It was a very busy and valuable few days, filled with insights into the Sage Enterprise Management (Sage EM) product and opportunities to meet with experts from the partner ecosystem. As a Sage EM focussed Business Partner, we were pleased to see the event return to focus purely on the enterprise level product; with insights on sales, marketing and business development focussed in the enterprise space.
Read on for our key takeaways from the event.
It was brilliant to catch up with Jennifer Warawa, EVP at Sage, prior to her keynote and welcome to the event. In her speech she highlighted Sage EM as being the biggest opportunity for Sage and that Sage will now be focussing on enterprise growth. The cloud presents the biggest opportunity with cloud solutions growing at 13% whereas on premise is only growing at 2% per year.
Nick Goode, EVP at Sage, then spoke about their strategy for Sage EM and “winning with the product”. The strategic focus includes connected applications, lightning performance and customer first experiences. We were pleased to see Sage highlighting a customer first approach to the product development as well as launching “Sage Spotlight”, a programme for new customer references.
The breakout sessions then provided valuable opportunities to meet with our ISV partners as well as learn about new product developments and hone our business skills. We caught up with our partners at Tangerine, as well as Datalinx, Fiscal, Prophix, Mapadoc and V1. It was interesting to see Sage addressing a key partner issue, the difficulty of recruiting in the Sage EM sphere, with the advice being to move focus to psychrometric testing rather than solely skills and experience.
Day 2 kicked off with an inspiring keynote from Lisa Earle McLeod on selling with noble purpose, “sales people selling with noble purpose outperform sales people selling against targets by 350%”. She highlighted the need to focus on how the customer’s life is going to be different by doing business with you, and that the answer to that question should always be your purpose and your story.
We then attended interesting sessions on growing your business through social media, the potential opportunity of e-Commerce in the distribution vertical and what the future of financial planning looks like. Sage also highlighted manufacturing to be a key area of growth, with Sage looking to expand the scope of their manufacturing technologies in order to keep up with the pace of advancements in the industry, such as 3D printing and bots. They will be looking at expanding the functionality of PLM and productions scheduler.
The third and final day of the event started with a focus on wider technology trends, that in our lives we are now more reliant on WiFi and battery life than we are food and shelter! Phil Carter, from IDC, then went on to speak about how winning in the new enterprise market would all be about delivering cloud driven digital transformation. Artificial intelligence is an important emerging trend, with it predicted that by 2021 90% of new packaged enterprise applications will have an embedded intelligent decision architecture.
All in all the event showed Sage’s commitment to Sage Enterprise Management as their flagship solution, one that can win in many verticals and one that is being constantly developed to ensure that it is keeping up with the latest technological trends. It was also encouraging to see Sage’s focus on their customers, how customers should always be treated as prospects, as well as their Partners and how important they are in contributing to the success of the Sage ecosystem.
As with all these events there was, of course, time for some socialising and a bit of a laugh. The Mysoft team certainly made the most of a photo booth at one of the evening events…
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The location made for a brilliant atmosphere and we had a rather good view from our meeting room.
The day kicked off with an engaging presentation from Sarah Andresen on People Science and Sage People. This included facts such as $450 – $550 billion a year is lost in the US due to disengaged employees and that only 36% of companies actually monitor employee engagement. It was clear that businesses are missing out on making the most of one of their biggest assets, their people, and that through a new approach to employee engagement with Sage People a whole host of hidden talents could be unlocked.
Next up it was Fabrice Alonso from Sage to present the future product roadmap for Sage X3. This is always a very interesting topic for our current Sage X3 customers who are on varying versions of X3. Fabrice showed the new look and feel of Sage X3 as well as emphasising their focus on listening to customers and partners in order to develop the solutions functionality in line with customer demand. Sage also showed the potential of Sage X3 which now boasts 4400+ customers globally.
We then had Mysoft’s very own Pre-sales Consultant, Paul Mincer, demonstrating the new functionality in Version 11 of Sage X3. This includes enhanced personalisation based on user roles, a Salesforce connector, production scheduler, shop floor tracking and the new project management module. It was also great to see Sage X3 mobility features working on an iPad with a real world example, Paul raised a purchase order in X3 from a laptop and then showed the ability of that to be approved by a Manager, remotely, on an iPad. This shows Sage X3 keeping up with the modern way of flexible working, all linking back to Sarah Andersen’s points from the morning session on People Science and keeping your employees engaged through the ability to work flexibly.
All in all it was a really positive event and one that Mysoft will now be running more regularly. If you missed out on this event but would like to be invited to our next sessions please get in touch and we can add you to our priority invite list.
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The Mysoft Consultancy team, Viral is standing fourth from the left
Viral has been with Mysoft for 4 years working in the Consultancy and Support departments. Before he joined the Support department, Viral had worked closely with Mysoft through his previous role so the decision to join the team was an easy one. Mysoft appealed to Viral due to their depth of knowledgeable and experience with Sage Enterprise Management. As a Sage Enterprise Management focussed Partner, Viral saw in Mysoft the perfect place to progress, learn and develop his Sage Enterprise skills.
When asked why he chose to join Mysoft Viral comments, “I found the people at Mysoft were all friendly, helpful and welcoming which made the move easier. I split my time between Support and Consultancy which I enjoy as I have the balance of both and am involved in the full cycle of a project from implementation, through to supporting the customer once they’ve gone live.”
Viral has developed his career at Mysoft from joining as a Support Analyst to now being a Sage Enterprise Management Consultant. As a Consultant he is involved in the solution’s implementation and also trains end-users to use the solution themselves.
When asked what he enjoys about his role Viral commented, “I like the variation of the different industries that I am able to work in, whether that’s pharmaceutical, food or manufacturing and learning how these very different businesses operate. I enjoy having the opportunity to constantly meet different people and enable them to save time and increase efficiencies through Sage Enterprise Management. I’m grateful for the fun and friendly environment provided by Mysoft, there’s always someone to brainstorm ideas with or simply have a coffee with.”
Outside of work, Viral is typically happiest when he is sat in front of the TV watching a movie or the football. When he’s not in the office, you’ll find him socialising with friends and family or pottering around the house doing odd bits of DIY. Viral also likes to keep fit so he visits the gym when time allows. He likes spicy food and his favourite is Thai closely followed by Mexican.
His favourite movie? “Hmm probably The Goonies, you can never get bored of watching it! It feels like you’re on an adventure each time!”
Paul joined the Sales Department at Mysoft in 2016. He was looking for an opportunity to get into ERP Pre-Sales and had come across Mysoft while working at his last company. He then met Chris and Brendan and found that the more he heard about Mysoft and X3, the more he felt his personality would be a good fit for Mysoft. Paul’s role at Mysoft is Pre-Sales Consultant. He has worked in systems for nearly all his career, and spent 22 years providing support, training and consultancy to advertising agencies.
Paul says that he did not have much experience in a manufacturing or distribution environment before he came here, so he finds this fascinating. He enjoys talking to new prospects and is interested in discovering the ways in which companies in different industries operate and seeing how Sage X3 can work for them. Paul gets a buzz from knowing he has done the best that he can, that he’s prepped well for a meeting or a demo and if the customer gives out a good vibe. Paul’s least favourite thing about his job is the M25 on a Monday morning but winning a deal makes all the travelling worthwhile!
In his personal time, Paul is happiest around his family, especially when they are all around for the holidays or Christmas. Paul loves football and has been a Crystal Palace fan for over 40 years, even though they aren’t very good, so when they win it’s a revelation! He likes listening to music, flicking between Radio X and Absolute while he’s in the car.
Paul recently went to see the Foo Fighters and thought they were brilliant, but he doesn’t “get” rap, grime and techno- he thinks it must be his age! If he had more time, Paul would like to go out more, but he also likes going to the gym and reading. Paul used to play golf and wants to get back into it even though he wasn’t particularly good; he says he’s a “Happy Hacker” and feels he has unfinished business with his golf clubs!
Paul likes most food as long as it’s not anchovies, capers and peanut butter, but would choose a steak, chips, salad and a nice red as his favourite meal. Along with all the Star Wars movies, Paul’s favourite movie is a toss up between ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ and ‘Groundhog Day’.
