Following an original request made by ISTUG to Graham Wylie for an update on what was happening at Sage Enterprise Solutions, a detailed update was given by Bill Hill Marketing Director of SES.

ISTUG had previously expressed its concerns regarding the extent of the changes, the breaking of trusted relationships between SES and its customer base, and the apparent loss of a significant number of highly skilled staff.

The thrust of Bill Hill's address was as follows:-

The strategy that Sage had inherited.

The issues that came out of this strategy.

The strategic initiatives that were being put in place.

To deal with all other issues by dealing directly with questions.

There was direct conflict between direct and indirect sales.

All channel partners were treated the same for both sales and support, regardless of size, or levels of skill.

Sage consulting expertise was only supporting direct sales.

There were items of research and development being agreed to in order to win sales.

There were a number of inappropriately structures Third Party relationships.

This was sending out a conflicting marketing message - Buy from Sage - Buy form the Reseller Channel.

Evolve to a channel only sales, service, and support model in both domestic and international markets. Such a move will mean that current direct customers will move to channel support, and negotiations are currently ongoing on this issue. It is anticipated this will ultimately give better levels of support to end users.

Develop new business initiatives that promote Sage mid market capability and enhance product development. A new working relationship is taking place with IBM, and some of the other aspects can be summarised as follows:-

- Development of the ASP programme.

- Restructure and promote Complimentary Product Relationships

- Accelerate and prioritise Customer Prioritised Development.

- Accelerate opportunities for bespoke activity.

Invest in training and accreditation of the reseller channel to ensure customer service and support satisfaction.

Our understanding of this programme is that to be a reseller in the future it will be a requirement to have a fixed number of staff who meet the SES product knowledge criteria.

Accreditation will be by examination and maintenance of accreditation will be based upon continual assessment.

Only resellers who have sufficient fully accredited staff will be able to be classified as a Sage Solution Centre.

Another initiative being pursued is to build a working alliance between Sage and its business related partners, a typical forum could be.

- Sage

- Sage Solution Centres

- ISTUG

- Consultants and IT specifiers.

- Market Research

- Accountants.

Needless to say, there was some very lively debate on the issues raised with the issue of Reseller Accreditation high on the agenda.

While it was generally considered that dealer accreditation would be a good thing for all concerned, there were concerns regarding the implementation process and the ongoing assessment process. Particular concern was expressed about staff moving from one reseller to another, or having once been trained setting up as consultants etc.

Perhaps one of the keys questions of the day was that from Alan Jones of IEC Ltd, who asked - "if my reseller loses his accreditation, will I know about it" - the answer was YES.

Great emphasis was placed by SES upon the fact that ISTUG is the only Independent User Group for SES software in the world. Our Special Interest Groups were mentioned as one of the ways in which SES and its end users could have discussions, with SES paying more attention and taking part in future activities of these groups. I know that our SIGs will regard this as a welcome move.

A presentation was given by Shea Hindman of Business Objects showing how Sage data can be looked at in a variety of ways and reported against by this intelligent set of reporting tools. Our Reporting Special Interest Group RSIG are keen to see this product being demonstrated with actual SES data, and arrangements are being made to do this at a future RSIG Meeting.

See the Business Objects presentation online.