Sage Insights annual conference imminent

"The conference brings together Sage ERP business partners from South Africa as well as all English-speaking Africa and the Middle East, local and international Sage staff and third-party developers from around the world, for four days of networking and sharing of information.

It serves as the ideal platform for industry players to gain insight into Sage's plans for 2014 and what to expect in terms of trends and product developments in the fields of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Business Intelligence (BI). During 2013 Sage ERP Africa took over responsibility for the management of the Middle East region and, for the first time, we will be joined by our business partners from that region," said Jeremy Waterman, MD of Sage ERP Africa and Sage Middle East.

The theme for this year is Dare to Disrupt. "As a major ERP player, we continually need to be aware of disruptive forces in the market and adapt our solutions accordingly. Currently, the power of the cloud and connected services changes the playing field and it will be one of the most disruptive forces to be aware of in 2014," said Waterman.

Himanshu Palsule, chief technology officer, Sage North America, will address the release of Sage 300 ERP 2014 and the roadmap for Sage 300 ERP. The solution has demonstrated great progress during the last year, in particular the strategies around Sage cloud, cloud hybrid, mobile and connected services. Palsule's presentation will highlight the opportunities that exist for Sage and their ISVs and business partners to work together to deliver customised cloud solutions to customers.

Keynote addresses

Keynote addresses will also be delivered by: Amanda Jobbins, chief marketing officer of Sage, on the Sage Global Brand strategy; Christophe Vanackere, director of international operations of Sage ERP X3, on the new features and functionality of the soon-to-be-released Sage ERP X3 V7; and Tom Nolan, head of Sage CRM On-Premise, who will focus on the exciting road ahead for Sage CRM.

Some of the highlights expected include updates to Sage Inventory Advisor, Sage Enterprise Intelligence, Sage 300 Service and Sage 300 Manufacturing and the alignment of the Sage vertical solutions across Sage 300 ERP and Sage ERP X3.

Waterman concluded: "The conference promises not only to be highly informative, but also a celebration of a very busy year during which we have seen Sage establish itself as the brand leader in the supply of effective business solutions to small and medium-sized businesses throughout the African continent."

For more information, go to www.sageerp.co.za.