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Posts from the ‘Sage ERP’ Category

Jul 13

clouds
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Today’s forecast: Cloud-y

I asked fellow Sage business partner and all-around great guy, Gary Feldman of I-Business Network, to speak a bit about the Cloud. Gary has a well-established practice focused on helping Sage partners and customers move their MAS implementations in to the cloud.

He had a very well-attended session today (nearly 150 customers and over 25 Sage partners!) on the topic of What is the Cloud and Should I Use It? According to Gary: the Cloud is coming!

Read on to hear his thoughts:

Cloud deployment is a form of technology outsourcing where customers pay for technology services based upon the amount of service required.  In the traditional on-premise deployment, customers would purchase a fixed capacity of hardware and software and typically buy more than they initially need (minimum requirements) and have to maintain operating systems, databases and backups internally.  With cloud deployment customers can subscribe to a service and access their Sage software over the internet anytime, from anywhere, from any device!

For Sage customers and partners there is a silver lining in the clouds.  Sage is the only leading vendor to provide a full line of applications available both on-premise and in the cloud where customers can seamlessly migrate in either direction.  CRM, ERP, Fundraising, bill pay, sales tax and more connected services provide customers complete choice of options for their ERP deployment.  Small businesses will really benefit from the power and functionality of SAGE ERP MAS 90 Online available on a subscription basis in the fourth quarter of this year.  As these customers grow, they can add users in hours per Jamie Kandola the Sage Product Manager leading the online charge.  If customers need third party add-ons the customer can migrate on-premise or to a partner supported cloud.

But the Cloud is more than technology outsourcing.  The cloud is a way to provide remote access to company information to improve customer service and satisfaction. 

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Great information for us all. Thanks to Gary for his time. I will leave you with one final statement concerning the cloud by Gary:

“It is about getting information to people when they need it, where they need it. Just like Sage Sales Tax powered by Avalara gets the accounting department up to date tax rates and calculations to your ERP, cloud services can provide service and prospect information to representatives in the field on an iPad or virtually any device.”

Sage Summit 2011 is certainly in the Cloud!

Jul 13

What’s so great about integrated CRM and ERP? Customer Edition

If you are an Accpac or MAS customer, you might be wondering what all the fuss is over CRM. Well… the definition that we use for CRM is a system designed to provide a centralized place to securely share important information with whoever needs it when they need it.

That’s kind of a heavy sentence but if you break it down it means you have somewhere to go to find out “stuff” about your customers, leads, vendors, you name it.

In traditional, non-integrated CRM, that “stuff” is usually activity history, customer service issues, proposals, etc. Essentially, anything to do with finding, getting and keeping customers.

Well – that’s a great start and for some, it’s all their systems allow (I’m looking at you Salesforce.com). Sage goes beyond CRM to all facets of the small and medium-sized business  world including accounting so they understand that this isn’t enough.

With SageCRM, Sage provides a fully integrated CRM and accounting solution – whether your choice is MAS or Accpac – so you can get things like invoices, previous purchase history, credit limits, on hold status and more. This really helps complete the picture where non-integrated systems fall short.

For more information, stop by the Sage booth and talk to the Sage employees in either the CRM or the Accounting areas and ask for specifics. For more information on CRM in general and why it’s so critical to your businesses, check out www.crmagogo.com or www.azamba.com/crmagogo.

Jul 11

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Sage Branding Changes (from the Summit 2011 Partner Keynote)

The conference got off to a great start with a rockin’ video featuring Sage Irvine team members lip synching to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (not sure if that’s the official title).

Pascal Houillon, the new CEO for Sage North America delivered a solid presentation. He got some good laughs and proceeded to outline some strategy changes – mostly on how Sage is starting down the road of shifting focus on the Sage brand and away from the individual products such as MAS, Accpac, Peachtree, ACT!, Saleslogix, etc.

Individually these brands are solid and well-known but the challenge that they present is the customer is not connected to Sage as a group of products. The core problem here is that customers that could benefit from other Sage products don’t identify those products as sister or brother products to what they own. This means that the sales process starts from step one with each new product.

The idea of shifting away from long-established product brands is bold. There will be some pain (ok … maybe a lot of pain) for partners and Sage itself as they establish this brand but, personally, I think it makes a lot of sense and will make it easier for customers to feel comfortable with the Sage family of products.

In the long-run, this should make all of our lives easier.

Not a lot of details were provided. Pascal and his team may still be working some of it. I’m guessing we will see and hear some things soon over the coming weeks and months.

Comment below if you have specific questions.

Jun 30

Connection - http://www.flickr.com/photos/repoort/5051792659/

What’s so great about integrated CRM and ERP?

Roll up your sleeves and find out the answer to this question (and more!) at one of the four technical deep dives into integrated Sage CRM at Sage Summit 2011.

If your group is focused on Sage ERP MAS, benefit from learning more about the MAS – Sage CRM integration and find out how to take your clients to the next level. Learn the integration points, how security works and how to extend the integration at one of the following sessions:

P-ERP48 – Mon, July 11th @ 11:00 – 12:00
P-ERP47 – Tue, July 12th @ 8:45 – 9:45

If Sage ERP Accpac is your product of choice, you also have two sessions to choose from. Learn about the new Quotes to Order enhancement and how to customize the system with the Sage Web Toolkit. You will also learn more about the different API’s available to customize Sage CRM. Choose from one of the two courses below:

P-ERP76 – Tue, July 12th @ 11:30 – 12:45
P- ERP74 – Tue, July 12th @ 2:00 – 3:15

Both the MAS and Accpac sessions will offer some serious technical know-how that you can use to make your clients more successful. Sign up today!

Jun 28

Hands-on workshop for Sage CRM and MAS integration

I realize that my last post was heartbreaking for a lot of folks [Read it here for details: http://summitdiary.com/2011/06/28/sorry-sold-out/] so I wanted to share some good news. If you are a Sage ERP MAS reseller interested in SageCRM, the in-depth, hands-on workshop exploring the integration between Sage ERP MAS and Sage CRM still has some spots left.

Check out course P-ERP95 (July 10th @ 10:00 – 5:00) on the Sage Summit session registration page for details and register before it’s full. http://registration2.experient-inc.com/showSAG111/Default.aspx?App=Registration

This session will provide a deep dive into the integration of the products and give you a chance to understand some of the whys and wherefores of Sage CRM. This is a highly recommended class for all MAS partners interested in Sage CRM. (And if you are not interested in Sage CRM, check out www.azambapartners.com to find out why you should be.)

Stay tuned for more recommendations on the Sage CRM front.

 
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