General Consultant Discussion

Just got this email this morning: Message from David Dierke, President and CEO of AccountMate Software Is SAGE Bouncing You Around? Maybe you're ready for a change. Maybe you are looking for an ERP vendor who treats their resellers with respect and appreciates their business. That's what AccountMate is all about. We consider you, the reseller as our client. The end users are YOUR clients. That's why we never sell directly to end users. It doesn't need to be complex. You sell all AccountMate software and maintenance to your clients and receive your discount. Your discount is recalculated every time you purchase anything. That way your discount can go up immediately. We don't wait to increase your discount once you've earned a higher one. At our annual conference our resellers vote on which features should be added to the software. To some software vendors that may seem like a crazy idea. We believe that our resellers understand their clients and therefore it's appropriate to listen to what they have to say. If this sounds like the type of software vendor you want to work with, just give us a call or send us an email.

https://plus.google.com/109408520520143490220/posts/8pTH3fbV73t This caught my eye as well. Not really so much because of the ""is Sage Bouncing You"" message. What I am increasingly seeing - and I am VERY concerned - is that customers on Sage products expect that their upgrades, server moves and nearly all other maintenance type work including upgrades (ie - Non Projects) can be performed at a moments notice with no concern to their setup. And personally I agree with them - to an extent.... The era of us having to draft a spreadsheet to quote a customer the cost to upgrade a system or move to a new server is closing. Those days will begin to wind down within 3 years. No longer do customers consider upgrades or server moves magical and as such there's very little value placed on those services. They use Facebook and Google and never worry about those things - so why should they have to worry with ERP or CRM? Now I realize there are MANY reasons why the customer DOES have to worry. I'm just saying increasingly that customers don't understand this. And if we quote a price that seems high (to their expectations) they're happy to go find a less successful partner who will cut our pricing in half -- or more - and perform the work. Which brings me to my point.... Sage can give me 100% margin on everything --- but if they can't deliver a product the customer WANTS then at best they've only been able to slow the erosion that I believe we will all see in the Sage market. Some of us may be able to fight the erosion by cutting rates or doing work for free in order to maintain the illusion that upgrades and other maintenance are effortless. At best we probably are just delaying the inevitable. Same with Accountmate. And I don't know what their product looks like but if Accountmate's main argument is better margins -- but you still futz with the same low perceived value services (upgrades, server moves) --- I'm not sure that Accountmate is worth a look. Maybe it's just me but I get calls weekly that go like this: ""Hi Wayne this is XXXX , my IT guy is here. He is putting in a new Windows 2013 server. Can you talk to him? "" Half the time the customer is 5 levels back on MAS90 (or worse they are trying to do year end payroll reporting and have not realized that Sage no longer issues patches for their old version).... I believe the true issue that we have to deal with is the maintenance of existing systems. In surveys that I read online it's called Total Cost of Ownership. Customers don't want to pay for things like upgrade labor when they deem that feature should be included in the product already (and from my vantage point most do).

Sage can give me 100% margin on everything --- but if they can't deliver a product the customer WANTS then at best they've only been able to slow the erosion that I believe we will all see in the Sage market."" Strong words, Wayne. Wish I could totally disagree but I think we all know, times they are a changin'. We have to keep our customers happy with our services in order to bring more value to the products it seems.

Anyone making more than 10% of their money from maintenance renewals or ""true"" profit from software sales (back out the extensive demo time and pre-qualification)? The market is consulting and to the extent our solution drives customer satisfaction we will grow. I think it's short sighted to think our market is to find a publisher that will provide 60% margin instead of 30% -- because software and maintenance profit is not where most of us make our money.

@Wayne - I remember the bad old days when I sold Accpac and would get those calls. Or worse, after they had upgraded to the latest version of Windows and nothing worked. They would then consider the ramifications to their accounting system. Ugly. Either way, you are right on the money. One of the best things about Sage CRM is that we have the upgrade process down to a science because the product supports smooth upgrades and customizations (if they were built correctly) tend to work from one version to the next. From my workings with MAS partners, it seems that MAS has a ways to go on this front. Hopefully Sage recognizes what we all see and is taking steps towards this. Are there any 90 Minds / OASIS members on the ERP BPAC? Is there a separate BPAC for Accpac and MAS?

Sage definitely has ""push button"" upgrade on their roadmap. That's one of their top goals moving forward.

Is the BPAC a committee where Sage honestly seeks BP feedback or just a superficial endeavor? From what I gather, it tends to be a one way monologue.............