90 Minds Community

According to Sage, Sage Transform is designed exclusively for the Sage Intacct community of customers, partners, and industry experts to provide community connections, education, and inspiration mixed with some fun.  The conference is in October in Orlando Florida.

How many of us are going and is there any opportunity for us as an organization to meet-up, recruit members, add value, or receive value?

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Gary Feldman
Cloud Evangelist
I-Business Network, LLC
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I was somewhat surprised - but not shocked - to see that Sage didn’t include Sage 100, 300 in the agenda for Sage Transform.

Someone from my newsletter ( end user ) emailed Sage and the reply ( which they shared ) indicated that no Sage 100 content was contemplated for Transform.

To my mind it always seemed like a natural that if you’re trying to migrate customers to Intacct that you’d want to have them exposed to the product and be able to attend sessions.

Does this then mean that Sage doesn’t think they can pull off a conference for all their products? Or, perhaps, does Sage think Intacct isn’t yet at a level where the typical wholesale distribution company would/could get excited about.

I am not sure how recruiting at Transform would work since it’s a different market and most VARS have completely different teams that work with the product. I think there has to be a broader approach to recruiting Sage consultant techs.

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Wayne Schulz
wayne@s-consult.com

Schulz Consulting
(860) 516-8990
Moodus, CT
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This is confusing and a bit exhausting expending energy thinking about it for so long.  I came away from MOTM with a new sense that Sage was invested for the long term in Sage 100 and 300.  However, a wise person (It may have been my Mom), once said: "Actions speak louder than words"... in other words, non-verbal communication is more telling than verbal communication.  Applying these principals to Sage and Sage 100:  Sage talks about commitment to Sage 100 however,  the annual "Summits" are for X3 and Intacct and no attention is given to 100 or 300. 

I understand that Sage would love to migrate everyone to Intacct.  It's obvious that isn't likely to happen soon.   I believe this was a miscalculation.  The $2M - $10M distribution and light mfg companies that make up a large core of the Sage 100 business don't see the value yet (and it might be a while).  I think it is a mistake to stop giving attention to these partners and end users.... ie not having any Sage 100 and 300 sessions at one of the annual conferences.

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Doug Higgs
Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc
(312) 315-0960
Chauffeur, Chef, and Personal Assistant to Sprinkles
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-24-2022 07:50
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Sage Transform Intacct Conference

I was somewhat surprised - but not shocked - to see that Sage didn't include Sage 100, 300 in the agenda for Sage Transform.

Someone from my newsletter ( end user ) emailed Sage and the reply ( which they shared ) indicated that no Sage 100 content was contemplated for Transform.

To my mind it always seemed like a natural that if you're trying to migrate customers to Intacct that you'd want to have them exposed to the product and be able to attend sessions.

Does this then mean that Sage doesn't think they can pull off a conference for all their products? Or, perhaps, does Sage think Intacct isn't yet at a level where the typical wholesale distribution company would/could get excited about.

I am not sure how recruiting at Transform would work since it's a different market and most VARS have completely different teams that work with the product. I think there has to be a broader approach to recruiting Sage consultant techs.

---------------------------------
Wayne Schulz
wayne@s-consult.com

Schulz Consulting
(860) 516-8990
Moodus, CT
---------------------------------

Sage has a terrible track record for keeping customers in a way they will migrate to the newest shiny golden boy. IMO they are always too impatient and spend too little time understanding the functionality gaps between them and the investment needed to actually close them.
  - Kelly's grand schemes were ridiculous to all who actually had serious development experience.
  - How about how X3 was going to be made complete enough to appeal to many Sage 100 customers?
  - The way they killed off Saleslogix before finding a buyer certainly didn't attract or keep customers.

They are pulling this same crap now, although I do think that over the past 12 months they've concluded that migrating a significant portion of the Sage 100 customer base to Intacct will be harder than they initially thought. I think 90 Minds helped show them why.

IMO, Sage has figured out two things they previously misjudged:

1. It will take longer than they first thought to enhance Intacct enough to entice many Sage 100 customers. So they have to keep the customers with Sage longer than they'd planned.

2. Since these users have other options now, Sage must actively enhance Sage 100 in order to show current customers that they aren't just milking the subscriptions. They must also actively market Sage 100 to new customers as part of showing that Sage cares about this product and isn't just running out the game clock.

IMO, Sage 100 has no long-term commitment from Sage, but it does have a medium-term commitment for enhancing and marketing Sage 100 as long as Intacct has functionality gaps with Sage 100. While I haven't seen it in writing, senior Sage management did tell me at MOTM that they intend for all Sage 100 partner-related content to run through 90 MInds instead of separate Sage partner events.

If they do keep marketing Sage 100 to appropriate prospects and using 90 Minds for Sage 100 outreach to partners, I think it's the best deal we could possibly get.

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Jerry Norman
At-Large BOD Member, 90 Minds
Smartbridge Partners
(512) 653-7498
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In May 2021 Nancy Teixeira was on Enterprise Software Podcast and she directly addressed whether Sage Summit would re-appear. In short, she essentially said that she didn't believe Sage Summit would continue and she hoped to add the MBS products to Sage Transform though there was not firm commitment.

https://enterprisesoftwarepodcast.com/enterprise-software-podcast-episode-133-nancy-teixeira-and-acronym-anarchy/

Darcy Boerio: Okay, as I have to ask is Sage summit gone forever?

Here's the relevant transcript ( starts at 35:57 )

NOTE: At the time of this interview in May 2021, Nancy Teixeira was not yet in charge of the Sage Intacct product channel which is likely why you hear her talking more about X3 ( which she was in charge of )  in conversation and less about Intacct. I believe she took on the additional role of overseeing the Intacct channel beginning in August 2021 when Sage announced Taylor Macdonald's retirement effective at the end of calendar year 2021.

Nancy Teixeira: So I don't know about gone forever, forever is a really long time Darcy's gone forever. But I'll say that that there is none on the horizon. You might remember the last time we did an X3 customer event it was limited, it was specifically for X3 was in Scottsdale in September of 2019. Before the world changed this year, again, it's it's really tough for us to start planning for live events and stuff. So we're gonna we're gonna do X3 customer audience in particular is in throughout the month of June, every week, in the month of June, we are hosting a number of bite sized webinars for our Sage x three customers. So instead of a big bang event, that would be virtual and multi day, we're going to do it in these little bite sized chunks with hopefully really compelling content and not a huge ask of somebody's time. So in any given day, maximum, they'd spend an hour an hour 45, somewhere around there, and there'll be spread probably Tuesdays and Thursdays across the month of June. So we're excited about that. We'll test that we'll see how it goes. I can't wait to get back to live events. Do I think we're gonna get back to a big bang? Sage summit event that has customers from the smallest sort of micro business solopreneur to upper mid market lower enterprise? I don't think so. I don't you know, I think that we're going to bifurcate and interact with our small business customers a little bit differently than we do with our medium segment customers. Who knows maybe Sage transform becomes the second coming of sage summit for the mid market audience.

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Wayne Schulz
wayne@s-consult.com
Schulz Consulting
(860) 516-8990
Moodus, CT
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"I think that we're going to bifurcate and interact with our small business customers a little bit differently than we do with our medium segment customers. "

"A little bit differently" is an understatement.  More like completely ignore.

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Doug Higgs
Midwest Commerce Solutions, Inc
(312) 315-0960
Chauffeur, Chef, and Personal Assistant to Sprinkles
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-26-2022 21:00
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Sage Transform Intacct Conference

In May 2021 Nancy Teixeira was on Enterprise Software Podcast and she directly addressed whether Sage Summit would re-appear. In short, she essentially said that she didn't believe Sage Summit would continue and she hoped to add the MBS products to Sage Transform though there was not firm commitment.

https://enterprisesoftwarepodcast.com/enterprise-software-podcast-episode-133-nancy-teixeira-and-acronym-anarchy/

Darcy Boerio: Okay, as I have to ask is Sage summit gone forever?

Here's the relevant transcript ( starts at 35:57 )

NOTE: At the time of this interview in May 2021, Nancy Teixeira was not yet in charge of the Sage Intacct product channel which is likely why you hear her talking more about X3 ( which she was in charge of )  in conversation and less about Intacct. I believe she took on the additional role of overseeing the Intacct channel beginning in August 2021 when Sage announced Taylor Macdonald's retirement effective at the end of calendar year 2021.

Nancy Teixeira: So I don't know about gone forever, forever is a really long time Darcy's gone forever. But I'll say that that there is none on the horizon. You might remember the last time we did an X3 customer event it was limited, it was specifically for X3 was in Scottsdale in September of 2019. Before the world changed this year, again, it's it's really tough for us to start planning for live events and stuff. So we're gonna we're gonna do X3 customer audience in particular is in throughout the month of June, every week, in the month of June, we are hosting a number of bite sized webinars for our Sage x three customers. So instead of a big bang event, that would be virtual and multi day, we're going to do it in these little bite sized chunks with hopefully really compelling content and not a huge ask of somebody's time. So in any given day, maximum, they'd spend an hour an hour 45, somewhere around there, and there'll be spread probably Tuesdays and Thursdays across the month of June. So we're excited about that. We'll test that we'll see how it goes. I can't wait to get back to live events. Do I think we're gonna get back to a big bang? Sage summit event that has customers from the smallest sort of micro business solopreneur to upper mid market lower enterprise? I don't think so. I don't you know, I think that we're going to bifurcate and interact with our small business customers a little bit differently than we do with our medium segment customers. Who knows maybe Sage transform becomes the second coming of sage summit for the mid market audience.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz
wayne@s-consult.com
Schulz Consulting
(860) 516-8990
Moodus, CT
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