This episode features an interview with Manish Sarin, CFO at Sprinklr, a cloud-based customer experience management company. Manish brings to the table more than 20 years working with high-growth technology and cybersecurity companies. Previously, he was CFO at Exabeam, EVP of Finance at ProofPoint, and led Software Strategy and Corporate Development at Hewlett-Packard. On this episode, Manish talks about collecting unstructured data from Twitter, Facebook and Reddit to grasp the public narrative around Sprinklr, using AI to predict what will happen in the quarter, and achieving the holy grail of finance, of real time data, sustainable growth, and a solid bottom line.
This episode features an interview with Manish Sarin, CFO at Sprinklr, a cloud-based customer experience management company.
Manish brings to the table more than 20 years working with high-growth technology and cybersecurity companies. Previously, he was CFO at Exabeam, EVP of Finance at ProofPoint, and led Software Strategy and Corporate Development at Hewlett-Packard.
On this episode, Manish talks about collecting unstructured data from Twitter, Facebook and Reddit to grasp the public narrative around Sprinklr, using AI to predict what will happen in the quarter, and achieving the holy grail of finance, of real time data, sustainable growth, and a solid bottom line.
Quotes
*”We take all of this information, which is unstructured, could be Twitter feeds, could be posts, and we pull it together using a variety of AI models to get at what is the insight in terms of what groups of users are saying about our business. And so that gives me a sense for, at least in terms of my public narrative, what do I need to change or tweak or at least be aware of as we go and have our earnings calls?”
*”I mentored under a public company CFO, and one of the things he would always tell me is, 'Don't be afraid to break glass.' And I've always taken that to heart, which is, rarely is there any other function in today's enterprise that has the level of insight on what's going on with the business, and therefore has a very defined point of view on what needs to happen going forward.”
*”I would encourage people who are evaluating being a CFO that it is a very empowering role. And at no point should they feel like their voice is not gonna be heard because they have probably more insights on the business than even the people running sales or marketing or product. And to me, that is something that should be embraced [by] any new CFO. Very empowering role. Do not be worried about breaking glass. Go make sure your voice and opinion is heard.”
*”We're growing much faster than a lot of the competitors in our space. That tells me there is enough total addressable market for us to go after. And you never wanna build your business to the vagaries of the market right now. So in other words, you should keep growing no matter what is happening on Wall Street. Of course, you don't want to overspend in an environment where spend is under increasing scrutiny. But I would also argue this wouldn't be the time to pull back on spend as long as you fundamentally believe you're in a high growth segment. So for us, it's been trying to find that balance between the two… we're now showing investors that we can actually achieve sustainably high levels of growth while being prudent on the bottom line.”
Time Stamps
[3:03] Manish’s path to CFO
[6:54] How the CFO is a strategic partner to the business
[11:23] Cash Crossroads: Manish's technology vision at Sprinklr
[14:16] How Manish manages a data lake to structure Sprinklr's data
[19:07] All about Sprinklr
[22:42] The Playbook: Finance Strategy at Sprinklr
[25:35] Risk management at Sprinklr
[28:59] How Sprinklr uses AI
[29:52] Report from the Future: Manish on the next generation of finance leaders
[34:02] Quick Hits: Rapid fire questions with Manish Sarin
Sponsor
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Links
Connect with Manish on LinkedIn
Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn
Manish Sarin: We're growing much faster than a lot of the competitors in our space. That tells me there is enough total addressable market for us to go after. And you never wanna build your business to the vagaries of the market right now. So in other words, you should keep growing no matter what is happening on Wall Street. Of course, you're a little bit more mindful of you don't want to overspend in an environment where spend is under increasing scrutiny. But I would also argue this wouldn't be the time to pull back on spend as long as you fundamentally believe you're in a high growth segment. So for us, it's been trying to find that balance between the two, and we have actually done exceedingly well, uh, in terms of our metrics for the second half of this year where we're now showing investors that we can actually achieve sustainably high levels of growth while being prudent on the bottom line.
Narrator: Hello and welcome to The Invisible Vault.
This episode features an interview with Manish Sarin, CFO at Sprinklr, a cloud-based customer experience management company.
Manish brings to the table more than 20 years of experience working with high-growth technology and cybersecurity companies. Previously, he was CFO at Exabeam, EVP of Finance at ProofPoint, and led Software Strategy and Corporate Development at Hewlett-Packard.
On this episode, Manish talks about collecting unstructured data from Twitter, Facebook and Reddit to grasp the public narrative around Sprinklr, using AI to predict what will happen in the quarter, and achieving the holy grail of finance, of real time data, sustainable growth, and a solid bottom line.
But before we get into it, here’s a brief word from our sponsor…
So please enjoy this interview with Manish Sarin, CFO at Sprinklr, and your host, Daniel Shaffer.
Daniel Shaffer: Welcome to the Invisible Vault. My name is Daniel Schaffer and I'm your host. Today I have a very special guest, Manish Sarin, the Chief Financial Officer at Sprinklr. Sprinklr's a cloud based customer experience management company who recently just went public. Manish, we're so honored to have you on our show today. Thank you for joining.
Manish Sarin: Thank you Daniel. Uh, Real pleasure to be here.
Daniel Shaffer: Uh, Manish. We've had a, a little experience together, uh, just being able to kind of get to know one another and, uh, I had a wonderful opportunity hearing that your introduction to finance was kind of on, not necessarily the typical path. It's always interesting for our guests to hear why CFOs joined the ranks of top financial leaders and how they're leading the company. So I'm just curious if we could start off there, um, why finance? What was your path to becoming cfo?
Manish Sarin: So I actually do come from a family of people who have been in the finance profession. And as growing up, you know, most kids they think, Oh, we can do one better than our dads. And even though he would tell my sister and I that being a CFO was super cool, we'd be like, No, no, no. That's not exciting enough. And so I went to an engineering school, uh, majored in computer science, uh, went after business school and then like most people coming out of business school, certainly 20 odd years ago, gravitated towards Wall Street. And that was a phenomenal learning ground. I spent 10 years there at two big investment banks. I worked with a wide variety of C level executives and boards, and really concluded that running a business, particularly a high growth business in tech was super demanding and really brought together a lot of skills. So it wasn't just the finance skills, but the ability to distill information into bite size pieces that you can actually sell to Wall Street, uh, managing growth itself, all the investments around it, coming across as the guardian of shareholder money. So it just for me brought together my undergraduate training in computer science to practical experience in finance to again, being the spokesperson of the company to public investors, all of that in one role just seemed too exciting to pass up. So that was my entry into being a CFO.
Daniel Shaffer: Well, that's really interesting. We've had a wide range of responses, uh, where there have been family members, um, particularly mothers, uh, who have been influential early on. It's nice to hear we're rounding out, uh, with some influence from the dads. Uh, and what a great way to have some friendly family competition. Was it always friendly or did it sometimes get a little bit contentious?
Manish Sarin: Oh, you mean with my sister and I, Uh, no, very friendly. But my sister who's, uh, couple of years younger, to me, uh, her view would always be she would start somewhere else and then eventually gravitate towards whatever my older brother is doing. So when I came to the US for business school, she followed right behind. I joined a big investment bank. She joined the same investment bank two years behind me. I left Wall Street to go to industry. She did the same, and she's the CFO at a large public company as well. So she and I are doing the same thing and we exchange notes all the time, even though it's different industries.
Daniel Shaffer: Hm. That's great. You know, the trust network is so important in having a path to where you're going next is also really part of the foundational reason of the Invisible Vault. There doesn't seem to be today a clear path to the role of the CFO. Many CFOs have come from different backgrounds, but not only is that changing over the last decade, it does seem like the opportunity to guide a company from a financial, uh, staff or investment opportunity has really changed and shifted with the introduction of modern technology that finally does deliver real time data and analytics in ways that it hadn't in the past. So your contribution here, Manish, is really well positioned as, uh, great leadership for the next generation, not only to your sister
Manish Sarin: Thank you for that.
Daniel Shaffer: So kind of on that note, what do you think is your guidance today overall for CFOs as a strategic business partner? What are those real skill sets needed? What does the business need to know and how does the CFO help them understand that narrative?
Manish Sarin: What I do tell, uh, people who are looking to be a CFO is, they should embrace the role because it is a very empowering role. There was a time going down back to my father's generation where CFOs largely tended to be people from the accounting profession that if you look at data more recently, that's no longer the case. CFOs are, as you said, coming from a variety of backgrounds and the key skillset needed here is all around the ability to not just analyze the data, but actually work very constructively with your peers. Be there from the R and D function, the go-to-market function, and that's where I spend actually all my time looking at the go-to-market function as an example. What's the return of a dollar invested in go to market? How will I sell that to public investors? How does that compare to my peers? What am I doing in the go-to market motion that is working, that's not working? So it really is a role that empowers CFOs to dig into the operations of the business. I do have people on my team, of course, that come from the accounting side that ensure along with me that everything is captured appropriately. But as a role, it has really morphed from being an accounting-driven function to very much a strategic business advisor. Because if I look at my peers, uh, people who run R and D and people who run go-to-market, they don't necessarily are that financially astute. So they're looking to partner with somebodywho can really understand their world, walk them through their various choices, help them pick the choice that works for them, and obviously works for the company.
Daniel Shaffer: I want to talk to you a little bit about that, being that strategic leader. And it's more than just numbers, right? There is an operational component to that, but there's also a personal component. And we're hearing more and more that this personal component is a differentiator for very successful high growth businesses. Can you tell me how that personal component is something that you embrace and find ways to create opportunities to, uh, partner in that growth?
Manish Sarin: Absolutely. So as an example, I spent all of last week in EMEA, and so I started with our London offices where I spent a couple days, and then in our Paris office. There is no finance function in either of those offices. My entire reason for going was these are largely go-to-market teams over there. So there's customer success, customer support, sales and marketing. I wanted to make sure I understood from the people on the ground what is working and what needs some improvement. And so what I've personally really imbibed is CFOs that go the extra mile are willing to dig in, go to the people on the ground, not just obviously to learn, but also to help them understand the decisions that you're making at the corporate level. Why are we making those decisions? The more people understand, the easier it is for them to then follow the process or the path that I've laid out for them. so I did town halls at both of those locations, took extensive, uh, Q and A from employees. And I think the one thing I do want to stress is, you know, like it or not, as a cfo, you're sort of labeled as the Scrooge in the system, which is you're gonna be saying no to a lot of things as an example. And it's very important for employees to hear from you directly as to why you came to the conclusion you did. And so I take time always to go sit with the teams. I've done that in EMEA last week. I've done it, um, in Bangalore and Dubai, our other offices. I'm going to be doing that in November with our Singapore teams. So again, very important, particularly for CFOs to spend time with the teams on the ground, and I think it's very important for them also to understand the thinking behind how decisions get made makes it much easier for them, if you will, to follow along and do the path that you're laying out for them.
Daniel Shaffer: That's great. In the next section, Manish, we talk about your technology vision, and we call this section the Cash Crossroads. And really what we wanna get at here is very related to your vision for data and how you align business partners to a "why" of the company, whether that's the why you are deciding to move forward with an investment or why you would like to support them in their vision to grow the business. We're finding that technology is really providing that additional level of support, not only for the finance function, but for the business across the board. Can you tell us about your particular technology vision and how that helps you be a more strategic partner to the business?
Manish Sarin: Absolutely. And I think this is a very topical conversation because I think most companies our size have the same sort of systems, give or take. You'll have a commission system, you'll have a general ledger, and all of these things are electronic now. But what is missing is, uh, there's a certain level of intelligence you can add on top. As an example, we use a system that allows us to project where sales will be for a particular quarter. And this is an AI driven system. And we use that to get insights into what might happen over the next several weeks as we are looking to end the quarter. And so that is one example. We also take data from a variety of our financial systems and use it in a data lake, which gives us the ability to slice and dice data to get at insights that we are looking for in terms of what's happening with the business. So I think what you're getting at is trying to derive meaningful information. You just need to go to that extra mile to find the analytics, find the data sets that give you that ability to make a decision, uh, that is gonna be very important for the company. We use a variety of systems, both homegrown and third party systems to help us dig into that data that might be sitting in a Salesforce or a NetSuite, what have you.
Daniel Shaffer: Oh, that's really interesting. I know the topic of, uh, big data is more and more, uh, prevalent today, especially when you're talking or hearing from the CIO. Um, The opportunity to kind of bring together vast swaths of data, collect that unstructured data out of the data lake and put it into something structured and meaningful with some type of a business intelligence tool or other visualization tool is really that CFO level dashboard, um, that we're hearing is helping, and it sounds like you yourself, Manish, are leveraging some of that technology. What is the data lake? Uh, how are you doing that? Is that, you said kind of homegrown? I'm just curious how you get to the opportunity from, uh, unstructured to a structured data.
Manish Sarin: Yeah, absolutely. So when I say homegrown, this is where actually Sprinklr shines. So what we sell to our customers, as an example, is a platform that allows them to listen to, engage and reach their customers across a variety of communication channels. And what I mean by that is if you are a large brand, as an example, you can engage with your constituents on a variety of social media channels. You can use chat, you can use bots, and obviously you can use voice. And this single pane of glass allows them to maintain state. And what I mean by that is the ability to track that user as that user grows across these various communication channels. So we use the same platform internally, and I jokingly call it Sprinklr on Sprinklr, which is for us to listen to, what are our in public investors as an example, what are they keying in on? What things do they find more interesting? And a lot of this information, believe it or not, is available in the public domain just by listening to what they're saying on Twitter or Facebook or a variety of other forums. And over the pandemic, of course, a lot of people have been looking at what is Reddit. Uh, users on Reddit talking about their company. So we take all of this information, which you're correct is unstructured, could be Twitter feeds, could be posts, and we pull it together using a variety of AI models to get at what is the insight in terms of what are groups of users saying about our business. And so that gives me a sense for, at least in terms of my public narrative, what do I need to change or tweak or at least be aware of as we go and have our earnings calls?So that's from a public perspective. From an inside running the business, so we have, again, a similar dashboard that allows me to really dig deep into all the information that is captured in our Salesforce instance. So, you know, we have hundreds of, uh, reps. They are out talking to customers and they're updating the opportunities in real time. So our ability to predict will a certain opportunity close in the quarter is all driven by this rich level of intelligence that's captured in a variety of systems we use inside. And this is what I was saying, we can bring to bear our level of AI to then predict what happens in the quarter.
Daniel Shaffer: That's really interesting from a sales perspective, uh, in order to understand, and I like how you captured that Sprinklr on Sprinklr, really leveraging your own tools in order to give you insights about your sales process at the Salesforce level, which is important. What about your strategy to really, um, look at larger variables where you may not have the Salesforce data? How do you get insights there and potentially leverage that to, for example, plan for cash flow, uh, get your forecast more accurate, and look at future opportunities to leverage your working capital for growth? We apply the same AI models that I was saying earlier that we apply to Salesforce. Because our systems around billings our customers are automated, so we have a decent idea of what amount of invoices are due in a particular period, and we apply that level of insight that we have based on prior behaviors of customers to again, have a heuristic model on what would my collections look like this quarter or this month, and how should I manage my disbursements such that I'm trying to hit a certain level in terms of free cash flow for the business. So it's the same, um, level of analytics that we have built in house to allow us to predict some of this. Now, it's probably not as sophisticated as a large and enterprise would use. But so far our models have been pretty good in terms of where we come out.
Daniel Shaffer: Well, that's great. Sounds like, uh, Sprinklr is gonna convert to a FinTech
Manish Sarin: As everybody says, you have to eat your dog food a little bit before you go out and sell it. And we just feel we have a very powerful platform that can be used for a variety of use cases, and we're trying out a number of things internally to see how we can use it for financial applications. Now, we're obviously not a FinTech company, um, but a lot of these models can be tweaked to your unique purposes.
Daniel Shaffer: I'm sure everyone knows what Sprinklr does. And as a cloud based business providing insights around, uh, external messaging and social platforms. But could you elaborate, Manish, this seems like a great time to hear a little bit more about Sprinklr.
Manish Sarin: Yeah, absolutely. So, this is our 13th year. It is a cloud based platform that allows a mid and large enterprise to reach, engage, and listen to their customers. We have four product suites. The product suites allow a brand to connect with their customers, enable them to sell more to that customer. Allows them to do customer service for that account, again, across a variety of, uh, communication channels. So it is a single platform that is customer facing, captures everything that that enterprise needs to do to keep their customer happy.
Daniel Shaffer: Excellent. Thanks for that overview. just in this section that we call the cash crossroads, we also talk about the value of real time data, real time analytics. And one, I just was curious, what is your position on real time, Manish. Does it matter to you or do you feel like next day, next week is just as effective?
Manish Sarin: I think everybody is dying to get real time data. Uh, I'd hate to say we are where we need to be, uh, but we are obviously trying super hard to get as close to real time as we can, uh, whether it's sales information or liquidity information. Uh, I wouldn't say we are real time, but that is definitely the holy grail.
Daniel Shaffer: We've had a few guests on the topic talking about real time data, real time payments in particular, um, especially as it relates to, um, a company that makes, you know, several thousand payments in a month's time with billions of, uh, cash flow, that the risk there is inherently, uh, more significant than for other companies who might not have that, especially for multinationals. Um, but it's in that ability to really see the data flows in real time and to understand that cash forecast, the complexity there, um, makes real time either a threat or an opportunity depending on your preparedness. Um, where would you say, just out of curiosity, in talking to some of your peers, the general, uh, consensus is for CFOs about their preparedness of managing real time payments?
Manish Sarin: So just so that we are clear, uh, Sprinklr is an enterprise software company, um, and we don't have anywhere the level of complexity that a retail or a consumer products company would. Uh, so we're not making, you know, that volume of payments and we're not really collecting a huge volume of, uh, invoices or transactions, but smaller dollar value. So I would readily admit that, um, our level of complexity is much lower than what you would expect in a consumer business. But having said that, look, at the end of the day, it is every CFO's desire that our systems need to A, talk to each other, so there aren't any information silos. B, we should be able to apply a level of analytics because data has obviously exploded across every enterprise. And the more insights you can get based on the data that's already sitting there, that would be, you know, time well spent. And then C, the ability to disseminate that information across your enterprise in an almost real time fashion so people can make decisions based on that real time data or near real time data would be the, the holy grail.
Daniel Shaffer: Let's talk a little bit more about that in the next section of our podcast that we call The Playbook. And Manish, in this section, what we get into is really about kind of risk management as you're looking across larger swaths of data, even at your company level. Um, what are those KPIs that your investors are looking for and want to hear more about? Um, you shared a little bit about having some AI giving you the capacity to, um, deliver insights about where you are and where you're going. Um, let's start with what KPIs do you feel are most important to the board members today?
Manish Sarin: So one of the things we've focused on over the last, I'd say a couple of quarters, is what I loosely call productivity. And what I mean by that is historically, definitely enterprise software companies had been all about how much quota capacity do we have? How many new sales people are we hiring, because that's what drives the overall financial picture of the business. And we have, I'd say over the last few quarters, it really started to dig in on how long does it take for a rep to get productive? What is that level of productivity we can really aim for? How does that level of productivity move across quarters? And what has been the trend line of that productivity over time? So we spend a lot of time analyzing this and how can we improve productivity as we plan for the future, whether it's new go-to-market initiatives, whether it's back office processes, whether it's uh, you know, marketing campaigns. So all of this gets factored in and probably is our number one KPI as we think about the business. Other KPIs of course are, you know, whether you can talk about a magic number, which is how much do you spend to generate a dollar revenue, you know, what is the free cash flow profile in the business? So there's a number of metrics that I guess most SaaS companies use and we are no different. But we are very much focused on productivity across the board, all the way from go-to-market teams down to R and D.
Daniel Shaffer: Yeah, the productivity is so important today. Obviously if you can't drive top line dollar and growth, you're gonna have a problem with any investor conversation. And as a publicly traded company, um, certainly you wanna avoid some of the other side of unexpected losses due to, I don't know, currency impacts or potentially fraud, as we alluded to earlier, around real time payments. Do you have a, a version of risk management that you deploy at the company? How do you really put controls around those financial risks that might erode your earnings per share?
Manish Sarin: I will admit that we are still in the process of making sure we have the right level of controls. As a company, uh, I'd said earlier, we just went public a year ago, so this is the year for us to get SOX compliance, uh, into the mix. And we're in the process of being SOX compliant. Having said that, running a monthly multinational business with operations across the globe, you do always worry about the level of fraud because it is the silent killer. It is the things that you don't know about or haven't planned for. And, and I'll only say this, I would argue that every team, every CFO and their team, to the extent they're digging into the minutiae on the business, to the extent they have appropriate governance in place for each geography for each line of business, we review a lot of these things, sometimes on a weekly level. That's as far as you can go until you actually add more automation into the mix. We spoke about AI before for sales forecasting. We spoke about using artificial intelligence models for, you know, cash projection in the business. I'm sure something can be done around this, uh, topic as well. We just haven't gotten to it as of yet.
Daniel Shaffer: Sure. Sure And in this section of The Playbook, Manish, I like how you're providing some insights about what you're doing currently for Sprinklr, but also very curious to hear your thoughts on risk management. I mean, it sounds like you have an idea of adding more controls and you talked about, you know, Sarbanes Oxley and other types of kind of regulatory risks that you wanna manage. Uh, is there technologies that you're looking for, or do you feel like there's just, um, relationship management that's more important to, you know, offset risk? How are you doing that today? Uh,
Manish Sarin: Technology has to play a part in it. Uh, as businesses get more complex, uh, just through relationship management, I think you can get a, fair bit of idea as to what is transpiring in the inners of the business, but it is, very hard to get a complete picture. So technology definitely plays a part. Um, we haven't achieved that level of sophistication yet, but I would argue, um, as we keep developing our business, this is something that we would be spending more time on, which is finding tools around automating a lot of the compliance necessities that you need to operate a business today.
Daniel Shaffer: Well, I'm sure your numbers are gonna drive you to that very soon. You're, you know, I believe last I checked, growing at, uh, upwards of 30 plus percent year over year, your customer base is rapidly expanding. And as more and more, uh, CFOs are requiring their teams to have a data driven discussion, um, the types of insights you have from listening to the customer base are gonna be more worldwide in demand. I'm sure you have an anticipation of what that looks like. So some of those risk factors may be important to bring in sooner than later. Um, how is AI helping you along that path? I mean, do you have an AI function driving risk, uh, management or helping you get better insight into potential, uh, losses that you wouldn't have seen if you didn't use AI?
Manish Sarin: So AI is an integral part of what we build. And this is what I was saying earlier, Uh, Sprinklr on Sprinklr. So, today we only use AI for really sales forecasting and maybe other KPIs in the business, less around fraud and risk management. Uh, and you're right in saying it has to be one of the things we focus on as we grow from here. It's just that we haven't gotten to it as yet.
Daniel Shaffer: Understood. And there's a lot of things to be working on, and as you're looking to unlock new growth opportunities with, uh, different use cases, uh, evaluating on a large scale, kind of the what if you made one change in one region, or what if you made another change to develop a new technology, how that might impact the bottom line. Always interesting conversations to have. Um, let's look at the Report from the Future. And in this section we're getting more about the next generation of finance leaders. And I know that you, uh, appreciate imparting some of your sage wisdom. Uh, what do you think is important for the CFO today and maybe the CFO of tomorrow?
Manish Sarin: So I mentored under a public company CFO, and one of the things he would always tell me is, 'Don't be afraid to break glass.' And I've always taken that to heart, which is, rarely is there any other function in today's enterprise that has the level of insight on what's going on with the business, and therefore has a very defined point of view on what needs to happen going forward. I would encourage, uh, people who are evaluating being a CFO that it is a very empowering role. And at no point should they feel like their voice is not gonna be heard because they have probably more insights on the business than even the people running sales or marketing or product. And to me, that is something that should be embraced for any new CFO. Very empowering role. Do not be worried about breaking glass. Go make sure your voice and opinion is heard.
Daniel Shaffer: Yeah, not breaking glass. Uh, you have to kind of really get to the heart of something in order to understand how it is that you can improve it or create new opportunities or possibly. Uh, put it to rest if it's not creating the opportunity that you had anticipated. Um, and, you know, today's CFOs are focusing so much on how to manage these current market impacts and the crises we're seeing not only in the supply chain level, um, the geopolitical level, and even as of recently, um, just massive earnings impacts due to foreign exchange translations. You know, as liquidity becomes more and more of a, a focus, what is it that is for you the most important piece of empowering the business for growth, just from a financial perspective?
Manish Sarin: I think, as a CFO, you sort of have a good sense as to the investment that's gone into not just the overall business, but individual parts of the business. And software companies in particular, a lot of the investment really is headcount, right? So I monitor headcount across various divisions, various teams, and depending on the opportunity set, we are always willing to move that metric up or down as quickly as we can. So, the way we monitor this is we are in a high growth segment of the market. We're growing much faster than a lot of the competitors in our space. That tells me there is enough total addressable market for us to go after. And you never wanna build your business to the vagaries of the market right now. So in other words, you should keep growing no matter what is happening on Wall Street. Of course, you're a little bit more mindful of you don't want to overspend in an environment where spend is under increasing scrutiny. But I would also argue this wouldn't be the time to pull back on spend as long as you fundamentally believe you're in a high growth segment. So for us, it's been trying to find that balance between the two, and we have actually done exceedingly well, uh, in terms of our metrics for the second half of this year where we're now showing investors that we can actually achieve sustainably high levels of growth while being prudent on the bottom line.
Daniel Shaffer: Well, it sounds like you've found the holy grail. That balance is so critical, uh, for survival and really the acceleration of growth, um, so congratulations. Glad to hear all of the insights that you've provided for us today, Manish. We have a couple other questions here. Um, we call this the Quick Hits. I know as we're wrapping up this hour with you, which has been such a pleasure. Just some fun questions, real short, brief answers is really is all we're looking for here. So let's talk about the Quick Hits. In your opinion, is there a future for digital currencies?
Manish Sarin: I'm probably gonna be the only one that you've spoken to who says no. I've never quite understood why it makes sense. Look, there are certainly the banks that are coming up with electronic payment systems. There is a variety of FinTech companies that are trying to remove friction in the global payments world. I have never been convinced we needed a currency that wasn't backed by the full faith and credit of any sovereign nation as the repository of value. So to me, I really don't see the merit in having a cryptocurrency or what have you, But I totally see the merit in having, uh, much faster payments that are all electronic as long as they're done with existing financial institutions or new financial institutions, but backed by, um, a sovereign nation.
Daniel Shaffer: Makes sense and actually we're hearing a mix of the two. I would say you're right, some people, individuals have the opinion, uh, that there's an opportunity for potentially some growth in the digital currency transaction. Um, but I would say that in general most are actually aligned to your thinking, Manish, that what we're hearing is as a fiat currency, um, in the absence of any kind of, uh, backing by any nation. You're just looking at an investment opportunity, which is a totally different exercise. So another question for you that has kind of piqued a lot of our listeners' curiosity, is this notion of the function of the CFO. Uh, the CFOs become so strategic to the organization and wears many hats, but as the liquidity management becomes kind of the standard, uh, around in finance, just curious if you think there's room for someone to be especially equipped, uh, to manage every aspect of liquidity across the enterprise, such as a Chief Liquidity Officer.
Manish Sarin: That's fascinating. I hadn't thought about it, but I'd say there is definitely room for one.
Daniel Shaffer: Well in discussing what, uh, for the brief time that we've had here, Manish, I've heard so many different functions that you've discussed as part of your remit. And so the idea of a Chief Liquidity Officer does lend itself for consideration, um, as a specialized place within the finance function.
Manish Sarin: For sure.
Daniel Shaffer: Do you think artificial intelligence will replace people?
Manish Sarin: I don't think so. And the reason I'm so confident is, look, there was a time where we would say, Hey, with the advent of video conferencing, people won't even need to travel for business meetings because you could have a video conference, you would see a decline in air travel. Well, that hasn't happened. Uh, people have argued over the years that with electronic communications, we wouldn't even need printers. Nobody would print anything because everything's electronic. That isn't true either. So I really don't believe AI would replace human beings. I think they would augment us, probably give us a level of insight that we haven't had before, uh, but definitely not replace what you and I bring to bear in any regular enterprise.
Daniel Shaffer: Oh, that's a great answer. Well, we like to hear more from you in the future, Manian. We wish you and all the folks at Sprinklr great success. Thank you so much for your time and giving us a little bit of your insight and perspective on the role of the CFO today.
Manish Sarin: Well, thank you very much for having me. A real pleasure. Thank you again.