General Consultant Discussion

Decision to make: Sage's un-announced pricing change included a 76% increase in the Sage Fixed Asset license destroying the services margin we were expecting but still leaving the deal (barely) profitable for our business. Several years ago, I came to terms with the idea that software margins would never come back and that we would survive/thrive on services that we control. In this instance, the additional cost is written directly to our services budget. This was our fault if we had placed the order just one business day earlier, it wouldn't have had the same effect. Question: If I cannot get Sage to honor the previous pricing, do we return the deposit to the customer (and deny the sale to Sage) or take it like a chump (and let Sage continue their channel abuse)?

@BrianRice Are you referring to the discontinuing of the ERP version pricing? We have until 1/15 to report any ERP version quotes in process and they are honored through 1/31. As far as I'm concerned, any quotes up to 1/15 will be ERP pricing and that's what I'm reporting and closing by the end of January.

So far, the response I've had is that ""any outstanding Sage Fixed Assets ERP pricing quotes that you have delivered to customers to your Sage business development manager by January 15, 2015, and we will honor them through January 31, 2015"" excludes quotes from the business partner and includes only quotes that Sage wrote.

Sage should consider having their legal department review these e-mails before they send them out. Or maybe what we received is the result of that. Then they can do whatever suits them.

A sale is a sale for Sage. I'm sure if you give them a list of ERP customers you have quoted the ERP price, they'll honor them. It only states it's a list, not the actual quotes. But as I've discovered with the revised tier program, whatever may have been stated is subject to change at their whim.

This is in front of my RSM/RAM now. I'm standing by (hopefully not beyond the deadline).

I would hope that your rsam would do all they can do to assist. After all, this latest debacle was shoved down their throats also....

@JeffSchwenk Thank you for the new combined acronym - RSAM. Don't know what it stands for, but I'm using it.

rsm/ram. eliminate the duplicate letters.....

To date, it appears that they only want to honor pricing that was presented in a quote from Sage. Each negotiated price from Sage has included an incremental increase.

My RSAM said: Can you send me what you have, so I can review? I don't know what sales are like this quarter, but they may be willing to bend these ""rules"". The old PFW/PRO upgrade discounts now fall under the ""In the Family"" discount of 15%, but I was told by a reputable Sage source that they will give 25%, if booked by the end of the month. They want to keep their jobs.

I'm hoping EOM will be effective as leverage but so far nothing is working out as I would expect.