Archive for the ‘Selling’ Category
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.
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).
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.
Sage Reduces Subscription Plan Options For Sage 100, 300 and 500 Customers
In a move that might surprise some of their business partners who haven’t been paying attention and noticed that Sage’s compensation for maintenance plan subscriptions is amongst the highest of any competitor, Sage is expected to announce today that all Sage 100, 300 and 500 customers will have access to 5 support cases as their plans renew beginning with those expiring on or after March 1, 2012.
Several partners have contacted me to confirm they’ve been informed that Sage will announce elimination of the Bronze plan for Sage 100, 300, 500 ERP (Formerly Sage ERP MAS90, 200, Accpac and 500) which previously allowed for only maintenance upgrades and no calls to Sage support. Instead of calling Sage support most customers relied on their local Sage Business Partner for support..
If You Think It’s A Good Idea To Be Chasing These Types of Leads – Time To Close Shop
If you think this type of lead is worth pursuing on any level – time to close shop.
A company with no budget, an unreal time table and they want you to show their (paid) consultant all your tricks so the (paid) consultant can turn around and present it to management.
Actually I do hope that my competition chases these time wasters.
Sage Master VARS?
While browsing the Internet I came across this PRO Partner Program from Illinois Sage VAR Hightower Inc.
According to the brochure the PRO stands not for professional but for:
Profit
Resource
Opportunity
What’s interesting about this program is the terms of their PRO Partner Program (Profit, Resource & Opportunity) appear to create an easy environment for Sage partners to dodge the new certification requirements while still retaining a variable level of commission on both new product and maintenance sales.
Other VARS have worked to consolidate smaller Sage partners though in most cases it appears that Sage have required the remote offices to toe the line with respect to continued certifications to ensure quality implementation and support.
In short my impression is that Sage have been discouraging the creation of buying pools or Master VARS which might be created for smaller VARS to combine their purchasing power and avoid any increasing tier or program requirements introduced by Sage.
