Customer day at Sage Summit. I haven't heard an attendance number but I'm estimating around 800 customers. The keynote was delivered by Nancy Harris, the North America Managing Director. It was basically the same as partner day although from a customer point of view, I wonder if anyone cared. She explained that Sage listened to customers and they all said that Sage needs to do more deep dives into the products. I have not seen this anywhere in the agenda so so much for listening to customers.
She mentioned 12% revenue growth, 13% recurring income growth and 74% increase is subscription business. Added revenue = more investment in the products and mentioned heavy investments for Enterprise Management and native cloud products. They added 62 new partners in '18 and have a goal of adding 70 new for '19.
The customer experience was delivered by a small Sage 50 business located in Mapleton, GA., Tarryn the Tax Lady. She did a credible job and I like her motto: Where your business is my business.
All in all, they could have sent it in a memo. Of all the things they could have done, it was very flat.
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Bob Tobey
I-Business Network, Cloud Channel Manager
I-Business Network, LLC
Marietta GA
678-627-0646 x231
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-13-2019 19:08
From: Bob Tobey
Subject: Sage Summit San Diego
Sat in on the Marketing Shark Tank. The Sage panel was made up of some very sharp people: Kerstin Demko, Geoff Merten, Leticia Bradley, Tina Rodell and Les Fansler. I was blown away with the expertise they have. This session was best of show so far and really showed Sage's marketing prowess. The bottom line was a soup to nuts approach to drive qualified leads through a multi marketing approach. I wish we would have had a half a day.
Also sat in the Sage 100cloud roadmap. If you sat in the recent roadmap that 90 Minds sponsored, you pretty much have the map...there wasn't much new that I saw. They have new pricing for Sage Production Management that's supposed to be simple yet I don't find anything simple about quoting Sage products. Last week we quoted an Avalara deal and Avalara wasn't on the current price list we had so my solution is to let Sage quote everything.
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Bob Tobey
I-Business Network, Cloud Channel Manager
I-Business Network, LLC
Marietta GA
678-627-0646 x231
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-13-2019 15:36
From: Bob Tobey
Subject: Sage Summit San Diego
Sage Summit San Diego update: Mike Ritchi, Sage Product Development did a nice job explaining Sage's product development. O365 as an entire platform, not just Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. There's emphasis on movement to the cloud but Jennifer and Scott had a graphic that stated over 50% of technology spend is still on premise. A huge emphasis was made on Power Apps and Microsoft Flow and how there's a movement to use mobile apps for unique customer customizations. A lot of Sage's focus is using multiple processes that span over many systems. An example was Outlook contacts and using Sage 100 to look up customer data.
There was a panel of Partners: James Gibson from PMO Solutions, Sally Craig from BCS Prosoft, Shauna Bishop from Integrated Business Solutions and Kelly Johnson from Kelly Johnson Consulting. I thought they did a good job with discussing company growth and using ISVs for cross selling. Kelly brought an interesting point of view for Sage's Advocate program and said she saw revenue growth in both existing and new customers.
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Bob Tobey
I-Business Network, Cloud Channel Manager
I-Business Network, LLC
Marietta GA
678-627-0646 x231