Cornerstone OnDemand Lauds Content Strategy in Earnings

Cornerstone OnDemand seems to be deepening its customer relationships as it continues to pursue a content-weighted product strategy.

Speaking to analysts during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, CEO Phil Saunders said the focus on integrating content into Cornerstone’s products “led to a surge in business” during the fourth period, which he believes validates the company’s strategy. In addition, the quarter saw the strongest content sales in the company’s history, he said, as well as the highest levels of content adoption and usage.

For the full year of 2020, Cornerstone reported revenue rising nearly 29% to $740 million. Without the acquisition of Saba Software in February 2020, revenue would have increased 6.5%. Subscription revenue was $705 million, a 30% increase compared to 2019, which would have clocked in at 9.4% without the Saba acquisition.

Fourth-quarter revenue rose 38.3%, to $207 million, while subscription revenue increases 39.6% to $198 million. Those increases were also elevated by the effects of Saba’s acquisition.

Content + Data

Saunders pointed out that Cornerstone’s interest in content goes beyond simply selling information. “The strategy for us is beyond merely selling content. It’s about harnessing the power of data to extract insights that drives hyper-personalized development engagement with our customers’ users,” he said.

Customers also responded to Cornerstone’s approach to offering a “connected experience” to employees, and that new-business performance saw “meaningful improvement” during the fourth quarter as deal sizes grew, partly as a result of ramped-up cross-selling activities.

In early February, Cornerstone became one of the first learning partners in Microsoft’s new Viva platform. Both Cornerstone Learning and Saba Cloud will be integrated into the Viva Learning app, the company said. Over the past year, Cornerstone has seen a notable uptick in users taking online learning and development courses at work, including a 100% increase in mobile learning usage from March to May 2020.

For some time, Cornerstone executives have said that emphasis on content and data would set the company apart from its competitors and ensure continued growth.

Image: CSOD