Sage Blog

So the market conditions are good, you have the best minds in the field working on your product…. the PR machine is in full action and you have shelves waiting to be filled in all major stores… we all like to shop after all, but have you ever give much thought to how your products are made?

No two products are the same and different types of products require different manufacturing processes, usually defined as process, discrete or mixed-mode manufacturing.

Process manufacturing

The simplest definition of process manufacturing is defined by products that, once manufactured, cannot be distilled back into their original components.  Examples of process manufacturing are wine production, soft drinks, plastic products etc. Once the grapes have been crushed and the other ingredients added, you can no longer return the grape to its original form.

Discrete manufacturing

Alternatively, discrete manufacturing refers to the production of distinct goods that can be easily counted, touched or seen. Examples of these products are televisions, cars, white goods etc in theory these products can be broken down onto their composite parts at the end of its life cycle, and recycled.

Mixed mode manufacturing

Mixed mode manufacturing is a combination of process and discrete manufacturing that allows businesses the agility and flexibility to switch between the two manufacturing processes, or to combine the two for the production methods of one product. A great example of this would be the production of a standard product, with the ability to manufacture a one off design.

Traceability

Traceability of components is an important aspect of all manufacturing, but specifically in the food, drinks and drugs industry…. ever seen a food recall notice in the supermarket? A relevant bill of materials will support this requirement, detailing the raw materials that are needed to manufacture the end product. This will of course vary between process and discrete manufacturing, as the units of measurement will differ from distinct parts to liquid or weight quantities.

Bringing it all together

Designed with manufacturing in mind, ERP software solutions can accommodate the many different types of manufacturing that support your business processes. This includes outputting the correct reports and ensuring that your manufacturing process is linked to your financials, stock management and distribution type features.

Primarily as a consumer, maybe down to the fact that I am a girl (….sincere apologies to all feminists, suffrages and Germaine Greer) but I have never really considered what goes into the production of everything, from my Pinot Grigio to my Sky+ box, and I can honestly say that I find it fascinating.

Quality first

Let’s face it, good manufacturing of a quality product firstly motivates us to buy a product, secondly (if the product pleases us) to become a loyal customer, with a penchant for said goods. Thirdly, and ultimately, to become an advocate, a customer who thinks said goods are so extra-ordinary that we want to tell the world, and we then become the ‘super customer’.

This is of course, partly down to marketing, the brand identity, the price point and the market conditions, but lets’ not forget the value of a well made product, and the legacy it provides businesses with.

Julia Commons, Sage ERP X3 Team

On 30 November they’ll be a major UK public sector strike. We’ve already got in touch with some of our SageCover and Sage People Advice customers to give them some advice, but with so many of our customers affected we thought we’d share this information on our blog.

What are your options?

Thousands of workers from all aspects of the public service, including head teachers, NHS staff and refuse collectors are expected to down tools and strike.

Some schools have already announced that they will be closed if the strike goes ahead, but others may not inform parents or carers until closer to 30 November.

There are different options available to you and your employees. Discuss these with those employees who may need to take time off to care for children as a result of the strike action.

The main options for you to consider are:

• Booking annual leave. Employees may request annual leave as normal.
• Unpaid time off. Employees have a right to take unpaid time off to deal with an unexpected family crisis or emergency, which includes the disruption of childcare arrangements.
• Flexible working options. You could allow employees to take the time off and work
  the hours back at an agreed later date, or work from home if this is appropriate.

Don’t forget

Part-time workers have the same rights as full-time employees. If 30 November is a scheduled work day, then the employee can request unpaid time off or annual leave in the same way as a full-time employee.

Alternatively, you could agree for them to take time off on 30 November and work an alternative day or hours instead.

More information

If you are already a customer you can get more information from:

• SageCover customers with HR Advice – For further information, see the Emergency Leave for Dependants topic within the Employees>Holidays and Leave section of Sage HR Advice.
• People Advice customers – For further information, see the Emergency Leave for Dependants topic within the Employees> Holidays and Leave section of Sage People Advice.

Matt Forrest, Small Business Team

As providers of CRM software it felt like a natural step for us to headline sponsor the prestigious Chartered Institute of Marketing’s (CIM) Marketing Excellence Awards 2011. The Awards, now in their third year, recognise the importance of marketing excellence in the private and the public sector and celebrate the top talent and triumphs in marketing today.

In a crowded communication market place, getting the right message to the right people at the right time and in the right way is essential. Smart tools in the hands of smart Marketing people can make the difference between success and failure in a difficult economy. The cream of the Marketing community are spending and evaluating their budgets wisely to make the greatest impact. We’re delighted to support these awards that allow the very best from the world of Marketing to stand up and be applauded.

For us, this sponsorship demonstrates our commitment to empowering marketers with the best tools to do the best job for their organisations. Here at Sage, we see Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as more than just strategy or a piece of software – it’s about people, their attitudes and commitment to deliver outstanding service. And we pride ourselves on working in partnership with many talented marketers, enabling them to work smarter to find new customers and build profitable, long lasting relationships. Good luck to all those who have been shortlisted and we’ll see you on the 23rd February to celebrate your success.

Bob Anderson, Sage CRM Solutions

That’s right, ‘Memetic Marketing’. You heard it here first!

Part of my responsibility at Sage is to research potential new marketing opportunities and to assess their potential for our Accountants’ team. So of course, when I first encountered the phrase, my interest was piqued.

Memetic Marketing

Memetic Marketing sounds like something from a Mad Men episode; something which would have rolled out of an Ad agency in the 60’s and subsequently have slipped behind the cupboard to gather dust.

Yet this is a new piece of terminology, the retro vibe struck something of a chord and challenged me to dig a little deeper. My understanding of Memes came from reading ‘The Selfish Gene’ by Richard Dawkins, a great read, whatever your religious bent, where he describes the dissemination of ideas across a culture through mimicry in word, writing or action. A very succinct way to describe how early human cultures spread ideas and technology.

Then, after the passing of a considerable period of time and probably more than a few memes came the internet.

Internet Memes

On paper it is the world’s largest repository of information, an archive of indescribable vastness which hosts an immeasurable volume of data and content. In a way it is one of man’s greatest creations, a library of every achievement, scientific discovery and historical precedent since the dawn of mankind.

Yet for anyone who has spent any time perusing the internet, it is remarkable how the development of internet memes has impacted our culture and behaviours online. There are countless examples of internet memes which have flourished and are now virtually unavoidable on social media networks.

Run a google image search on ‘all your base’ and you’ll get a flavour of what I mean, it doesn’t take a lot for an internet meme to become something of a behemoth!

For those that aren’t familiar, here’s an example I knocked up of another popular internet meme, lolcats:

Upon further reading I came to understand that Memetic Marketing is a new definition for the adoption of internet memes, through viral and guerrilla marketing techniques to drive awareness of a brand.

Viral campaigns?

Personally I’m quite sceptical of this as an approach, for any marketer that has tried to run a viral campaign, you know that getting the initial momentum for the campaign is a virtually unassailable mountain to climb. Once you achieve that inertia, the campaign will roll along quite nicely of its own accord, but I would image that less than one in a hundred attempts to launch a Viral ever achieve anything more than lip service.

There have been some very notable successes, in particular Cadbury made a massive impact with their Gorilla youtube campaign, a short clip of a silverback gorilla drumming to ‘In the Air Tonight’ by Phil Collins.

Another fantastic example was the ‘Will It Blend’ clips, produced for a very low budget by blending company Blendtec. Originally they produced short clips to show the power of their blender by crushing ice and other difficult foodstuffs

In summary, I love internet memes, they enrich my online experience, but I don’t plan on trying to actively include them in our marketing plans just yet! I’m interested to know what other marketers think about the potential of using memes to promote your brand? I think as with any channel it has to be appropriate to your product, so I wouldn’t expect any Sage branded ROFLCOPTERs anytime soon, but for the right brand they could prove a real success.

Alex Walker, Sage Accountants’ Team @alexatsage

Our guest blog is from Simon Griffiths from Mercer. We’ve recently started working with Mercer to launch Sage Employee Benefits, a new service designed to make it easier and more affordable for small businesses to introduce staff benefits packages from medical insurance and life assurance to pensions. Here Simon gets us up to speed with the significant pensions change – auto-enrolment. This new law will make it compulsory for all employers to auto-enrol qualifying employees into a company pension scheme and make employee contributions.

Mercer is delighted to have entered an exciting new partnership with Sage to provide guidance and support on a wide range of employee benefit topics. I can assure you there is no intended link between the previous Halloween theme…. and our first step in to the world of pensions!

Before you switch off……

We know that discussing and arranging pensions is not high on everyone’s list of priorities, but with the first stage of pension reforms due to start taking effect from October 2012, it is something that you will need to get to grips with soon. Whilst most organisations will not need to do anything until some time later it could be advantageous to start planning sooner rather than later.  There are a lot of issues that need to be considered and early preparation will help ensure that you get credit from your employees for providing this valuable benefit for them.

What we have already heard…..

From some of the discussions we have already had with clients, a number of views have already been shared:

• “We’ve already got a scheme in place” – that’s great, but you need to ensure it meets certain qualifying criteria and not all current schemes do;
• “I have already offered my staff a pension scheme and no-one took it out, so they are obviously not interested” – previous legislation only required you to make a scheme available for staff to join, now they have to be included unless they opt out (subject to qualifying criteria);
• “It doesn’t apply to me” – the new legislation applies to all employers

The things to consider….

• Which of my employees does it apply to?
• Who pays what?
• What options are available?
• How will it operate?

All of these points are relevant and you can find advice from all sorts of places on the web, but don’t worry; Sage and Mercer are here to help. Through this blog, we will provide guidance on what you need to consider, when you need to consider it, how you should communicate it and, most importantly, when you need to do things by.

Getting prepared

For those who want to get a head start before our next instalment, you can get more information from our simple guide to Sage Pensions or through the Sage Employee Benefits website.

Simon Griffiths, Principal, Mercer

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is more than a strategy, more than a piece of software – it’s about people. You need to have everyone actively involved who is going be part of your company’s CRM solution and will ultimately help you achieve your goals. On most CRM projects some key members of your team will be experts you use to help implement your  strategy. Here at Sage we work with selected, certified Business Partners to give you experts in your local area to enable you to get the people you need to bring your plan to life.

Sage Business Partners

In case you don’t know, SalesLogix is our CRM solution that is available either on premise or as a cloud-based CRM system.  Our Business Partners are highly experienced, professional CRM experts who not only know how to install, configure and customise Sage’s CRM solution, SalesLogix, but can help you lay out your CRM plan and strategy.

We’re proud of our Business Partner community; they truly are experts in their fields, and it’s absolutely key that they are kept up to date with the latest information about our products and industry innovations. Our CRM solution lives in a world of innovation and we consistently deliver CRM leadership through our SalesLogix’s roadmap. The new innovations in SalesLogix deliver what customers are demanding in today’s world to help people to take advantage of the modern work world.

So, how do we keep our Business Partners up to date? And how do we make sure that the information our Business Partners glean from customers is fed back into future product development? One way is through our SalesLogix Boot Camp.

Our global CRM community

The SalesLogix Boot Camp is a truly global event that delivers the knowledge our Business Partner’s need to help our customers’ in their CRM journey as well as sharing the latest innovations and customer feedback. I was lucky enough to attend this year’s event in November in Arizona, along with people from Spain, France, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Holland, United Kingdom and America.

CRM – the hot topics

Getting together a group of CRM experts from across the globe gives a great opportunity to discuss not just our roadmap and CRM vision, but also the key topics affecting the community from mobile, to analytics, and of course cloud.

But our Business Partners agree that the most important part is talking with our customers, and hearing firsthand about the things they want. Overall the feedback was they want an affordable, flexible CRM system that “works the way I do” on “the devices I use” – so we are focussed on enabling our customers to work more efficiently in a way that suits them.

Celebrating success and innovation

We’re an innovative bunch in the SalesLogix team. As a team we’ve introduced the new HTML5 Mobile client which can happily work on a variety of mobile devices such as iPhone, Andriod and BlackBerry. We encourage the same attitude in our Business Partner community and it was great that Europe dominated the nattily named Business Partner Customisation Competition aka Geekapolooza. The winner was Alberto Chiesa from Gianos Consulting (Italy) with an application he wrote over 4 nights, followed by Mark Cooper from Qgate (England) and 3^rd place for Domenico Catrambone also from Gianos Consulting.

What’s in the future for SalesLogix?

So, with all this talk of innovation and customer insight what does the future bring for SalesLogix? The consensus from our Business Partners was that “SalesLogix Version 8 looks cool.” So what’s coming? Well, sorry, you’re going to have to wait and see! Version 8 communications will start early in 2012, but let’s just say our Business Partners are excited and even the English guys were whooping and clapping!

Of course, not all the talk is of CRM at these events. Most of our Business Partners were able to join us for dinner followed by karaoke. They’re a talented lot our Business Partners. Not only can they help you with your CRM system they can do a pretty mean Elvis rendition too! What more do you need?

Check out #slxbootcamp for more of our antics.

Duncan Wood, Sage Saleslogix Expert

Follow Duncan on Twitter

The business partners that came along from our part of the world were (in alphabetical order):

• http://www.bond-solutions.com/
• http://www.cbssolutions.com/
• http://www.collierpickard.co.uk/
• http://www.datel.info/
• http://www.dmcsoftware.co.uk/
• http://www.empath-e.com/
• http://www.gianos.it/
• http://www.managedsaleslogix.com
• http://www.pinnacle-online.com/
• http://www.qgate.co.uk
• http://www.seelogic.co.uk

In just a few months, the world’s eyes will be focused on Great Britain during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. And with the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry telling firms to get ready for the challenges, as well as the opportunities, our Sage People Advice service team have pulled together an essential guide to taking control during the biggest sporting event on Earth.

Curse of the sickie

Traditionally, employers can suffer from a depleted workforce during big occasions like the Olympics.  Employees may call in sick, either to stay home and watch an event, or because they’re suffering from the effects of the night before.

But by understanding how important the Games are to some employees and offering a fair compromise, you can use next summer’s event as a way to boost morale and productivity.

Communication is everything

Firstly, it’s important that you make it absolutely clear what your expectations during the Olympic and Paralympic periods are (27 July to 12 August and 29 August to 9 September respectively). Remind your employees of your absence procedure: who to call, when to call and so on.

Make it clear that if an employees’ sickness links directly to the Games, an investigation may take place and they may be asked to provide a medical certificate to support their absence. If satisfactory evidence can’t be provided to support the sickness absence, you should be clear about what action (if any) may be taken, ie disciplinary action.

Reach a compromise

Once that is communicated, you can begin to consider what you can offer to help employees enjoy the event, for instance:

• Implementing flexible working and shift-swaps.
• Providing an area to watch or listen to key competitions.

What Olympics?

It’s also important to remember that not everyone cares about the Olympics. Be careful not to exclude those who’d rather not get caught up in the excitement.

Jenny Graham, Sage People Advice team

From as little as £75* per month, Sage People Advice provides information and support on the issues covered in this blog and many more Employment Law and H&S matters. For more information, call our team on 0845 111 2450.*Price based on Sage People Manager 12 month contract

Content is king, or at least it is in the world of online marketing.

Without well written, engaging and optimised content, you are never going to produce successful campaigns in the digital world. That’s because in the digital world there are two kings, there’s content and then there’s Google. King of Kings.

When it comes to the world of digital marketing, Google is your master. Everything you do, every sentence you type, every blog, tweet, poke and +1 is a small sacrifice on the altar of the search engine, a prayer to the Great Google to bless you with kindness from the Indexing Spiders and deliver your page to the hallowed #1 spot!

Build it and they will come?

Creating content is hard work, it takes time to research, write, edit, approve and publish. So having done the hard part, you really shouldn’t get lazy when it comes to distribution. Don’t assume that just because you have built it, they will come. You need to operate on a broad range of channels to ensure you don’t miss your audience, and make sure your content is working far harder than you.

What this image shows is that your audiences may not overlap across various internet platforms, you need to ensure you have a broad content strategy in place to make sure your content covers all of the bases.

Firstly, you need to be aware that duplicating content can actually be detrimental to search engine performance, so there’s more to content management that just ‘spray and pray’. You need to think carefully about how you make your content work for you.

I would recommend starting by deciding where you want your content to originate; this is incredibly important as the website where the content originates from will receive all of the search engine benefit from the backlinks and references your content generates.  With that decision made, I would recommend looking at some automation, after all none of us are time rich are we?

If this then that

I was recently introduced to a fantastic content distribution tool called If This Then That, which enables you to bypass a lot of the more labourious steps you would encounter manually setting up RSS feeds. It enables you to simply, and quickly create a list of actions based upon input into social media platforms, websites, email etc. and replicates the content across additional platforms.

Tarpipe

An even better tool is Tarpipe, on paper looks very similar to IFTTT, but where it differs is that it allows a much greater range of control over your distribution, not only can you choose where the content is distributed, but which elements of it are transferred, and where to. This means you can set exactly which content is delivered to which platform; and it is this highly targeted approach to content delivery which gets the thumbs up from me.

So with a fresh approach to content management and a few more tools in the bag, make sure that from this day forward you are getting the most out of your content ! Lest the Great Google cast you into 4^th page obscurity!

Alex Walker, Accountants’ Team

Recently I organised a full day’s worth of focus groups, to meet with Sage Accountants’ Division customers. A chance to meet those who buy the products we write about, who receive the marketing material we send and (hopefully) read our flagship magazine – Sage exchange.

A 10-hour day. 5 individual sessions. Around 50 customers in total, all of whom would probably prefer to be on billable time. I must be mad!

Me and my colleagues on one side of the 1-way glass (a little twitchy, wondering whether we were going to like what we heard), the customers sat in the plusher room and comfier chairs on the other (presumably ready to sock it to us). One plus for us though: we had wine in our fridge!

We’d hired a mediator via a local agency, the discussion guides were approved and ready to go, the first group now all sat in their chairs, intros done, the lights dimmed on our side of the glass, the final True Lies impression done by one of my co-workers, so we hit ‘record’ on the video camera.

Turns out, the sessions were extremely insightful.

Not everyone waxed lyrical about us, that’s never going to happen; but we certainly had plenty of advocates and when they came up against the odd person who disagreed, it was genuinely interesting to see people argue over the pros and cons of our work.

It’s reassuring that the majority of people want to be nice, although you’ll always have to accept that not everyone is going to say what you want to hear. Expect to see someone literally jumping around on their seat, sprouting disgruntled feedback before the mediator has even done the intros round. And why not? They’ve given up their time to be there!

Still, I know I adopted a somewhat puckered posture when someone took a pop at my magazine (labelling it “just a piece of marketing!”); and just maybe I found myself approaching the glass, climbing up on the shelf below the viewing pane, ready to flip through it.

Okay maybe I exaggerated that last point, but it does rather force you on the defensive (or attack??) when you’re not hearing a ringing endorsement of what you currently offer.

Thankfully, I remember my über-defensive stance wasn’t needed for too long, as customers started to give examples of what they genuinely liked about our products, our marketing and, thankfully, our little magazine. My arms loosened, hands slipping casually into my pockets, I stepped back from window.

10 hours and 5 sessions seems like a heck of a long day when you think it’s going to be an endless upper and downer, between smiling serenely at warm praise one minute, and then curling up in a ball the next.

But once you’ve decided mentally that you’re just going to sit and listen, take the rough with the smooth to try and form an holistic and objective summary of what customers perceptions truly are, you really do get a lot out of them.  And of course you don’t have to do 5 sessions, but the more you hear and the more you see, the more solid your interpretation is, and you’re not allowing one or two people to skew your summary either way.

Okay they may be tough at times, but I say the more focus groups the better. Blissful ignorance gets you nowhere…

Steve Porter, Sage Accountants’ Team

Before you get carried away this is not the latest J.K Rowling book, or indeed any other form of wizardry, Gartner Magic Quadrants are an industry recognised means of offering a visual snapshot of a market’s direction, maturity and participants.

With a huge variety of ERP software products available, it is important for prospective and existing customers alike, to choose a business solution that not only satisfies their needs on features and price, but also on the vendors security in the market, product strategy and innovation, to name but a few.

Market analysts

This is where market analysts add huge value to software procurement, as they provide visibility on software strategy that would not be available to individual companies, largely due to vast cost of this research and the sensitivity that typically surrounds product development.

At Sage, our aim is to provide our prospective customers with the information needed to select a software product and supplier that is the correct choice for their business, which is why it is important to ensure that the breadth and depth of features available in Sage ERP X3 are well communicated.

When assessing a software supplier, Gartner looks at the vendors ‘Ability to Execute’ and the ‘Completeness of Vision’ to asses ERP products against other solutions available in the market place, this helps determine software vendors as Niche Players, Visionaries, Challengers and Leaders.

Sage ERP X3

Sage ERP X3 has been in the UK market for nearly 2 years now, and we were given the status of Niche Player in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for ERP for Product-Centric Midmarket Companies* in December 2010. As a new product to the market Sage ERP X3 was evaluated based on its ability to execute and completeness of vision.

Graeme Edwards, Head of Commercial Marketing explains how important it is for Sage to gain independent assessment from Market analysts for the benefit of our customers;

‘We are very proud to have been named a Niche Player by Gartner, as we believe it confirms that Sage ERP X3 is considered as a global Enterprise Resource Planning solution for the mid-market.  Last year our commercial marketing teams accessed over 180 market reports and we utlilised 6 toolkits, all of which were used to inform our strategic direction and market forecasts.

We can also use Gartner to ‘re-enforce’ the strategic decisions we make – when Gartner releases key statements or reports on certain topics (mobility, or cloud for example) we can refer to these to demonstrate we are a forward thinking and innovative company, and are delivering exactly what the market requires.  Leveraging research from Gartner and other industry analysts is a key component to our success and standing in the market’.

Julia Commons, Sage ERP Team

*Gartner, Inc., Magic Quadrant for ERP for Product-Centric Midmarket Companies, Christian Hestermann, et al, December 17, 2010.  Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.