These days it seems like most, if not all technology products are getting smaller and more powerful, smaller and faster, smaller and less expensive, smaller and smarter, smaller and better connected.
In business software we’re seeing the same trend, away from the large monolithic systems of old, towards smaller, more targeted “apps” with a specific purpose. These apps connect to other apps and work together to form a larger overall “integrated solution”.
I first noticed this “smaller and connected” trend a few years ago when I worked in the ERP industry. We started seeing smaller accounting systems being used by larger and larger businesses. How could this happen? The answer was and is that the smaller accounting system is plugged into add-on solutions that enable the combined solution to cater to the specific requirements of the industry or user.
In the case of my company’s Datagate Billing Solution, we’ve decided on a product strategy where we focus on the rating and billing piece of the solution for telecom and other utility resellers, and leave the accounting, CRM, and business management functions to other popular solutions dedicated to those purposes. This means each software company focuses on what it’s good at and the integrations between the software packages enable them all to work as a single “integrated” solution.
Being integrated with other popular software products also increases our appeal to prospective customers who already use those products. This in turn leads to partnerships with those software vendors, as per the topic of my previous blog article.
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is a well known statement that I partly agree with. It implies that powerful business networks are all that matters, but I would argue that you also need a good reputation and a strong value proposition to go with it.
Can you imagine how hard it would be to be successful in business with a strong network but a bad reputation? The strong network would certainly ensure that nobody would do business with you.
Building your business network and building your reputation go hand in hand. You must invest in both throughout your career. Doing this will make your business career easier and more rewarding as time goes on.
I am very fortunate to have worked for the last 30 years within the same closely connected industry sectors and have built up networks throughout New Zealand, Australia, USA, Canada and other countries. I consider my participation and membership of these networks to be a major asset, that I would argue is worth millions of dollars – certainly that would be the cost of rebuilding networks of that size and reach.
By staying within the same industry sectors throughout my career, the networks that I have built up over time are now shared with and valuable to my company and employer, Datagate Innovation.
To maintain any asset, you must continue to invest in it. Datagate and I continue to invest in our networks through participation in industry events, conferences, newsletters, Social Media and industry networking groups.
Ryan Ashton, AFQY
This month, Datagate signed up with a New Zealand ICT networking group called AFQY (A Few Quiet Yarns). It’s leader, Ryan Ashton is a prolific networker and LinkedIn guru. AFQY has strict rules, such as “no selling allowed” and “meet as many people as you can” in place for the networking events, that are held in bars at strategic locations around the countryside. The events are great opportunities to invite people from the respective regions around New Zealand to come in, have a drink and get to meet and talk with new industry contacts.
My advice to people at all stages of their career, is to keep investing in your networks and reputation. Make sure all your business deals are a winner for all parties where possible, whether the deal is with an employer, colleague, customer, investor, supplier, partner or acquirer of your business – that way you are building a positive network, not a negative one. Get out and meet new people on a regular basis – join networking groups and associations. Keep investing…
Given my location in New Zealand and all the earthquakes that have occurred here recently, I’m not sure if it’s in good taste for me to talk about “seismic shifts” in business, but that’s certainly how I would describe the enormous change in consumer behavior that’s been evolving over the last decade and which is still evolving rapidly at this time.
The Cloud and smart phones have influenced customers’ attitudes and expectations. Consumers now expect a more immediate service experience and they are more inclined to subscribe to services than in previous decades. I refer to this as transition to the “usage economy”.
The “usage economy” is that which is based on consumers paying to use a product or service. Rather than buying an asset, they are more inclined to just pay for the use of that asset. The amount they pay is usually based on how much they use the product or service. This is the fundamental business model of the Cloud, on-line services, IoT, utilities and many other business categories (both new and old). This is the “usage economy” and this is where fast business growth is happening.
An interesting development within the “usage economy” is the emergence of service re-sellers. These re-sellers are businesses that typically have existing customer bases, maybe they are I.T. service companies or support organizations, utility re-sellers or agencies. These service re-sellers have the opportunity to aggregate numerous complementary services within their offering, to become a one-stop service shop – in the same way bricks & mortar shops sell numerous products to a defined customer demographic. Combining services, gives them more sales traction, more opportunities for increasing their sales margin and differentiating themselves from their competitors.
My company, Datagate is in the business of Usage Billing for Re-Sellers. We provide a white-label, on-line billing and reporting portal that connects to usage information and generates bills and reports that can be accessed by the re-seller and their customers via on on-line, re-seller-branded portal. Today we provide this essential service to re-sellers of telephony, utilities and on-line Cloud services, but the growth of the wider “usage economy” is bringing in new opportunities for us to service an increasing range of usage-based businesses.
This has been a momentous week for Enprise Group, with the sale of Enprise Software (our SAP-aligned software development business) and getting shareholder approval to allow new investors to invest directly in to Datagate (formerly a 100% subsidiary of Enprise Group).
These changes bring about a much stronger and sharper focus to each of the current and former Enprise Group businesses.
Enprise Solutions is the only business remaining 100% within Enprise Group and it is tightly focused on selling and supporting MYOB Enterprise software solutions to mid sized businesses in New Zealand and Australia. It has nearly 1,000 customers in total across both countries and is the clear market leader in New Zealand. Enprise Solutions is a strong, growing and profitable business that gives excellent support to its customers.
Enprise Software is now part of ProjectLine, a very successful North American SAP partner that is dedicated to sales and support of SAP Business One. That puts Enprise Software into a home much more aligned with it’s core business, which is Enprise Job for SAP Business One.
Datagate Innovation is now the master of its own destiny, with its own board of directors and its own shareholder base (including Enprise Group). My own personal focus is on working with the Datagate team to make this business a winner on a global scale. Datagate is all about monetising on-line services, the Cloud, billing and customer portals – an excellent focus for building value!
I see this as a very positive move that will benefit the customers and partners of Enprise Software, whilst enabling Enprise Group to consolidate its focus on its two remaining businesses, Enprise Solutions and Datagate Innovation.
ProjectLine has been a very active reseller of Enprise Software products in the Canadian market and their team has a high level of expertise in Enprise products as well as the North American SAP Business One market. Their branches across Canada put them in the right time zones to give superior support to Enprise Software partners and customers right across North America and beyond. All current Enprise Software staff members will be retained within the business and Enprise Software Inc. will be a separate entity within the ProjectLine group.
Most of Enprise Software’s partners and customers reside in North America, so will be better off by having more localised support. All of Enprise Software’s partners and customers will benefit from the bigger team now backing the Enprise products.
Derin Hildebrandt (pictured) and his team at ProjectLine are high quality professionals, with a lot of experience in the SAP Business One market. They have an excellent reputation and I’m certain that Enprise Software and its team, partners and customers are in good hands. I wish them all the best!
This month, Enprise co-founder and former CFO, Elliot Cooper has taken up the CEO role at Enprise Group and I have shifted to a new role as CEO of our Cloud start-up business, Datagate Innovation Ltd.
Elliot and I have worked together in a number of technology businesses, starting from PC Direct in the mid 1990’s, then Exonet (creating the software now known as MYOB EXO), then Datasquirt, Enprise and EMS-Cortex.
Elliot was the initial designer of our popular “Enprise Job” Job Costing module for SAP Business One. The product is often praised as having the best General Ledger integration of all the Project Costing modules available for Business One and this is thanks mainly to Elliot’s initial design.
After being the CEO for thirteen years, it makes a nice change for me to go back to running an early stage start-up business, along with another of my long-term colleagues, Steve Southon.
Enprise Group is in good hands with Elliot at the helm. Nobody knows that business better than he does and he’s been there right from the start.
This week Cathy Masters and I traveled to Austin, Texas and attended the ASUG SAP Business One Summit, along with Greg Robinson and Kevin Smith of Enprise America.
This annual ASUG event is a great opportunity to catch up with Enprise’s North American reseller partners along with their customers and prospects.
This year, Cathy and Kevin demonstrated the latest versions of Enprise Job and Enprise Anywhere to our partners and their prospects.
During one of the breakout sessions, Ron Mondor of Zantek IT and Moty Moshin of coresystems demonstrated a fully integrated mobile job costing solution, comprising coresuite time, Enprise Job and SAP Business One.
Enprise Software has recently partnered with USA-based Pilot Solutions to be “Enprise North America”, offering local sales, technical and implementation support to North American Enprise channel partners.
The United States and Canada are very important, strategic markets for Enprise. Our new North American office offers local support in North American time zones. It gives our network of American and Canadian partners access to specialist resources that extend their own teams when dealing with Enprise add-ons. These include pre-sales engagements, marketing and lead development as well as implementation and consulting services.
In addition to our new local presence, we have some great new products, like “Enprise Anywhere” and “Enprise Job for SAP HANA” which we think will drive more sales for the North American channel.
Greg Robinson and Kevin Smith of Pilot Solutions (pictured above in Miami, Florida) have been friends of mine and the Enprise team for many years. They have an exceptionally good level of knowledge and experience around Enprise products and the SAP Business One channel.
I’m extremely glad to have Greg, Kevin and the Pilot team working in North America, as part of the Enprise team.
Enprise‘s development team has recently switched to using an SAP HANA development environment, hosted by I-BN.
We have been delighted with the quality of service that we’ve received from Gary Feldman and his team at I-BN. They are very responsive to our requests and have deep expertise in the software and technology they are working with.
Based in Georgia USA, I-BN are specialists in hosting business software in the Cloud. In particular they specialize and have many years of experience in hosting SAP Business One and the SAP HANA platform.
Enprise Group has a proven strategy and track record when it comes to building successful, valuable software businesses. We are listed on the NZAX, we are based in New Zealand and Australia, – and we deliver software solutions to businesses around the world.
I recently recorded this video to outline what we do.
Mark Loveys 