M and A? Um, are we going to really think about new international markets? Are we really trying to create just like automation and efficiency that was never in the business and the business is running on 30 year old systems and paper?

7:26Jackie Joelson: Or is this other areas like for just kind of like a functional recap from a management perspective? So we always try to understand, like, what is the growth strategy for the business? And then from there, the technology will kind of come through with how we can support them. And I think that's one thing that my team does a really good job of is we try to meet the company where they're at. We know that any type of large digital transformation project is going to go through extensive change management. The business has probably gone through some other big transformations from maybe getting new management and see to maybe have gone through some acquisitions and you you're dealing with some of the pain from that.

8:14Jackie Joelson: And then really understanding what is going to kind of accelerate the business from there. So if it is going to be, we're going to do a massive like HVAC roll up. Okay. Well, are we thinking about how have you thought about your front end field services application? Is that going to be not sweet? Is that going to be like we did a great case study with Service Type with Creative Multicare, like they're using them for the front end. What is that going to look like? And then how are we going to put the right technology on the back end from a finance perspective in that case? Versus there's other cases where it's like Therabody, they grew tremendously and they run basically their entire system through NetSuite.

8:59Jackie Joelson: So we really try to figure out what's core to the business, what's the growth strategy, and then what makes sense to sit where, all while dealing with human capital elements, which are probably even more important, where you're dealing with people that either have to, that are stepping into being a CFO maybe for the first time, or they're replacing people. And so we're always trying to work with the PE firms to figure out where risk factors as well as they're rolling out their playbook.

9:34Shiv: Yeah, that's really insightful. I guess it's a very bespoke approach. Can you help me understand or for the audience, like what are some of those big buckets in which Oracle NetSuite does play a role and where you guys are able to create enterprise value and like help us understand the technology side? And you alluded to a couple of examples there, but maybe expand on that further.

9:56Jackie Joelson: Yeah, absolutely. So one key area, and I think like we've seen it even in my time or even prior to my other role, I would think about just the function of buy and build is being so core to private equity. And I would say the biggest piece of that is you never, these companies are oftentimes times in running on QuickBooks. That's a huge portion of the business that is coming over to NetSuite. And so if you're doing an extensive roll up, whether we've done so many veterinarian clinic practices, now a lot in the commercial services space, you don't want to be the largest buyer of QuickBooks. Like when we get in there and it's like, you've already bought 20 clinics of some sort, you're now dealing with the pain points of not having consolidated financials, not being able to report effectively to the board.

10:55Jackie Joelson: So we really try to start from day one in those roll-ups where it's going to be an aggressive platform play by putting in NetSuite from day one to do consolidations, do multi-entity reporting if there's an international piece. A lot of them are domestic. If you think about like the, I called it the optimology phase, when ophthalmology, dermatology, radiology, when there was all those roll-ups in that space. So they're traditionally domestic, but we're really trying to support the ability to ingest the data from QuickBooks, stand them up as a subsidiary on NetSuite, and then they can have reporting capabilities.

11:35Jackie Joelson: And then if they are working with a front end, like I just mentioned a lot of like clinics, front end electronic medical record system, how is that going to play with NetSuite? How are you going to go? How's your order to cash going to flow through and things like that? Or if it is more of a commercial services business and you have a different field services application set on the front end, or if you're using NetSuite's field service, what is that going to look like? how are you going to maybe do project accounting if it's longer term projects in that case like maybe it's you're servicing an HVAC versus you're working at um doing a big construction project and um it um and actually putting in the HVACs um in the business so we talk a lot about just kind of the ability to do easy integration as companies as you buy companies at aggressive scale for M &A that are like-minded companies, really easy to do data extraction from QuickBooks into NetSuite and then being able to report very effectively to the board on, was this a successful acquisition?

12:46Jackie Joelson: Did we make the right choice here? Segmentation, location, all of those things. So that's like, that what I would say is like a very straight down the fairway as we think about like NetSuite and what we do from like a PE playbook. M &A is really, is very prevalent. As you think about some of our other use cases, like carve-outs, those are really stressful situations for the business, for the PE firm, for everyone involved, because it's standing up all new technology in short order to adhere to certain TSAs. A lot of the time, because of our methodology, how we've gone to market with our implementation approach, we're able to stand up the systems very quickly.

13:38Jackie Joelson: A lot of those companies are coming off of their parents' system, which is SAP or Workday. and we're also having to think through the different considerations for this standalone business could be very different than what they were using at the parent. So a lot of things need to be thought about. Like I just did two where the core business was actually a software company, but the parent literally was not at all in the software game. And so having to think through, okay well you're now going to be accelerating as a software business thinking about billing thinking about rev rack thinking about um your core customer base and then also doing this at the same time that you have to stand up all other pieces of technology as it relates to um every aspect from hris to um your crm you're doing all that at once really really fast with a team that might be brand new if you're lucky you may have inherited a few folks um but we've done some really um notable carve outs like dollar shave club um bose their carve out as well too um many many big complex carve outs that are in tons of different countries and have a lot of complexity because of Netsuite's architecture and our strategy for deployment have been very successful.

15:11Shiv: We'll get back to the show in just a moment. But before we do, one of the most common and important value creation levers that we hear about on the show from private equity investors and our own PE partners is go to market. Yet when these same PE partners bring us into their portfolio companies or new target investments that they're exploring, we find that the marketing function is quite immature, underutilized, and under-optimized. And so that's a huge opportunity that we see inside these companies. And if you have a portfolio company that you feel like could scale a lot faster to drive more pipeline and revenue, or you're looking at a new investment where you feel like that could be core to your investment thesis, well, we'd love to explore that with you and figure out how we can partner with you to drive more enterprise value creation on the marketing side, similar to the way that we've done with major PE firms like TA, Updata, HG, STG, and many more.

16:03Shiv: At this point, we've done hundreds of engagements across hundreds of industries and verticals, and we have a ton of benchmarks and frameworks that we bring to these engagements to help you drive as much enterprise value as quickly as possible. So if that sounds like something that you might be interested in, you can just email me directly at shiv at howtosass.com or go to our website and schedule a demo and we'd love to speak with you about it further. And now with that said, let's get back to the show.

16:30Jackie Joelson: I guess the question that comes to mind as you're describing all of

16:33Shiv: that is a lot of these projects are massive infrastructure projects. And for a company to take this on or a firm to take this on, there's almost like this, you have to acknowledge that, hey, we're going to invest three months or six months to kind of get through this. and some of that work is involved in like changing systems or moving data over and there's a lot of complexity with that versus the actual work that drives value creation so I'm just curious like how you guys position Oracle NetSuite in that situation or how you're actually ensuring that this work is actually driving enterprise value for these businesses so that the infrastructure working you're not just stuck there if you will because a lot of we've seen a lot of companies struggle with that?

17:17Jackie Joelson: Yeah, you obviously want to get ROI out of putting in a system and going through this transformation. And I think the ROI varies by value creation strategy. So I think, as you think about the ROI for someone that's doing aggressive growth through M &A, it's going to be very different than the ROI for putting an ERP for automation and efficiencies and process where you may have just a ton of like legacy tech debt. Tech, excuse me, tech debt is going to vary. So like for high growth through M &A, the ROI and how you can kind of like, I say coach people to be like, it's okay to go through an ERP implementation is around just the efficiencies gained through consolidations and not having to put more people into a business, into a company on the back end where you probably only need a couple of people on the accounting side versus as you grow, you don't want to say, okay, I have five people now in every acquisition.

18:31Jackie Joelson: I'm going to add a headcount. Like that's an easy thing to say because we've gained efficiencies through putting that suite in, through having these direct integrations with our other third party applications like Service Titan. We don't need to add headcount. And that's something that is like an easy one to think about. But if you're thinking about, OK, hey, we've we're going we have this business, we have a great business, but we just have a ton of tech debt. we have a ton of inefficient processes, that's where it's like, okay, but we need to grow the business and maybe we're going to add a bunch of salespeople.

19:10Jackie Joelson: And that's like, and so we're going to start pushing through more sales orders and more, and it just highlights those inefficiencies. So by putting in an ERP, you can start to say, hey, we can probably reallocate and repurpose people into other roles than we've ever had, than we've ever been able to do before. And I think that that's something where it gets really exciting, where you have to, I think we talked a little bit about the implementation process, you have to be very diligent and have to say to yourself, we're not going to take a 30-year-old system and put it inside of NetSuite. This is our time to think through what works, what doesn't work, and lean on NetSuite to tell you what good looks like.

19:57Jackie Joelson: We have 44 ,000 customers. We go to market by industry. We probably already have a customer that's very similar to yours that is running or similar to you that's running on NetSuite and we know what good looks like. We have pre-built KPIs, reports, metrics, dashboards for those businesses. So we try to kind of say, hey, we know that we can help gain you a a lot of operational efficiencies by removing legacy tech debt, using NetSuite instead of using Excel. And then that's where the fun starts to happen is once you start using the system, it becomes your system of record, your source of truth. And that word AI that we all want to talk about all the time, that's where the excitement happens, where the things that you can actually do transformations from a business perspective you can now do that.

20:53Jackie Joelson: You could not do that before when you're on a 30-year-old system living also maybe in some instances of QuickBooks, Excel, are doing expense management in Excel as well or whatever it may be. You don't have a true nucleus of data. But now being on NetSuite, that's what you always talk about. The best AI comes from the best data. And that's where by putting in an ERP, you're actually able to get that. So that's sometimes that's a little bit of the carrot now that we have versus a couple of years ago was like, we know it's going to create automation efficiencies. We know that we're going to be able to get your days of sales orders outstanding, close your books faster, those types of metrics.

21:36Jackie Joelson: But now we even have the bigger nugget, which is you're going to be able to garner insights that you've never had before because your data is going to be in one space.

21:47Shiv: Yeah, I think what's interesting to hear you talk about that is that we see this in a lot of companies, even ourselves, like a lot of companies data lives in so many different systems. And there are manual spreadsheets to track everything. And a lot of systems even are disjointed from the financial metrics. We see this on the marketing side where people are unable to kind of help us see the data on like, OK, we're spending X amount of dollars on marketing. And here's the financial impact of that in terms of revenue and profitability. And I think the same is true across the board and the complexity increases as you expand regions or have like several different products or or roll ups in a particular particular market.

22:26Shiv: So I totally understand that. What about on the data side? Help me understand that, because I would imagine that with the migrations and these transformations, there's all kinds of data that needs to be integrated. So talk about that as a potential value creation number, because I would imagine inside boards, like one of the main value props of doing something like this is to have this universal source of truth, if you will. But I'm curious how you guys look at the data side.

22:53Jackie Joelson: Yeah, it's interesting. I know it's always a fun conversation. I'm sure is with PE firms, like what's your true customer attribution cost? And everyone will give you a different answer because the data sets are all living in different places. And you're having to and it's like, we'll get back to you in four days. Once we use Excel and reconcile our data sets. So NetSuite's always been kind of we've always had this idea of the NetSuite platform where we have tons of our partners. partners that have built either on or integrations directly to NetSuite. So many of our customers, as we think through, like where data is coming from all different sources, it's if you think about like, you could even just do like an order to cash process and data is coming from different places or technology data.

23:49Jackie Joelson: What is that going to look like your tech stack? And so it's understanding, well, how can you have an integrated data set where the NetSuite's kind of at that nucleus and I'm putting my fist up and then everything kind of sits around it. So we've been very fortunate to have what we call suite development network, where we have direct APIs and integrations with many of the top software companies that our PE community is utilizing. and we've been very fortunate where then the data is then very easy to be extracted into NetSuite where then you can start thinking about what do you do with that data and I think that's where it becomes really exciting now with NetSuite we now have something called the NetSuite AI connector where you can actually plug it into Claude or ChatGBT and start getting real insights but then also building agentic workflows.

24:53Jackie Joelson: So you've really opened up the span of that data and the way that NetSuite's architectured, it's really easy to pull that data. So think about, okay, I'll give you a few examples. One example could be I'm building a board deck. Traditionally, that would be pretty hard. You're going to go and you're going to go to all these different sources to get this board information because NetSuite has the ability with our partner network and our partner ecosystem, which is so strong and so many of our technology partners have that integration, you can actually build a prompt through our connector and build a board deck directly through data extraction with NetSuite, which is really, really powerful.

25:38Jackie Joelson: But then if you want to think about, OK, that's just kind of more on the data visualization side. If you want to think, how can I start thinking and opening the door for workflows that may normally not have existed? Now, all of a sudden, you're opening up all these different applications. So before, maybe your NetSuite and your Gmail never would have been connected. But now you have the ability where you could run a collections prompt and say, hey, give me who's been delinquent on collections in the past 30 days. It's very easy. NetSuite, you could pull that in a safe search, but with NetSuite, with the connector with Claude and ChatGPT, really easy to pull.

26:20Jackie Joelson: But the part that gets exciting is you can actually create a workflow from there and say, hey, now Claude, make me a email, collections email, and send it to these customers that have been delinquent. And it can get sent from your Gmail. So you can now make a workflow that opens up these data sets and the possibility of how you can connect in a way that you've never been able to do so before. But again, it all starts with the nucleus of NetSuite because NetSuite is so powerful and how it's structured. And then from there, and that's where we're starting to see real life examples where we're starting to see B firms really lean into working with us on AI.

27:10Jackie Joelson: And I think AI is that lever. As we talk about, there's the traditional levers with private activity. We talked about at the beginning, whether you're doing carve out, whether it's M &A, whether you're doing automation and efficiencies, or it's a financial lever. But AI is this new untapped lever that is new to PE in the past couple of years that's never been done before. And that's where we're starting to see these additional gains where we just had a company speak about how they built out a workflow with this connector and it saved them three headcounts. So that's where it becomes really exciting, but it all starts with the core of NetSuite.

27:49Shiv: Yeah, I think this idea of, and you touched on it earlier, is having the integrated systems and the data working off of each other, acting as an enabler for AI, I think that is a huge value proposition. And you mentioned it earlier as well, that you didn't have that vector to have these conversations with investors, let's say, a year ago, but now you actually can. And can you talk about that piece a little bit more, like in terms of how PE investors should be thinking about leveraging this data or what are some of the cases in which they can deploy AI with a system in place like this?

28:25Jackie Joelson: Yeah, I think it's interesting. So there's obviously different functions of the C-suite. So you kind of think about your function more on the CMO side. You're like, I'm going to put in this widget. And if I can get five more leads from a CRO, from a head of sales or CMO, they're like, great, let's go do it. Let's go put that AI in there. But obviously, the finance function is really different in the capacity that your numbers have to be right. Like that's not like, that's not a, there's no if, ands or buts. And so I think, and we're still so early in companies utilizing AI. Like it's still, we've grown so much.

29:10Jackie Joelson: Even think about where we were six, 12 months ago. It's just like in totality, like of where we've grown. So a lot of it is assessing the company's kind of the data first and foremost, Because if your data is not clean, if it's not ready to take on any type of AI, like I said, whether it's any C-suite function, that's the first place that we're certainly speaking with PE firms to get their CFOs comfortable. From there, it's really the office of the finance function. It's a little bit different in terms of ROI. I think we talked about some of the automation and the efficiencies that can be gained just through natural ERP transformations.

30:02When I was saying, hey, they have a legacy system and they were on paper, automatically they're going to start to see gains with putting in a system.

30:10Jackie Joelson: And I think you have to go back to that mindset of efficiency first when you're thinking about AI from the office of the CFO, where it's going to be great for helping with the clothes and things like that. But it's where as the business scales, that's where the continued automation efficiency from AI, that's how you need to think about it first and foremost. As AI continues to evolve, obviously ROI use cases will change and deployment strategies will change, but you have to start thinking about it first and foremost from creating automations, efficiencies, and better just overall visualizations.

30:55Jackie Joelson: And then once you've kind of started at that level, that's where you can expand and where you can start to think about agentic workflows and you can start to think about these other things. But the office of the CFO is very different than some other functions where we're not saying, hey, there's a call center and we're moving it all to AI. That's thousands of people. What we're trying to do is whether you're using NetSuite from like an operational perspective or financial perspective, obviously, visualizations first and foremost.

31:31Shiv: Have you seen PE firms leverage all this data from, let's say, one platform and then also do it for other platforms and then almost create this benchmarking or internal benchmarking across their companies as they deploy some of these technology solutions to kind of figure out best practices or share between their companies? Because I know, especially from speaking with operating partners, that's just like an ongoing challenge where they're trying to always benchmark against the industry standard in their particular market or vertical for all of these companies.

32:03Jackie Joelson: Yeah, I don't know if there's like, so obviously, like you think about, and I'll talk about SaaS because that's where we are. There's always like, everyone can evaluate churn in 19 different ways. If you ask everyone to say what is their definition of turn. And so when we're talking to people that just invest in software companies, it's always fun to have that conversation about how they benchmark their companies against each other. I think that it would be interesting to see if there's like an AI benchmarking. I don't think we're there yet in terms of who's using what. But we're starting to see, obviously, who's adopting the technology that sits inside of NetSuite for companies that run NetSuite.

32:49And you can certainly kind of garner that.

32:53Jackie Joelson: But I think we're too early to start saying, here's a set of KPIs if you're across the companies. And if you're a generalist firm, it's going to be really, really hard to do that for a long time just because adoption within each industry is going to be so different. Like if you're an industrials business versus like a professional services company, it's just going to be very different about the AI use cases. I think there's some areas where you can say, hey, this high level, everyone on NetSuite should be using our AI connector, their use cases, their prompts around just core financial should be similar.

33:32Jackie Joelson: But then once you start thinking business wise, that's where it's going to bifurcate. And then I would say, I think naturally the P community is competitive with each other. So I think over time, once there's more established kind of business use cases in all totality, I think they'll be able to be some benchmarking or some, I think AI readiness is probably the easiest thing to benchmark because it's based on data. So if your data is sitting in 95 different places and your data is super dirty, that's probably the easiest thing for P firms to kind of stack rank all of their portfolio companies and maybe even a product usage of certain products and features.

34:19Jackie Joelson: And that could be something that could be easier to stack rank. But then once we start getting into like specific use cases, I just think we're too early.

34:28Shiv: Yeah, it definitely feels a little bit early. On the operational side, I'm curious, especially as a technology partner, I'm interested in your vantage point on this. What do you see as best-in-class operations? What do the market leaders, what are they doing as they're scaling these businesses or if they're going global or as they're building and buying and integrating these businesses? What does world-class really look like on the technology front so that you can enable value creation and growth the way you'd want to?

35:00Jackie Joelson: putting in that's way, just kidding. I haven't said that, but I think a lot of it is also just like, I would say really, it's not all, it's not so much about the technology. It's around the deployment. Like, I think that that's something that we, the operators know just as well as I know is like, best in class is starting with not Frankensteining solutions and leaning into what the software can do for you. The software out there is so amazing. And we have so many softwares that are either pre-built for industry, like Natsuite goes to market, very industry focused. So leaning into if you're a manufacturer, distributor versus if you are a pure software business, leaning into the core practices of the businesses that these software companies do and not saying, I think the biggest thing is saying that we're not saying that we're not this special kind of snowflake.

36:06Jackie Joelson: I think leaning into best in class offerings, I think is really, really important. I think that a lot of companies get in there and say, okay, well, we're going to, the technology is going to solve our problems. it will only solve your problems if you lead with that what best in class for what they say good should look like like i've seen cases where companies will say no we want to basically use our old green screen process inside of net suite and that's not going to lead to a scalability approach versus if you really lean into what the software is telling you that's where you're going to ultimately see success.

36:49Jackie Joelson: So it's not, hey, if you have Salesforce ramp, NetSuite, all of a sudden you're going to get an extra multiple or you're going to, it's, you have to still deploy the technology appropriately. And I think AI is doing amazing things on implementation fronts as well, too, where never before we're able to get information faster, better, quicker. But also, So, but you have to still allow for the technology to be a part of that process.

37:19Shiv: Yeah, I think that's a really big point, which is that as you grow, there has to be an ongoing set of projects related to transformations from 10 to 50, 50 to 100, 100 to 500, right? And sometimes it's so easy to say, like, well, how we have things set up can actually help us scale. But as you layer on more acquisitions or you expand geographically, there's all kinds of complexities related to compliance and legal and marketing and sales and people that are really hard to scale without doing some of the technological transformations. And I think that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, especially when we talk about value creation.

37:58Shiv: Even on this podcast, we focus a lot on the plays that actually drive more revenue. But the technology side is just as important. Jackie, we're coming up on time here. But just in the interest of the audience, if they want to learn more about Oracle NetSuite or get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

38:17Jackie Joelson: I think they can email me. Love to hear from anyone that's interested. Also, drop me a line on LinkedIn. My email is Jackie.Julesen at Oracle, or you can drop me a line on LinkedIn and find me there. We're always looking for ways that we can help support and basically help businesses scale through technology solutions. So that's where they can find me. This was so fantastic. I loved kind of being able to share our journey with you from the evolution of really kind of the increase in the value creation practice to where we are today is AI is now kind of that new lever that we never expected and really helping companies grow and scale.

39:05Shiv: Totally. And I appreciate you coming on and sharing all your insights, especially because we mostly interview operating partners and GPs. I really enjoyed your perspective as a technology partner in the ecosystem and how you're helping private equity firms navigate some of these challenges. So, Jackie, appreciate you coming on and sharing your wisdom.

39:22Jackie Joelson: Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of the day.

39:25Shiv: You too. Thanks for listening to today's episode. Before we close off, if you haven't already, go grab a copy of my new book, AI Marketing Blueprint. It just hit number one bestseller status on Amazon across multiple categories. And it walks you through a proven framework on how to scale revenue and pipeline in a world with AI platforms where customers are self-educating and learning a lot more off your website and where companies are struggling with declining inbound traffic volumes from paid search, paid social, and even organic and SEO channels. So if that sounds like you or a company that you're invested in, go grab a copy for yourself, your team, or your portfolio company, and I'm sure it's going to help you out on your journey with that business.

40:08Shiv: And with that said, thanks for listening today, and we'll see you guys next time.