Yesterday's Sage East Africa Conference: 'Innovation Beyond Boundaries' attracted over 100 existing and potential customers to the Sankara Hotel, in Nairobi.
The event was a platform for Sage Pastel International to launch two exciting new ERP modules to the Kenyan market: Evolution Mobile and Evolution Service Manager. The conference also showcased Evolution Manufacturing and Evolution Business Intelligence.
Sage Evolution, the enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool from one of the world's leading providers of business management software to small and medium sized companies, has been welcomed by customers since it was launched in East Africa in early 2000. It attracts local entrepreneurs and business owners because it helps them move beyond accounting as their businesses grow into more strategic, forward-looking organisations.
Customers who are already familiar with Evolution's strong core accounting functionality were delighted with the new additions to the program.
Nikki Summers, Sage Pastel's East Africa regional manager, said in a dynamic market like Kenya, businesses were constantly changing and modernising to be more competitive, and Sage Pastel had to be right alongside them, helping them set the pace. She described a typical sales scenario with Evolution Mobile to demonstrate how it extends business beyond the office and into the field.
"A salesperson can use customised dashboards to instantly access real-time customer and inventory on their handheld device. A quick search will give them item quantities and prices, allowing them to create on-the-spot quotes. Customers can accept terms by physically signing a handheld tablet for instance, so deals can be negotiated and closed in one meeting."
She said Sage Evolution's mobile applications were the only mobile sales tools on the market today to offer both online and offline modes, allowing the programs to operate even when users are out of 3G range, and still ensure an automated and seamless integration back into Sage Evolution ERP.
Conference attendees also witnessed Sage Evolution's Quote on Air in action, the perfect tool for more detailed quotes. It combines desktop software with a cloud-based portal, allowing sales staff to create custom quote templates that are automatically uploaded to the Quote on Air Web space. All the salesperson has to do then is log into the portal and use the templates to produce professional and standardised proposals and quotes, which customers can accept online.
Summers described it as exactly the right tool to increase the productivity and efficiency of workers who travel more and spend more time out of the office with suppliers and customers. "It extends your organisation's borders so that your staff can transact anywhere, anytime," she said.
As for Sage Evolution Service Manager, it is a fully integrated solution that helps businesses schedule and manage the rental, servicing, repair and maintenance of assets, either for customers or for in-house assets in capital-intensive industries such as agriculture and mining.
The conference also showcased Sage Evolution's Retail POS, Branch Accounting, Inventory Optimisation and the Advanced Manufacturing module, among other up-to-the-minute functionality.
Share