The Constant Evolution of Technology Suppliers: Navigating Change to Drive Value

If there’s one prevailing trend across the purchasing situations, we help clients navigate at Green Cabbage, it’s constant change in how solutions are marketed, sold, and consumed, often coupled with the assumption that “new” automatically means “better.” This raises an important question: How often do suppliers change, and what impact does that have on customers?

Given the vast range of categories and suppliers we support, we’ll explore this question through a focused example: Salesforce. Using Salesforce as a lens, we’ll highlight how supplier change, whether through rebranding, acquisitions, or licensing shifts, affects sourcing, spend, and strategy across the broader technology landscape.

Product Nomenclature: The Language of Change

Recently, our team was asked to clarify the difference between Salesforce’s product nomenclature “Einstein” and “Agentforce.” What appears to be a simple question reveals a complex reality. Salesforce’s naming conventions span a multitude of overlapping products, often creating ambiguity rather than clarity.

This is emblematic of a broader industry trend: constant product renaming, rebranding, and repackaging. While acquisitions often drive these changes such as ExactTarget’s rebrand to “Marketing Cloud” or the repositioning of Slack they also arise organically. For example, Salesforce transitioned from “Performance Edition” to “Unlimited Edition” and replaced “CRM Plus” with “Agentforce 1.” Each of these shifts carries downstream financial implications for customers.

Salesforce isn’t alone. Major suppliers like ServiceNow, Qlik, and niche platforms like Gong and Zuora employ similar strategies. Regardless of whether core functionalities change, the financial and contractual effects are real, and they reinforce a central truth: change is constant and intentional.

Repackaging and Relicensing: Shifting the Financial Model

Beyond naming, suppliers regularly modify how solutions are licensed and consumed. These changes typically serve two purposes:

1. To position “new” capabilities or use cases, and

2. To justify financial restructuring.

   
   

Salesforce’s evolution toward consumption-based pricing is seen in offerings like Data Cloud and the Agentforce AI suite illustrates this shift. Across the industry, similar models have emerged from AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Snowflake, among others.

AI companies, too, are blending license models, combining per-user entitlements with usage-based billing, as seen with ChatGPT and Cursor AI. These hybrid models introduce flexibility but also uncertainty, making total cost less predictable at contract inception.

At the extreme end, we see cases like VMware, whose move from modular licensing (VVF) to bundled suites (VCF) illustrates how relicensing can simplify procurement on paper yet complicate value realization in practice.

While relicensing can streamline contracting, the frequency of these shifts and the persistent “new is better” narrative often advantages suppliers more than customers.

Competition and Innovation: The Upside of Constant Change

Change isn’t inherently negative. In fact, it often fuels innovation and competition. Salesforce competes across numerous categories, including CRM, marketing automation, analytics, and iPaaS, each crowded with thousands of comparable alternatives.

Suppliers focused on specialized use cases frequently innovate faster and offer more cost-effective options, forcing the broader market to evolve. We’ve found that clients who embrace change strategically by evaluating alternatives, diversifying suppliers, and leveraging competition achieve the strongest financial and contractual outcomes.

Case Study: Turning Change into Leverage

A recent Green Cabbage client renewal with Salesforce (2025) highlights how constant change can be turned into an advantage. Facing a patchwork of renamed products, new licensing models, and revised pricing, the client successfully:

• Challenged Salesforce to validate the financial and functional impact of new offerings.

• Maintained favorable legacy entitlements where possible.

• Leveraged market competition to create negotiating leverage.

  
  

By understanding and strategically managing change, the client optimized their renewal, turning complexity into opportunity.

Conclusion

The technology landscape evolves relentlessly. Product updates, rebranding, and relicensing can complicate sourcing, but they also create space for smarter, more competitive purchasing.

Ultimately, success depends on how well organizations understand and harness change. Those who do, who question the “new is better” narrative and use it to their advantage, achieve greater financial efficiency and stronger supplier partnerships.

Learn more at https://www.greencabbage.com

Written by Joe Peterson, Head of Market Intelligence at Green Cabbage