Author Archive
The Possible Sage Problem Behind SugarCRM (and other) Integrations
Bob Scott confirmed with Blytheco that they’ve picked up SugarCRM.
This is not really a story about Blytheco (several other VARS have also picked up SugarCRM).
Rather this is about the future of the Sage Connected Service revenues and how Sage may in their short term thinking about channel policies (drastically increasing costs for many partners) be creating long term revenue problems.
Think about this scenario.
5 Reasons MAS90 Quarterly Product Updates Were A Mistake
Sage 100 ERP (Formerly MAS 90 and 200) Product Updates issued quarterly have, in my opinion, been a failure.
Time to admit it. Bring back an annual upgrade and monthly service packs.
First some background.
Sage began issuing quarterly product updates with version 4.30 4.4 of Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200.
These updates contained feature enhancements (mostly folded in Extended Solutions which Sage used to sell but had since open sourced). Rather than increasing the version number the product update would add a corresponding Product Update version to the end of the customer’s version – for example Version 4.4 with Product Update 1 was 4.4.0.1.
Prior to version 4.30 4.4 Sage issued monthly bundles of program patches that they labeled as Service Updates. These were self-installable bundles of fixes which in turn had replaced the old method of requiring customers (or more likely their VARS) to install fixes individually.
The Service Updates rarely included additional features and instead focussed on stabilizing the existing code.
In theory these Product Updates would make customers happier as they introduced new features in each release and replaced the prior practice of annual upgrades and monthly service packs (primarily bug fixes).
Unfortunately from my vantage point quarterly Product Updates didn’t make most users’ live’s easier.
Is SugarCRM An Early Warning Sign of Sage Channel Challenge?
SugarCRM is an open sourced open-source, web-based CRM solution, which is advertised as being able to run in the Cloud or on-site.
Recently I’m noticing more top tier Sage VARS advertising SugarCRM – most recently Blytheco (Sage’s North America Partner Of The Year) , then Faye Business Solutions Group and Brainsell.
Faye and Brainsell are listed on SugarCRM’s partner site. Blytheco is not so it’s possible they’re just running a series of educational sessions though it’s difficult to believe they’re adverting a competitor for what’s supposed to be one of Sage’s bread and butter markets (CRM).
Sage Partner Faye Business Solutions Group Joins Intacct Partner Program
Faye Business Systems Group (FBSG) a Southern California technology consulting firm announced today that they’ve joined the Intacct Business Partner Program. Intacct is a leading provider of cloud financial management and accounting software
In a press release dated January 23, 2011 , FBSG CEO David Faye indicates that FBSG will be working on further developing an integration between Intacct and SugarCRM as well as other potential custom solutions.
Faye Business Solutions Group, Inc was formed in January 2010 as a spinoff from Southern California IT consulting firm Faye, Pollack & Associates and in addition to Intacct their website indicates support for Sage ERP MAS 90 , 200, and SugarCRM.
Interestingly the first paragraph of the press release talks about Intacct as being “significantly more partner friendly” which seems to take direct aim at the wide ranging changes Sage continues to make to their partner program including increased certifications, reductions to partner support and marketing of Sage support directly to customers.
The Intacct Business partner channel is run by former Sage Channel Chief Taylor Macdonald who has made some strides in recruiting Sage partners - most visible so far being Sage Non-Profit specialists JMT Consulting who is noted as being a $4.9 million var on the Accounting Technology VAR 100 for 2011 and Canada’s $ 5.6 million Equation Technologies who represents Sage Accpac and was ranked # 63 on the 2011 VAR 100.
RIM Whistles Past The Graveyard
RIM whistles past the graveyard. I believe this company will have little option except to be sold by the end of 2012. It’s hard to imagine another telecommunication company who has missed the mark as badly as RIM – except maybe Nokia.
Are You My Mother? Nimble Social CRM Goes 0 for 4 Identifying Social Networks
The idea of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that can keep itself updated with common information as well as automatically provide you with data about a contact’s Social Media activity is intriguing. The new breed of CRM which is supposed to be able to do this type of thing has been labeled as Social CRM.
I’ve been testing Nimble Social CRM – http://www.nimble.com .
According to Wikipedia Social CRM is “
use of social media services, techniques and technology to enable organisations to engage with their customers. As an emerging discipline, interpretations of Social CRM vary, but the most frequently quoted definition is from Paul Greenberg[1]:
Social CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.
Social CRM is often used as a synonym for Social Media Monitoring, where organisations watch services like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for relevant mentions of their product and brand and react accordingly. However, this is too narrow an interpretation, as Social CRM also includes customer communities managed by the organisation themselves.
I spotted Nimble in an online post about their new service. The ability to have an online system automatically seek out social media profiles for your contacts is intriguing. So I set an account up for testing.
Software Publishers As Channel Cannibals: 4 Ways To Avoid Being Eaten
Yesterday I spotted this post on Accounting Today announcing Freshbooks’ new CPA certification program which aptly is titled “Bean Counters” and aimed at the CPA market.
According to the website – benefits offered include great rewards such as: CPE Credits, Client Discount and Referral Program, Badge, Listing in “Find a Certified Bean Counter”.
I use Freshbooks for my billing. I love it and recommend it to anyone who is seeking a simple online invoicing program which allows for online estimating/quoting (with customer approval) and invoicing. Using electronic delivery of Freshbooks invoices I estimate we save anywhere from $50 to $100 per month in postage. That’s not bad considering the entire fee we pay to use Freshbooks is about $ 300 per year.
How Consultants Can Win With The New Sage Business Care Changes
Thought for the day.
As a Sage partner do you feel as if you’re taking a spanking with the new Business Care changes – which boost the lowest priced Sage ERP 100, 300, 500 maintenance plan by 3% and add 5 customer calls direct to Sage?
Are you thinking your days of selling support to customers are done and over – just because Sage is going to duplicate your offering and deliver a limited help desk experience?
One thing to remember. With these changes to the Sage 100, 300, 500 Business Care plans — customers will no longer have an pay-as-go support option with Sage.
Epicor Lawsuit Claims Useless Software Despite One Throat Chokehold and Doubling of Costs
There seems to be a steady stream of news related to ERP vendor Epicor (Full disclosure – I work exclusively as an independent consultant with a competitive ERP product). The latest lawsuit from Major Brands claims that Epicor over-promised and under-delivered on a $1,000,000+ software and services ERP engagement.
According to the lawsuit the initial cost of $500,000 in software licenses and $ 670,000 in services (to be provided by Epicor directly because “there’s only one throat to choke”) not only ran past the initial go-live date of ”mid 2011″ but also doubled in price and according to the suit Epicor eventually admitted the software they’d recommended was ” not suitable for Major Brands’ needs and that it would not perform as previously represented”.
By the time Major Brands filed suit Epicor was indicating that their net version, ICE 3.0, would fix everything – but not until it was available in mid 2012.
During the testing, the V9 software was so ill-suited for Major Brands’ needs, no invoicing or shipments were able to occur.
Intuit Recommends Intacct
Yesterday morning I noticed that Intuit had a landing page setup on their own domain that advertised a unique promotion pointing their QuickBooks Enterprise customers to SaaS provider competitor Intacct. I’ve been consulting on ERP software since 1986 and have not personally seen any examples of a big company like Intuit openly advertising that their customers should migrate to another solution if they find that the Intuit software isn’t working.
You literally never ever see this. A large (huge) market leading software company recommending an existing customer to use another software package if their existing solution isn’t good enough.
