Jun 6, 2019
Smarsh Response
6yThe journey from startup to industry leading platform is non-linear one. Growing pains, sticking points, and key learnings happen along the way and it’s correct to hold leadership accountable for both the journey and the outcomes. It’s likewise correct to recognize the impact of transformational leadership that takes ownership of legacy challenges, tenaciously penetrates those challenges across people, process, and technology, and creates a continuously improving culture of excellence and innovation that fuels the next generation of growth. This is the Smarsh story.
Since merging with Actiance, Smarsh has transparently, resolutely, and effectively taken ownership of product strategy, roadmap, technical debt, cultural debt, and methodological debt – including and especially engineering methodology and SaaS operations methodology. The resulting outcomes speak for themselves. A simplified product portfolio. Best in class deploy-ability and delivery capabilities. Platform service levels across mid-market and enterprise platforms that consistently and convincingly eclipse pre-merger service levels. A test-driven, continuous integration, continuous deployment discipline that self-improves from one iteration to the next. A vibrant engineering culture that operates as a marketplace of ideas where the best idea wins and every best idea is proven in code.
These hard fought gains are a function of team strength. Smarsh has built an exceptionally strong product, engineering, and SaaS Ops leadership team and these leaders are in turn attracting and developing the next generation of leaders and key contributors. Now that the virtuous cycle of cultural improvement and innovation is in place, we continue attracting and developing successive waves of talent.
Market leading success is not for the faint of heart. Growing through legacy sticking points and into the industry leading solution provider requires an enormous amount of courage and fortitude, courage and fortitude that is now baked into the Smarsh culture and DNA. Smarsh is an exceptional environment for people who are determined to tackle difficult problems, break through the inherent barriers and challenges, and contribute to a culture of relentless innovation and market facing success.
Response by Greg Vesper - Chief Product Officer