The Bottom Line & Sage

Paul C

Did anyone catch the Bottom Line on radio 4 tonight ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014qnwx

Guy Berruyer, chief executive of Sage Group was a guest. There were some interesting bits about Sage and how he views the service they provide - mostly in the second half. He was very open ( and I am not just saying that because apparently they employ someone in the UK to scan the internet, twitter etc to see what people are saying about them.....)

Monsoon

I'm never going to get time to watch this - please can you summarise? Would be very interesting!

Paul C

With delegation skills like that Jenny you should add consultant interim senior manager to your practice services ;-) lol

It flew by but basically ( if I remember correctly ) -

He said you could give the software away really
People are not paying for the software but telephone support
Software is different in each country ( laws etc )
Sage employ a Uk person full time to monitor what is said about them online and address it
The rest was really his outlook on a range of wider business issues

Hope that helps
Cheers
Paul

Monsoon

Thanks Paul - and I realise my above post sounded a bit brusque - apologies!

Interesting what he said about support. I've been using Sage (not my choice - at clients) for 7 years now and I have needed to phone the helpline once. I have never known anyone to buy support.

It's widely known that Sage's ongoing support costs are very expensive. It still baffles me that, with the range of other packages available, Sage are still doing as well as they are.

Dear full time UK person who is paid to read this: hi

Rinske

Monsoon wrote: »

Dear full time UK person who is paid to read this: hi

I like this one!

Does sound like a bit of an odd job to be searching the internet all the time to see what they say about your company.

Monsoon

Rinske wrote: »

Does sound like a bit of an odd job to be searching the internet all the time to see what they say about your company.

I think it's an essential for a company these days. For a large company, I can see it being a full time job.

I have google alerts set up on my name and my company name, and my competitors names, or businesses I admire, so I can see what is being said about people online. If anything negative comes up, I can see it straight away and address it if need be.

So much now is done on recommendation on the internet, and internet phenomenons on even the oddest or mundane things spread like wildfire.

Rinske

So true!

My company has a social media person, but that's more about what gets posted and said on behalf of the company on their facebook account. I assume he might do something similar without it being said.

Maybe I should consider a career that way, as I just pretty much killed my career within the company anyways... Anyone got a job for me?

Paul C

Google alerts - I must look into that!

I have found adwords great & am currently looking at Google places.

( Jenny , I was only teasing earlier in the thread - I am glad to have a chance to try and give back some of the help you ( and some other regular's ) give on these forums).