Chief Financial Officer, Guidewire Software
Search every verified Jeffrey Cooper interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Jeff Cooper, CFO of Guidewire Software, discussed the company's strategic focus on annual recurring revenue (ARR) over traditional revenue in a September 2024 podcast. He stated that a decline in services revenue is not negative if it accelerates ARR growth, and noted that ARR aligns with how the company compensates its sales force. Cooper explained that Guidewire prices its software based on the volume of business processed through its applications rather than on a per-seat basis, and that many cloud contracts include multi-year terms with built-in ARR visibility. Cooper described Guidewire's market as roughly 2,000 insurers globally, with the company's modules touching approximately $600 billion of the $2.4 trillion in global property and casualty direct written premiums. He noted that replacing legacy mainframe systems is a difficult process, and that the company maintains a commitment to "no customer left behind" with a focus on successful project outcomes. Cooper also addressed the company's July fiscal year end, saying it reduces pressure during the holiday season, and identified Q2 and Q4 as the company's largest quarters.
“For us success is ARR more so than Revenue right we want to drive ARR. Services Revenue May decline that's not a negative thing especially if it can help us increase the pace by which we drive ARR.”
“We sell our software as a kind of think about it as basis points on the direct written premium so we don't price our software based on number of seats but we price it based on kind of the volume of business that flows through the guidewire suite of applications.”
“Our strategic High Ground is hard fought and earned because ripping and replacing a 30 40 year old mainframe system where there may be 20 or 30 years of business logic that's codified directly into that system is not an easy task.”
“Vertical software in general benefits from typically having a more defined buyer Universe. We know there's roughly 2,000 insurers in the world that make up our Market. We know generally all the CIOs and all of those insurers and specifically we know exactly what systems are running.”
“Many of our Cloud contracts have multi-year contracts with ramps in them so we kind of have visibility into future ARR growth that's embedded into the contracts that are already signed.”
“ARR was the right thing for us to do because it normalized the different revenue patterns to understand the true momentum of the business. ARR aligned with how we paid our sales force from a compensation perspective.”
“Our biggest quarters are Q2 and Q4. Q2 aligns with calendar year and Q4 with our fiscal year end. Having a July fiscal year end takes a little bit of the pressure off during the holidays.”
“Insurers have been losing money while they petition regulators to allow them to raise rates to cover increased claims cost due to inflation. This is a macro cycle rather than quarterly seasonality.”
“We touch with at least one of our modules around 600 billion of the 2.4 trillion direct written premiums in the global PNC industry today. We have established a meaningful bit of market share but still a long ways to go to fully cover that part of the market.”
“Services for us is highly strategic. We have a commitment to no customer left behind and 100% success on successful projects. We want to have a robust ecosystem that we partner with to modernize this industry.”
In this episode, CJ is joined by Jeff Cooper, the CFO of Guidewire, a publicly traded vertical software company serving the ...
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