This was a very interesting Kick Off meeting in form and substance. The slides above do represent the Sage overall mission and vision but the attack plan for FY22. You combine this with Session 2 from Lee Perkins and it becomes even more "
interesting." The focus on the strategic priorities
are scaling Sage Intacct and expanding medium beyond financials. They recognize that "the competitors win more than
we do." even though they have a digital demand engine and "micro-vertical" expertise.
- I do believe that Sage expends a good deal of effort listening to the customer. It seems that the listening was focused on were the Sage Intacct customers and heard that the CFOs love it. Because this group loves it, they expect to be able to expand functionality and others will love it as well...
- In building the "small business engine" the experiment began in the UK and was successful. The UK is most likely the region where they are "most trusted." Use our cloud, add more data to our cloud, creating more desire to use our cloud services
I am not certain that the flywheel will create momentum in a society that is becoming less trustful of everything
"While the codes may differ, the needs of the Sage 50 customer across the world are pretty similar." Although in concept I must agree with the sentiment, the delivery must be localized. Sage 50 UK is not only different in code, but in market share and reputation. The competition is also different by region..
Bottom line from my perspective. The investment go into Intacct, which is growing, but currently does not have scale, is the only truly native cloud product. The goal is to use it to gather the information from the customer's data so they can use it to sell more Sage products. All the mega technology companies are becoming the big brothers brokering our data and Sage is behind in both technology and scale. The plan infers that Sage thinks it can play in the data space with the Sage ID by leveraging development partners to bring in more customers.
Aziz Benmalek tells us how in his session
Innovate to win is "finding new routes to market and creating disruptive business models." This is most likely picking strategic partners and going to market with fewer partners. Will this disenfranchise existing partners or bring in more business? The
Amplify services is defined as offering the existing partners is more training and help hiring more to enable you to sell Sage Intacct and specific vertical solutions.
Scale Performance is about having our regional sales managers to help us by giving best practices and selling the cloud. Have you heard this game plan before?
In North America it is aligned as follows:
Simplified:
Sell Sage Intacct by vertical and move the existing Sage customers to the cloud. Sell them more Sage and broader Sage to increase net promoter score and customer satisfaction while reducing churn. The message is also similar, but what consistently seems to be missing is the understanding that the Sage partner is the grease that reduces friction and the glue between the barely integrated components. The technology is not singular and the partner is critical. Nancy T. recognized that there is friction between Sage and the partners.
It is all about Intacct. If you are not an Intacct partner, you "
should" be a referral partner. They recognize that there is low adoption of SPC as partners are not trained to be MSPs. They are pushing strategic cloud partners because
they pay Sage for each user.
In summary, the plan is about and for Sage and if it aligns well with your practice, Intacct vertical focus is where you can get real help from Sage if you have the correct connections.
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Gary Feldman
Cloud Evangelist
I-Business Network, LLC
Marietta GA
6786270646 x224
http://www.summithosting.com------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 10-20-2021 10:47
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Sage All Hands Meeting - 10/19/21
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Wayne Schulz
Schulz Consulting
860-516-8990
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