Investing for Today and the Future

As I mentioned in another 2022 Exchange post, our customers are contending with a never-seen-before mix of challenges and opportunities. 

Our conversations at Exchange confirm that Vertex customers are responding to stubbornly high inflation, rising interest rates, geopolitical risks, global economic uncertainty and other disruptions with resilience and innovative adaptations. Many of these organizational responses -- delivering omnichannel experiences; supporting friction-less commerce on new platforms (e.g. marketplaces and inside connected vehicles) and in new jurisdictions, ramping up “as a service” offerings; and keeping pace with rapidly changing legislative and regulatory changes -- require tax’s involvement, expertise and ingenuity.  

Like our customers, Vertex and our partners continue to adapt and innovate. On Day 1 of Exchange, I discussed with attendees how Vertex is investing, both today and in the future, to help our 4,000-plus global customer companies thrive amid uncertainty. Here are five key themes in our “Investment Roadmap:”

1. Think global, act local: Vertex teams embrace a global mindset. That’s because the global economy and regulatory environment continue to converge. While our global mindset influences how we think about scale, we simultaneously prioritize acting locally; this means understanding, and addressing, each customer’s unique needs.
2. Cloud-first: The digital transformations taking place across our customer base confirm that cloud is the future. That said, cloud goes beyond how Vertex delivers software; it affects how we drive scale and quickly deliver more value to customers, via better performance, security and elasticity. We understand that cloud migrations are long-term endeavors, and that our customers have reached different stages on their unique journeys.
3. End-to-end solutions: We’re committed to delivering solutions that are unified, integrated and flexible so that our customers can more efficiently manage tax processes that increasingly collide with other business processes. By “solution,” I mean any combination of services, tools, products, features, content and integrations. We know our customers also need a platform with common services and convenience.
4. Connected ecosystems: Tax is a ubiquitous part of doing business. As companies have transitioned from relying on monolithic suites to fit-for-purpose best-of-breed systems, tax technology must do the same: fit within those applications (and even with new business models). Vertex is committed to addressing this challenge via our close and collaborative partner relationships across numerous technology ecosystems. 
5. Total experience: For me, this may be the most exciting area of focus. This one is 100% about how our customers experience our solutions and ongoing innovations. We think about the entire customer experience, including the user experience as well as creating great UI, intuitive product content and knowledge, and unparalleled “in app” experiences.