In line with Sage Enterprise Solutions' recent move towards a full channel model, long-standing Sage partner PQ Tetra is gearing up to provide enhanced Business Management System (BMS) turnkey solutions to the burgeoning SME sector.
Already in the offing are enhanced nationwide service, support and training programmes and an Application Service Provider (ASP) initiative - an area, which according to PQ Tetra divisional manager, Stephen Howe, holds immense business opportunities as companies increasingly take advantage of cost-effective off-site software application hosting.
Howe says that Sage's new channel model has also allowed PQ Tetra to extend its area of business development. "Where we've traditionally had our own in-house business developers, we are now using our holding company PQ Africa as one of our main sources to market. This sees us going from two to close on 40 business developers and the move is already allowing us to penetrate new markets."
Contrary to press speculation that BMS - or ERP as it was historically termed - is on the wane, or even moribund according to some critics, Howe says that the company is noticing huge upswings in market activity in the SME space. "It must be stressed though that vendors can no longer compete on a per-product-basis; customers require turnkey solutions that allow for total integration of their core applications and ancillary components such as report writing applications and Web tools," he says.
"Thus, our strong partnerships with many other complementary vendors. We are also extending our training programmes to accommodate these developments. In fact, our support staff have many years of combined experience, not only on the Sage suite of products (PQ Tetra being the only accredited Sage training institution on the continent), but are also accredited to support products such as those offered by Seagate and Cognos."
According to Ashley Ellington, divisional manager at Sage Enterprise Solutions South Africa, the company's recent metamorphosis was in response to customer demand for a total turnkey solution, with Sage being the core of the business solution. "In fact, our success can be attributed to a number of factors, most notably our ability to offer solutions which feature significantly lower consulting and licencing costs; rapid deployment due to pre-configured, proven industry solutions; lower investment in hardware; and ease of integration with new industry-specific software modules."
PQ Tetra has a strong geographic footprint with service and support centres in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town - the latter being the company software development centre. For a number years now the company has maintained a customer prioritised development team (CPD) who develop software code for Sage internationally.
"As the only other Sage development house outside the UK, PQ maintains several full-time software developers who have a wealth of expertise and knowledge of Sage products," adds Howe. "Apart from the business potential in being able to develop and export software, the CPD team add immense value from a local service and support perspective. In fact, our relationship with Sage has grown in leaps and bounds of late whereby we now have some 48 employees focusing solely on Sage solutions."
"We've also gone through an enormous development process over the last four years in defining an implementation methodology. This is a living document - having been taken through many implementations - and we can now confidently say that our implementations will be on time, within budget and to expectation."
PQ Tetra is also looking at taking BMS into the evolving wireless and e-world. "A current initiative is extending Sage's already highly successful Web client and sales modules to SMS KPI reports. Using Sage software in a WAP environment could be used for remote reporting and messaging," says Howe.
Share
