New CEO Rory Read shares his plan for Sprinklr

Sprinklr’s most recent quarterly industry analyst update provided an opportunity to hear from its new CEO, Rory Read, who shared his observations after a few months in the role and outlined his plans moving forward.

Rory is a seasoned executive, best known for leading the Dell-EMC combination and driving Vonage’s $6.2B acquisition by Ericsson. He succeeded Ragy Thomas, Sprinklr’s founder, who has been a vision-led leader since the company’s inception, growing it into an $800M business spanning social media management, marketing, customer service, and voice of the customer.

Pressed on why he chose Sprinklr after his successful track record, Rory explained that he was drawn to the company’s potential and selected it over numerous other opportunities.

He sees Sprinklr’s AI-based platform as uniquely positioned in a market on the brink of transformation. He also emphasized that the execution challenges slowing the company’s growth are issues he has successfully addressed in the past. With a proven playbook, he expects to clear these roadblocks within one to two years, positioning Sprinklr to fulfill its promise as a disruptor.

Rory also sees the company’s scale—$800M in revenue—and financial strength—no debt and $500M in cash—as key assets in capturing this opportunity. He hinted at a personal drive to share his expertise and add another milestone to his legacy.

After meetings with 70 customers, Rory acknowledged that the company had been spread too thin, chasing too many market opportunities. He has already started narrowing its focus, with his first objective being to put Sprinklr on a trajectory toward the Rule of 40, prioritizing execution discipline. Key changes will include greater consistency in execution and implementation—areas that have hindered growth in customer service and retention among social customers.

Rory sees the opportunity for Sprinklr to pursue an ambidextrous strategy, simultaneously advancing both its social/marketing and customer service opportunities. He sees significant potential in the platform, citing its AI-based Voice of the Customer (VoC) solution as a disruptive innovation.

While marketing and customer service have different buyers, he noted that a single platform supporting both is critical for many of Sprinklr’s top 150 accounts. To capitalize on this, Sprinklr will maintain a unified sales force selling both products, but with a stronger focus on segment-specific strategies.

This was my first time meeting with Rory, and I appreciated his candid feedback. His emphasis on execution and narrowing the focus to fewer opportunities makes perfect sense and should lay the groundwork for Sprinklr to become the market disruptor it aspires to be with its Unified CX Platform.