Sage was one of the pioneers of the PC revolution, having gotten its start in England back in 1981. The founder, David Goldman, saw an opportunity to automate accounting processes – and convinced several Newcastle University students to help him with the coding.
Well, the timing was spot-on and it did not take long for Sage to grow. After all, by the late 1980s, the company was publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. And then ten years later, Sage would become a member of the elite FTSE 100.
But as is the case with many tech operators, the company would get mature and fairly stale. It seemed that management was more interested in preserving its market share and dividends. For the most part, the strategy was to be mostly defensive and reactive.
However, given the intense competitive environment, the approach was certainly dangerous. So to rev things up again and get Sage back to its innovative roots, Stephen Kelly took the helm of the company about a year ago. No doubt, he has wasted little time in making bold decisions.
“My aim has been to make a break from the past,” said Stephen. “We need to be mobile, social and in the cloud. We also need speed, speed and speed.”
OK, this may seem like just a bunch of corporate mush. In fact, when I met Stephen at Dreamforce, I noticed that he was wearing socks that had colorful cloud designs. Oh, and he was doing daily Twitter Periscope videos where he answered questions. He was even giving away lollipops that had the initials ERP -- with a red line through it!
Fun, yes... but was this all real?
I actually think so. Keep in mind that Stephen has followed up his messages with transformative moves.
Just look at what he has done with Sage Live. From inception to launch, the offering took a mere 26 weeks to complete. That’s right, only 26 weeks.
Yet it was not the typical development project. Instead, Stephen formed a strategic agreement with Salesforce.com to leverage the company’s sophisticated UI, social technologies and mobile capabilities. “I wanted to end our 3-to-5 year product cycle at Sage,” he said. “I wanted to show that it was possible to create software at lighting speed.”
For the most part, Sage Live is a real-time accounting system, providing access across platforms like the web, smartphones, tablets and even the Apple Watch. With it, a user gets a single view of the business, allowing for better and quicker decisions. It’s also super-easy to share information across the organization. Actually, Stephen likes to say it is as simple as using Facebook.
Now the success of this partnership strategy should not be surprising. Companies like Apple have demonstrated the extreme power of relying on an ecosystem. But this can nonetheless be a tough thing for tech companies to do, especially those in the software space. There is often the proverbial “not invented here” mentality.
But for Stephen, this only means more waiting and waiting. “Our customers run small and medium size businesses,” he said. “These entrepreneurs work extremely hard and make sacrifices. So they deserve the most amazing technology we can provide them.”
Tom Taulli (@ttaulli) is an Enrolled Agent and the founder of BizDeductor, which offers services and apps to help save a bundle on taxes.
