Extreme Networks CEO On Growing When Competition Is Shrinking: ‘The Evidence Is In The Growth’

You’ve talked about Extreme being the right size company to work with. Does this still ring true in 2023?

No doubt. And I think it has to do with Gartner and being in the Magic Quadrant for the fifth year in a row, but there’s also a Gartner Customer Choice award. We’re always number one because the customers just feel a different level of intimacy with Extreme and I think it has to do with how we work with customers and the fact that we can make a difference. What does it all mean? It all boils down to growth. On the hiring front, when you have strong employees and strong customer relationships, it usually has to do with the quality in the workplace. We had record hiring for Extreme in our [fiscal] second quarter and we’re going to break that record, likely in Q3, if not Q4, because we’re actively hiring. Overall, tech is seeing layoffs and issues around either growth or expense tightening, etc. We’re actually growing and we’re seeing a lot of investment opportunities.

I think a lot of the opportunities are around how we can help customers solve problems with our technology. The network today, it’s strategic. You can leverage the network in new ways to help you drive your business outcomes. If you’re a school, your outcomes might be different than if you’re in healthcare, or if you’re manufacturing or government. So, it’s all about the power of the network and then the new tools you have with cloud in terms of enhanced visibility, being able to see the network end to end, and then the tools that help you drive automation. Machine learning that helps you predict or see things that you couldn’t see before, and then making it easier to resolve and mitigate issues -- All of this kind of comes together and this is where we shine. It’s really [about] our cloud platform and how we’re making it easier to deliver this high quality, secure experience with enhance visibility and better tools. I think all that’s contributing, and the evidence is in the growth. There’s the financials, but it’s also our record hiring and our turnover is the lowest in the industry -- our turnover is less than half the industry. At the end of the day, I think people feel like they can make a difference at Extreme. And that’s why people say they love the culture, they like the people they work with, and they feel like with a company our size, they can make a difference and have a higher level of customer touch.

Networking is complicated and you’re always going to have issues. So, the question then is, how do you respond to and help customers through networking issues. That’s where I feel like we really shine -- we’re 100 percent insourced in terms of our customer service. Technical assistance, technical support, whenever you have an issue with Extreme, the person who picks up the phone is the person who helps you solve your problem. And then we’ve developed a lot of self-help tools. There’s a lot of capabilities that we’re building into our cloud platform all around just simplifying the experience for the people who are delivering the networking experience.