Season Greetings.

Dear Values Customers & Supplier,

Another year is coming to end, and a new year is on the verge of beginning and the holiday season approaches.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued partnership. It is business associates like you who make our jobs a pleasure and keep our company successful.

May your holiday season and the New Year be filled with much joy, happiness and success. We look forward to working with you in the coming year and hope our business relationship continues for many years to come.

Happy holidays!

Management & Staffs

May your Christmas sparkle with moments of love, laughter & goodwill. And may the year ahead be full of contentment & joy.

Sage Products gets New Names.

Sage Re-Branding

Sage is rebranding most products in its portfolio to be consistent with their naming conventions worldwide. However, there may be some confusion as, for example, Sage has a product in the UK called Sage 100 ERP and what we know as MAS 90 in US today will become Sage 100. The two products are completely different but Sage’s hope is that they are different customer sets and the confusion will be minimal….

We in Asia need not be concern about the confusion as we have only one (1) product that is Sage Accpac name change.

Sage ERP Accpac becomes Sage 300 ERP

Old Name                                                                   New Name
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Sage ERP Accpac 100                                    Sage 300 Standard ERP

Sage ERP Accpac 200                                    Sage 300 Advanced ERP

Sage ERP Accpac 500                                    Sage 300 Premium ERP

The other product will be Sage ERP X3, newly introduced to our market.

This rebranding shouldn’t have much effect on our clients, but clearly you may be surprised to see these new names and new terms. Please call us if you have any questions about this.
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Sage Asia Premier Partner Award for 2011.

Sage Asia Premier Partner Award for 2011.

We want to thank our valued customers for your invaluable support over the years. We are honored to announce that we have been awarded the Sage Asia Premier Partner 2011.

The award was given out during the Sage Vision 2011 conference held in Royal Orchid Sheraton, Bangkok, which was attended by business partners from all over Asia

Thank you again for your support and look forward to a prosperous year as we go into the year of the 2012!

Boss Day on October 17

I guess that very few people knows that there is a "Boss Day". They will know about  "Secretary day" but Boss Day, unheard off until i read in The Starpaper this evening. I guess that bosses are not very popular judging from the Boss jokes that is circulating around. :)

Remember this poem when we used to send around and still do when we were not yet become boss? Have a good laugh!! See below.

Differences Between You and Your Boss

When you take a long time, you're slow.
When your boss takes a long time, he's thorough.
When you don't do it, you're lazy.
When your boss doesn't do it, he's too busy.
When you make a mistake, you're an idiot.
When your boss makes a mistake, he's only human.
When doing something without being told, you're overstepping your authority.
When your boss does the same thing, that's initiative.
When you take a stand, you're being bull-headed.
When your boss does it, he's being firm.
When you overlooked a rule of etiquette, you're being rude.
When your boss skips a few rules, he's being original.
When you please your boss, you're apple polishing.
When your boss pleases his boss, he's being co-operative.
When you're out of the office, you're wandering around.
When your boss is out of the office, he's on business.
When you're on a day off sick, you're always sick.
When your boss is a day off sick, he must be very ill.
When you apply for leave, you must be going for an interview.
When your boss applies for leave, it's because he's overworked
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http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=%2F2011%2F10%2F16%2Fnation%2F9707418&sec=nation

Hyundai Construction Equipment moves from Excel to new CRM

Hyundai Construction Equipment moves from Excel to new CRM that integrates to their Sage ERP Accpac

Construction company Hyundai Construction Equipment Australia (HCEA) has moved from using Excel spreadsheets for client management to implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Systems Manager, Matt Golby, said the upgrade is the first step in HECA’s move to the Cloud, and that it was necessary after staff communication became problematic.

“The CRM is the first tool that we’ve put in through the net and the rest is systems based and driven back through the internet… Cloud services will provide a more user friendly platform for us,” he said.

“With this CRM portal we’re using, it provides us with flexibility, and [beforehand] it was very stagnant because we couldn’t communicate back to our management team.”

After informally looking at a few companies, Golby said he chose Sage as a vendor because of HECA’s use of the vendor's ERP Accpac.

“We didn’t get anyone else involved, but we did have a look with other offerings like Salesforce and SAP, but to go down that path we probably would have changed our whole environment and systems,” he said.

“Sage was a natural progression for us [because of] the cost benefits we incurred and [because] the... package itself works well.”

Six ways to get your employees to use CRM software

With some 70 staff in Australia and a dealer network extending to Papua New Guinea, the rollout at HECA was fairly slow, Golby said.

“We took baby steps with this and... we made sure that it was an easy transition for staff so they could go from an Excel environment to more of a systems environment that could integrate between departments,” he said.

Next on Golby’s agenda is a continued effort to embrace mobility, with HECA now looking at implementing a tablet strategy.

“The next step for us is to look at tablets between now and when Sage CRM provides services in a tablet form,” he said. “We’re looking at using iPads and taking that next step and... the business is looking at taking its next step in upgrades.”

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/403394/hyundai_construction_equipment_moves_from_excel_new_crm/

Steve Job - A passing of a Legend

A Tribute Artwork to Steve Job that has becomes Viral

This is a terrific article about Jobs. A long interview last year with Sculley: http://www.cultofmac.com/63295/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-the-full-interview-transcript/
He emphasizes how much Jobs was a DESIGNER. Design is what mattered to him. This one of several passages that really struck me:

"The thing that separated Steve Jobs from other people like Bill Gates — Bill was brilliant too — but Bill was never interested in great taste. He was always interested in being able to dominate a market. He would put out whatever he had to put out there to own that space. Steve would never do that. Steve believed in perfection. Steve was willing to take extraordinary chances in trying new product areas but it was always from the vantage point of being a designer."

The unusual mix of design talent with a personality that could "warp reality" around people he was wooing, and also be stubborn as hell is what made him the force he was.

It also helped that made a mountain of money early, so that he could keep control longer than most entrepreneurs.

I've read a lot of retrospectives on Jobs today. I think it's relevant to what WE want to do with our Sage-related business. Jobs and Gates will always be linked together, but I suspect that Jobs will be remembered for his industry influence long past Gates. And yet Gates built a far larger business. I suspect that Gates will ultimately be remembered, 100 years from now, much as Carnegie is remembered: for his impact on philanthropy.

From the Sculley interview:

"Steve’s point of reference was Sony at the time [early 80's]. He really wanted to be Sony. He didn’t want to be IBM. He didn’t want to be Microsoft. He wanted to be Sony.

... It was always an end-to-end system with Steve. He was not a designer but a great systems thinker. That is something you don’t see with other companies."

Which leads me to the strategy question I'm pondering now: what sort of firm would SmartBridge Partners be if we focused much, much more on the final user experience, the DESIGN experience? I am a "recovering engineer" and this is hard ...

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Jerry Norman : CEO at SmartBridge Partners, A Sage Partner.
Comapny Website : http://www.smartbridgepartners.com/

A guide to successful software implementation from MISys Manufacturing

Of the 7000+ software installations we have performed, the most successful implementations came from businesses that did their homework! It boils down to these critical steps:


Define Goals

What are your pain points? And what would success look like? Invite others into the conversation and listen to multiple perspectives.

Get and Maintain Buy-In

Consider the impact on the organization and make sure you have buy-in from the top to bottom. Revisit and reinforce the commitment to a new software implementation every step of the way. If you don’t have it, don’t do it.

Don’t “Buy the Brochure” - Get the Real Story

Most marketing materials make software seem about the same. They’re not. Get a demo of the software. Ask the hard questions and make sure it meets your needs. Find what fits and what doesn't.

Assemble Your Implementation Team

This team will make sure that the software they selected will be implemented without surprises and on time. Everyone on the team will have an important role to play,

but it will be vital to assign one very capable person with the time and authority to manage the implementation. If you’re not confident that you have the proper expertise on staff, don’t wing it. Consider outsourcing
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Source: http://misysmfg.blogspot.com/2011/09/top-tips-guide-to-successful-software.html
Free download:  http://www.misysinc.com/support/assets/pdf/MISysPrep_03_team.pdf

Universiti Tun Abdul Razak Selected Careware System Sdn Bhd to implement Sage ACCPAC ERP.

Petaling Jaya, 25 August 2011. Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (Unitar) is one of the first private universities in Malaysia. The university welcomed its first batch of 162 students in September 1998. On 21st December 1998, the university was officially launched by Tun Abdul Razak's eldest son, the then Minister of Education YB. Dato' Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak.

Since its inception, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak has proven herself to be the Centre of Excellence in fostering Managerial Leadership and Entrepreneurship in the Development of Human Capital through Quality Research, Teaching and Learning, and Professional Services. With more than 8,000 students studying in 55 academic programs at the diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate levels, the university prides itself in developing relevant programs to meet today's needs. The next phase of growth will see even more students and programs at various levels at the university.

In view of the university projected growth Unitar embarked on a software selection exercise to replace their current ERP system which was not able to handles thei unique requirements of the education industry. Various top brands of ERPs has been short listed and demoed and after an extensive evaluation process Unitar selected Careware Systems Sdn Bhd to implement the Sage Accpac ERP for entire university. The first phase will see the following modules install at the PINTAR campus in Petaling Jaya.

Sage Accpac ERP Modules comprises :

The Financial suites include, System Manger, General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Cash Book, Fixed Assets Management, and Fixed Asset Maintenance.

Operational suites include Purchase requisition, Purchase Order, Document Flow, Inventory Control and Optional fields and Transactional analysis. Work flows for purchasing operation with multiple approval flows and checking of funds allocation for budgetary controls.

Careware customized programs include, Amortization of fees, Advanced Allocation, Profit sharing and Allocation, Consolidated Purchase Order from difference database.

According to a spokesman, “we selected Careware because of the company track records and experiences in the Education sector. Careware has successfully implemented Sage ERP for many of the universities in Malaysia who has vouched for her. The other factor was that Sage is one of the top three ERP software company in the world. We are confident that there will be continuity in R & D and enhancement of the Sage ERP software that we rely upon to run our entire business for long term basis”.

In the second phase Careware will help in interfacing with the existing front office software as well as looking into POS systems for the bookshops and web/internet access requirement for our agents.

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Note : Sage Acppac ERP is the registered trademark of Sage Group PLC. Microsoft SQL is a register trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Sage ERP and CRM Portfolio Update: Clarity at Last

Technology Evaluation Centers' (TEC's) recent three-part blog series focused on the general sessions of Sage North America's Analyst Day in Boston in February 2011. At that winter event, Sage, nine years since its last analyst summit, took a gigantic step forward in clarifying its position in the market. Prior to the analyst day, during its Insights 2010 user conference, Sage had come up with its own extraordinary customer experience (ECE) three-pronged strategy dubbed "Enrich, Connect, Grow" (see Figure 1). Enrich refers to maximizing performance of existing information technology (IT) assets (Sage products), while Connect is about incremental growth via the connected (cloud-based software) services. Finally, Grow is all about new customer acquisition, by various means.

                                              Figure 1.

This article covers the afternoon of Sage's Analyst Day 2011, which consisted of several concurrent sessions that focused on various horizontal product lines and vertical solutions. Each breakout session was presented through the prism of aligning the product line with the overall corporate "Enrich, Connect, Grow" strategic framework.

Making Sense of Sage's Hefty ERP Portfolio

The first breakout session that I elected to attend was the presentation by Laurie Schultz, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Sage Business Solutions' mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. Sage North America's ERP division has a significant ecosystem of more than 75,000 customers paying 8 million of their employees every 2 weeks and processing 300,000 credit card transactions. In the North America region, the vendor also has over 2,000 value-added resellers (VARs) and 500 independent software vendor (ISV) partners.

While having a hefty number of ERP solutions in its portfolio has traditionally presented an integration and positioning puzzle for Sage, it has also given the vendor the ability to cover more ground, being able to offer solutions for the lower mid-market all the way through upper mid-market enterprises, for both local and global operations (according to customer preference). Today, there are many migration paths between these products (with investment protection pricing arrangements by Sage), and these ERP solutions also tend to cover diverse verticals.

Sage North America has recently simplified its ERP portfolio positioning into three tiers (see Figure 2).

                                      Figure 2.
Sage ERP MAS: The Lower End


The Sage ERP MAS product line serves the lower end of the mid-market for companies with local operations in the light manufacturing and assembly and healthcare segments. These products are the most mature and the least technologically advanced of all Sage ERP products, but come with the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO). Converted into subscription equivalent pricing, Sage ERP MAS 90 software can cost as little as US$67/user/month (for 10 users over 7 years, in this example).

Sage ERP MAS 90 and Sage ERP MAS 200 will be enhanced in 2011 and 2012 via SageCRM, Sage Intelligence, and Sage Advisor capabilities as well as via the connected services (which were explained in great detail in the aforementioned blog series). At the same time, somewhat behind the market trends, these products will be Web-enabled and, since November 2010 they support Microsoft SQL Server (in addition to their proprietary and esoteric ProvideX database).

Accpac in the Middle

Sage ERP Accpac and its hosted counterpart, Sage ERP Accpac Online, cover lower to core mid-market companies with multi-country operations (especially in English-speaking countries) and local processes in the light manufacturing, service, mining, and hospitality sectors. Sage ERP Accpac has about 45,000 customers, 250 ISV partners, and 1,000 resellers worldwide.

Compared with its MAS siblings, Sage ERP Accpac is technologically superior, is international (with a solid market share in Canada, South Africa, India, etc.), and offers more choices to customers. Its major modules are finance and operations, along with Sage customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence (BI) capabilities.

Accpac has long had three-tiered product architecture with separate user interface (UI), business logic, and database layers. The product supports the Pervasive, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle databases, and Microsoft Windows and Linux (both the Redhat and SuSE versions) as server operating systems (OSs).

As previously mentioned, Sage ERP Accpac offers the best of both worlds when it comes to deployment. Companies can select either on-premise or on-demand software deployment (with traditional perpetual license or subscription pricing) options and, if necessary, move between these relatively easily, since both product instances are delivered from one source code. Hence, Sage's partners can also offer a choice to their customers without users having to learn a new product.

In February 2011, Sage released Sage ERP Accpac Version 6.0 with a few major objectives, starting with the goal to increase the product's overall competitiveness. That goal is to be achieved via a new "pure Web" framework, browser-agnosticism (i.e., users can use either the classic UI or the new mobile-enabled Web UI), mobility support, embedded BI tools, simplified user/role personalization, and a blurred (integrated) CRM and ERP experience.

Another objective was to provide a compelling value proposition for the installed base by helping to alleviate users' major pain points. To that end, SData (Sage Data) integration technology and Google WebToolkit have been used for reporting and usability, and for the purposes of lower TCO. A smooth upgrade transition was made possible by introducing a new, optional Web-based UI layer that customers can adopt whenever they are ready. The Sage ERP Accpac Version 6.1 release is expected to make all core modules Web deployable (and browser agnostic).

Sage ERP X3: The Global Platform

Sage ERP X3 (formerly Adonix X3) has meanwhile become Sage's true global offering for the core mid-market to upper mid-market. The product is targeting companies in the following verticals: hard goods manufacturing, chemicals, food and beverage (F&B), life sciences, and wholesale distribution. Within the Sage Group, Sage ERP X3 has a collaborative governance board, global marketing and communications, global product management and research and development (R&D), and a global Sage ERP X3 practice.

The product is an extended ERP solution designed for international mid-market companies with advanced manufacturing and distribution needs. Sage ERP X3 comes in the following three pre-configured offerings:

1. Process Manufacturing Suite
2. Discrete Manufacturing Suite
3. Distribution Suite

With its open and scalable infrastructure, Sage ERP X3 is suitable for upper mid-market companies with up to 1,500 concurrent users. The product features a multi-tier, Web-oriented architecture (WOA), and supports multiple database, OS, and deployment models. With its Sage Application Framework for the Enterprise (SAFE) X3 platform, upon which partners can build their solutions, Sage ERP X3 resembles Microsoft Dynamics AX with its global platform play (Microsoft’s chosen ERP platform offering, previously detailed).

After Sage acquired former Adonix in 2005, the next major product release was Sage ERP X3 V5.0, which featured a major UI revamp, a Web 2.0 portal, Microsoft Office integration, embedded BI capabilities (from SAP BusinessObjects), and the Sage Visual Processes tool. The product was made available in 35 countries. (For more information, see my article "A Traditional 'Local Touch' Leader Espouses a More Global Vision.")

Sage ERP X3 V6 was released in 2010 with enhanced multi-legislation Representational State Transfer (REST) architecture, with availability in more than 50 countries. The product currently has 3,000 customers, and its ecosystem consists of 1,500 consultants and 200 partners.

Sage ERP: Going Forward

To express Sage North America ERP through the prism of Sage's "Enrich, Connect, and Grow" strategic framework, Enrich is about maximizing performance of existing assets. To that end, Sage has made major efforts to shore up its existing install base. Using an internally adopted Net Promoter Score (NPS) (briefly described in our blog series) on a scale of 1 to 10, Sage has reportedly grown so-called evangelists (customers answering 9 or 10) by 5 percent, while at the same time reducing so-called detractors (customers who respond 1 to 6, who are unlikely to recommend Sage's products or partners to their peers) by 7 percent.

The vendor hopes to gain economies of scale by leveraging common modules and technologies, such as SData and Google WebToolkit. This approach should help in terms of quality, usability, TCO, reporting, functionality, etc., as well as promoting favorable NPS metrics.

Connect refers to growing revenue per customer or share of wallet (SoW) through various connected services. The idea is to add value for customers by bridging their on-premise ERP systems to cloud-based solutions, for merchant payments, employee payments, and sales and marketing purposes (as explained elsewhere). Grow is about acquiring new customers by exploiting unique differentiating traits in terms of vertical solutions, sales channel areas of expertise and geographic reach, and the relative complexity of customer businesses.

Sage CRM: Wising Up to the Cloud

Another afternoon session that I attended was the update on Sage's CRM solutions by Joe Bergera, then Executive Vice President and General Manager of Contact Management Solutions, and Larry Ritter, Senior Vice President and General Manager Global Product Management and Marketing, Sage CRM Solutions. Contrary to its ERP counterpart, Sage's CRM portfolio is straightforward to position and has always had a global nature. The portfolio is constituted from only two acquisitions (former Interact Commerce SalesLogix and Accpac), compared with the umpteen ERP and accounting acquisitions Sage has made in North America alone.

Sage's family of three CRM solutions supports over 75,000 businesses and 3.6 million users with a wide range of business requirements. Sage ACT!, a popular contact management product, is used by small business owners and sales, marketing, and other professionals, often sold on an individual (1:1 and 1:many) basis. The product serves 56,000 small businesses and 2.8 million individual users.

For their part, SageCRM and Sage SalesLogix together serve nearly 20,000 corporations and 850,000 users. While SageCRM targets the users in finance and back-office operations, Sage SalesLogix is primarily a sales and marketing and front-office operations tool.

CRM Market Trends

Sage is cognizant of the key trends in CRM, primarily the consumerization of business. This translates into modern CRM systems that incorporate social media, promoting user interaction that is personalized and intent-driven. Other trends are the need for predictive, ad-hoc, and real-time analytics as well as for business process optimization via turnkey configurable systems and role-based workflows.

Possibly the most prominent CRM trend is mobility—particularly device-independent mobility—with a rich user experience and allowing task-oriented user actions. Smartphones with Web browsers have become standard, since their ease of use and ready access encourage mobile CRM adoption, and there is increasing support for employees to use their own devices (as opposed to employer-supplied devices). Moreover, real-time updates reduce latency. Last but not least, the CRM software category has seen mainstream and ubiquitous adoption of cloud computing for its rapid deployment, flexibility of IT infrastructure, and buying and ownership options.

Sage's Response to CRM Trends

Thus, Sage's CRM strategic focus is to provide CRM solutions that are proactive, collaborative, adaptable, mobile, and services-enabled. Adaptability and services-enablement come from SData-enabled integration between Sage’s ERP and CRM products and to third-party solutions (services).

The aforementioned SData Framework is at the core of adaptive ERP and CRM integration with real-time data availability, whereby dynamic transactional data (e.g., prices, accounts, contacts, orders, etc.) are managed by ERP business logic using two-way synchronization. Static master data, such as products, units of measure (UOM), etc. are handled with one-way synchronization.

Relevant user experience and data consistency and control are preserved. ERP and CRM integration includes processes (cross-application workflow) and visibility (insight) across applications. For the latter, CRM users can hereby visualize back-office information in order to manage customer credit information, evaluate the invoice pipeline, etc.

Sage CRM systems’ proactive nature advances out of personalized and contextual user experience, with alerts for high-priority tasks and events. Task-relevant views drive user productivity and adoption. The aggregation and "publish and share" capabilities as well as advanced analytics with actionable insight also help in this regard.

Collaboration is achieved through expanded enterprise search capabilities. Search is a common CRM task, and the current speed, simplicity, and depth of search in Sage's CRM products matches a typical Web experience. Social media plug-ins, which are available today for Sage ACT!, Sage SalesLogix, and SageCRM, are another collaborative feature. They help users find and import information from social networks to create immediate awareness; the necessary actions are then assigned and tracked.

Mobile CRM has been enabled via the SData integration framework and with support for HTML5 to deliver ease of use and browser and device independence. Sage’s CRM products currently support several browsers—Safari, Firefox, and Chrome—and mobile devices—Apple iPhone and iPad, Google Android, and Blackberry OS6. Indeed, Sage's significant new competitive differentiators in the CRM market are SData-based integration for unified ERP and CRM and its mobile CRM capabilities, including ease of administration, device coverage, and price.

Sage SalesLogix Cloud

With its large market footprint, Sage CRM is positioning itself to play a leadership role in future waves of cloud computing adoption. Sage SalesLogix is another Sage product line, in addition to Sage ERP Accpac, that already offers multiple deployment options and has the same code available in on-premise and single-tenant cloud software editions.

The Sage SalesLogix Cloud CRM deployment offering is built upon the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) infrastructure. The offering has been available to new North American customers since June 2010 for US$65 per named user per month. Current Sage SalesLogix on-premise customers who wish to migrate to the cloud can do so for US$35 per named user per month. Multi-user and multi-year discounts are also available.

Sage has been expanding its CRM cloud solution to other regions. Sage SalesLogix Cloud provides buying and ownership experience choices. Companies that prefer to buy on-premise perpetual licenses do so for the lower TCO, existing IT infrastructure, regulation and compliance, and on-site control. On the other hand, some enterprises prefer to buy on-demand subscriptions for the instant on, the outsourced IT resources, payment flexibility, and reasons of operating expense (rather than capital expenditure).

As depicted on Figure 3, Sage SalesLogix Cloud is a subscription-based, hosted solution on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in a private instance for each tenant (customer). The cloud edition has a full SalesLogix feature set and is built on open standards. The private tenant setup in the database layer allows for upgrades to be controlled by customers at their preferred pace. Sage manages the cloud operations in terms of database tools, instance management, provisioning, network bandwidth, monitoring portal, recovery, support, etc. Given multi-tenancy on the application layers, Sage SalesLogix partners can get a piece of action by taking care of applications configuration, integration, customization, and administration.

                                                      Figure 3.
 
As a nice-to-have feature, 100 GB of storage is included, free, for every 50 users on an account (which other cloud CRM providers charge for). Additional storage is available to purchase (100 GB for US$50 per month). Users have an ample choice of subscription packages, starting with the functional scope of the user (e.g., core CRM, analytics, and remote use). There is additional pricing for some capacity-based capabilities, such as a customer portal, alerts, and e-marketing, and for some system services provided by Sage, such as a data staging environment and managed server.


Sage CRM Vision Aligned with Sage’s Global Strategic Framework
The vision for Sage's CRM Solutions is closely aligned with that of Sage North America and provides significant new opportunities. In terms of Sage's "Enrich, Connect, and Grow" strategic framework, for Sage North America CRM Enrich is about maximizing the performance of existing assets. To that end, Sage pledges to ensure best-in-class user and administrator usability, the highest possible rate of end-user adoption, and the lowest TCO.

Similarly as for Sage North America ERP, Connect refers to growing revenue per customer (or SoW) through various connected services and new features-as-a-service, where the features are adjacent and can be discovered and selected for download by users. Grow is about acquiring new customers via mobile CRM modules; fully integrated analytics with pre-built, role-based content; and integration via adaptive workflow with ERP and Sage Online business solutions.

Conclusion

This is not your older brother’s Sage. While in many ways Sage has stayed true to its values and principles, the vendor has judiciously embraced cloud computing and constructed a plausible future direction for its partners and customers that was hard to imagine before. Many mid-market companies in industries that Sage targets should inform themselves about the vendor’s most recent CRM and ERP enhancements, as they might be pleasantly surprised with the wealth of enhancements and capabilities.
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This is an informative article written by :
 P.J. Jakovljevic - May 13, 2011, from Technology Evaluation Centers' (TEC's).

Sage Summit 2011

It seem that one big announcement at Sage Summit 2011 conference that was held at Washington DC at the Gaylord Convention Center was streamlining the brand Sage across all the products. How and when this is going to take place perhaps we in Asia will be able to get a better picture of it in our own Asia Summit 2011 at Bangkok, Thailand scheduled in October.

Stephen Smith's blog about it and provide an excerps of the announcement in the keynote by Pascal Houlin's below:

Branding

In Pascal Houillon’s opening keynote, the first big announcement was the product branding announcement. Basically we have been marketing our products as things like Sage ERP MAS, Sage ERP Accpac, Sage Simply Accounting, Sage Peachtree, Sage Act!,Sage Saleslogix, etc. Now we are going to drop all the legacy product names (the MAS, Accpac, Peachtree, Act! part) and now combine all the separate marketing programs into one that will be focused on promoting the “Sage” brand. When partners are pursuing a new leads, often they will be competing with Microsoft, SAP or Oracle. All these companies have a strong brand and the customer will have heard of them. Having to establish who Sage is and what the company does puts you at a disadvantage. The primary goal of this change is to make Sage a well-known and respected company within North America like it is in many other parts of the world. The branding change allows us to combine our separate product marketing resources and launch large scale campaigns across North America that promote the Sage brand and as a consequence all the separate Sage products. Now hopefully when you are pursuing a new customer, they will already know who Sage is, and be willing to enter into a business relationship based on that knowledge. The other thing this does is help with cross-sell. Often if a customer has a Sage ERP product then we would like to sell them a Sage CRM or Sage HR product. But as it stands today the customer thinks they have MAS or Accpac and then selling them Abra or Saleslogix appears like completely unrelated products. We would rather they think they have Sage ERP and adding Sage CRM or Sage HR is just a natural thing to do.

Anyway there is a lot of emotion associated with all the individual Sage product brands, but it seems like here at the conference once people have a chance to think about these changes they see how they can benefit them.

REad all about it here at Stephen Smith's Blog : http://smist08.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/sage-summit-2011/

Service Manager 6.0A Release, Tuesday July 5th 2011.

Service Manager 6.0A Release, Tuesday July 5th 2011.


Technisoft would like to announce the release of Service Manager 6.0

Service Manager 6.0A contains all features introduced in the recently released 5.6B version. See the What's New in 6.0A for a brief list of those features.

Service Manager 6.0A also supports the new Fiscal Calendar that lets you lock and unlock fiscal years and periods separately for each Sage ERP Accpac program your company uses to process transactions.

We encourage all our Business Partners with customers using Service Manager 5.6A with Sage Accpac 6.0A to upgrade those clients to Service Manager 6.0A to maintain continuity immediately.

Those Business Partners that recently installed new Service Manager 5.6B sites, or recently upgraded customers to Service Manager 5.6B with Sage Accpac 6.0A, should consider upgrading to Service Manager 6.0A as well.

We also encourage all Service Manager 5.6A users to consider upgrading your customers to Service Manager 5.6B or 6.0A as soon as possible please, as these later versions contain many new features that are likely to be of great benefit to your them.

Note: Service Manager programs do not run in the 6.0 Sage Accpac Web Portal and must be run from the Sage Accpac System Manager Desktop.

UMW Equipment STREAMLINES OPERATION PROCESSES TO ACCOMMODATE PROJECTED GROWTH WITH SAGE ACCPAC ERP

UMW Equipment, the regional’s leading distributer  of Toyota Forklift and industrial equipments, selected Careware Systems to implemented Sage Accpac ERP with Service Manage add-on from Technisoft.

UMW Equipment, a wholly-owned subsidiary of UMW Group today signed the agreement for the supply and implementation of Sage Accpac ERP with Service Manager from Technisoft. Careware will provide the consultancy and customization of the entire suites of Sage Accpac ERP that is specially geared toward a service orientated business.

This is In line with the growth projection and in improving operational efficiency, productivity and streamlining the technology processes to accommodate future growth.

According to the General Manager for project who oversee the selections and implementation process, "UMW selected Sage Accpac ERP because it meets the sophisticated needs of UMW Equipment in the forklift and heavy equipment business which tracks sales, rental agreement, service agreement, complex configuration and warranty tracking which was catered for in its Service Manger module. With Service Manager we can also track WIP, tools and labor hour efficiency of individual or groups of service technicians. All these are fully integrated to the solid accounting functionality that Sage Accpac is renowned for. We believe that with the systems in place, it will go a long way to increase our competitiveness in the market place."

The agreement was signed by Mr. Lee Chin Min, Director of UMW Equipment & Engineering PTE. LTD and Robert Tan the Managing Partner of Careware Systems Sdn Bhd in a simple signing ceremony held at UMW premise.

“The solutions we offer is will be a multi-phase implementation and will be rolled out first in the Head quarter and then to other major branch offices throughout the country. We believe in a partnership for a win-win situation with UMW and we are proud to be associated with an illustrious company as UMW Equipment. We are committed to the successful implementation of the Sage Accpac ERP solution. As our customer success is our success.” says Robert Tan, Managing Partner, Careware.

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About CareWare Systems : Through its partnership with Sage, CareWare Systems helps small and mid-size companies in Malaysia reach productivity levels at the top of their respective industries. CareWare represents a variety of business management software including Sage Accpac ERP, SageCRM, and Technisoft Service Manager Software. For companies interested in growth, profitability and superior software support, CareWare is the Sage business partner for you. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.careware.com.my/.

An Engineering Company Optimizes Project Administration and Accounting with Sage Accpac ERP.

Dolphin Engineering (m) Sdn Bhd is one of the leading engineering companies based in Selangor. She is the dominant Solution Provider for the Integration oil palm process and palm oil milling industry in the region. Its main business is machinery & engineering and its main product is hydraulic power park system, hydraulic cylinder.

In view of their bushiness growth Dolphin needed to replace their existing local system with a project based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that could give the company detailed control over the administration of complex engineering projects.

Dolphin has strong criteria and narrowed downed its evaluation to the main requirements that are unique to an engineering project based companies. This helps them to eliminate many erp systems that are not geared toward project based and cut short their evaluation process. Careware Systems was selected as it understands and was able to demo the software toward their unique criteria. Sage Accpac ERP will help Dolphin to monitor and track cost from the design, development, manufacture, integration, installation and testing commissioning of their technological products for palm oil milling customers in the region and internationally.

Some of the immediate benefits and clear business advantages by using Sage Accpac are:

• First, all engineering personnel can process their data (time card) directly by logging into the Web-enabled Accpac central server at the headquarters through a through browser, so time cost and finance can immediately be updated on line. Sage Accpac need not be install at the notebook of the engineers who are at site and always on the move.

• Second, project accountants have insight into the progress of projects. During a pre-calculation process, the project managers attribute a number of hours to a given project. Project accountants will know of Time cost, (idle time, split time, chargeable time, and non billable time) of the project. The system also track material and equipments cost and work in progress. The project manager can follow the progress of the project and monitor cost overrun.

• Third, efficient accounting as the system will handle all the difference type of revenue recognition methods and also retaininage accounts. Progress billing and project purchases are charge to the respective job and phase automatically. The old system cannot handle such complexity of accounts. Now every function is fully integrated into one central database that is run on the local Area Network as well as Remote Access via the Web.

With Sage Accpac ERP Dolphin Engineering will be on the pulse of their business and its augurs well for the future.

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About CareWare SystemsThrough its partnership with Sage, CareWare Systems helps small and mid-size companies in Malaysia reach productivity levels at the top of their respective industries. CareWare represents a variety of business management software including Sage Accpac ERP, SageCRM, and MISys Manufacturing Software. For companies interested in growth, profitability and superior software support, CareWare is the Sage business partner for you. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.careware.com.my/.

LOYALTY

IF …

YOU WORK FOR A MAN,

IN HEAVEN’S NAME, WORK FOR HIM;

SPEAK WELL OF HIM AND

STAND BY THE INSTITUITION HE REPRESENTS

REMEMBER …

AN OUNCE OF LOYALTY

IS WORTH A POUND OF CLEVERNESS

IF …

YOU MUST GROWL, CONDEMN AND

ETERNALLY FIND FAULT,

RESIGN YOUR POSITION

AND WHEN YOU ARE ON THE OUTSIDE,

DAMN TO YOUR HEART’S CONTENT

BUT …

AS LONG AS YOU ARE A PART OF THE INSTITUITION,

DO NOT CONDEMN IT

IF YOU DO,

THE FIRST HIGH WIND THAT COMES

ALONG WILL BLOW YOU AWAY,

- Elbert Hubbard

BizCloud Overview of Top 10 Security Threats of Cloud Computing

From BizCloud Computing Security Watch: Cloud computing is the next big thing in technology arena and it has the potential to grow immensely thorough continuous innovations which we are still unaware of. It provides tremendous opportunities in reducing the costs as well as helping businesses to concentrate on their core business goals, relying on a third party provider to manage its computing resources.

Even though the potential that cloud computing provides is flourishing the business, there are still mixed feelings among customers about implementing the Cloud, mainly due to the underlying security threats & risks. These cloud security issues if not properly addressed can impact the business in a significant way.

Cloud Security Alliance and Gartner published several research reports addressing cloud computing security issues. There are numerous risks that can hamper the integrity of a Cloud Infrastructure, but here we will focus on those that emerged as the Top 10 Security Threats and Risks of the cloud.

1. Abusive use of Cloud Computing Resources:

Cloud computing technologies can be used as a platform for launching attacks, hosting Spam/Malware, software exploits publishing and for many other unethical purposes. Cloud computing service platforms, especially PaaS with its enhanced service portfolio and the independence, allows anyone to propagate their malicious intent. IaaS based perforations are also picking up pace with PaaS. Cloud computing service providers normally provide literally anyone with a valid credit card to avail their services, thus opening wide horizon of users to facilitate from their platform; malicious hackers & crackers cannot be filtered easily from that large pool of users.

2. Privileged Access & Malicious Insiders:

Cloud computing provides flexibility by outsourcing the services, but it also brings inherent risks of malicious insiders and abusive use of login access by an unauthorized person. The customer’s security controls remain outside the cloud security mechanism and customer has no control over the service provider’s internal security control. This brings substantial risk where any infiltration of such sort can deliver organization a great deal of loss in terms of financial, productive and /or brand image depreciation.

3. Insecure API’s:

Cloud computing vendors provide APIs for customers to interact and avail services and often the customers using these APIs are offering much more services based on them to facilitate their own customer base. Cloud APIs with weak authentication and access control can jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the pertaining customer. As the services are spread over vast domain of users, any vulnerability in the API can be exploited for malicious intents.

4. Shared Technology and Data Segregation:

Public cloud infrastructure components are typically not designed for compartmentalization and are prone to vulnerabilities than can be exploited. There might be scenarios where an attacker tries to gain unauthorized access or excessively use the resources which can affect the performance of other user residing in the same infrastructure. One of the prevailing cloud security issues is the lack of encrypting schemes which can dent the integrity of the data stored and absence of proper controls can make the data totally unusable.

5. Identity or Service Theft:

Account or service credentials if stolen can jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the entire services linked with that account. It’s just like giving the keys of all cloud resources to the attacker. Furthermore cloud computing service theft can be used for array of attacks which take illegal benefit of the user’s cloud infrastructure as their launching platform.

6. Data Loss:

Cloud computing architecture provides greater challenges in controlling and mitigating risks due to its unique framework and operational attributes. Data in the cloud is prone to so many threats, such as deletion of record, loss of encryption key and weak encryption, resulting in corruption of data. Any organization no matter how big or small relies heavily on data, and any puncture, trespassing by an unauthorized person can have devastating impact on business.

7. Forensic Support:

In cloud computing, it’s very difficult to get forensic evidence in case of a breach or incident because your data might be spread across many different hosts & data centers and possibly reside in a multi-tenant environment. Usually the applications deployed on cloud computing service models are designed without data integrity and security in mind hence being left with vulnerabilities & security issues. Contractual support by the provider for investigation on when and where the incident occurred is a must have clause in the Service Level Agreement otherwise a business can be exposed to serious threats.

8. Geographical Location of Data and its Recovery:

There is a big question mark when it comes to geographical location of data in the cloud computing environment. The data can be stored on many severs, in different locations, possibly different cities, even different country or continent. In case of a disaster, systems with no Disaster Recovery Plan and no Business Continuity Plan to ensure that business runs smoothly again are most vulnerable to failure. There might also be legal or government regulations involved in recovering data if the data is hosted in a different country. This can get tricky if there has been a breach or a criminal act associated with that specific data.

9. Regulatory Compliance in Cloud Computing:

Cloud computing services have certain benefits for an end user. But what about the internal control, compliance, internal security procedures and patch updating of all applications? Lack of adherence to regulatory compliance is a serious risk considering that provider is the custodian of your data. In case of an incident, providers who are not complying with regulatory standards and not providing the auditing and logging of data, leave the customer with high risk profile and it’s a cloud computing security issue worth considering.

10. Stability of the Cloud Provider:

Perhaps this is not a security risk but it’s a very threatening risk if the provider is not financially stable enough to sustain the operations as per the goals of the customer. A cloud computing provider if swallowed up by a merger can ring bells for the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data. Absence of a Recovery Plan resulting by a disaster or a complete shutdown can affect the operations of the customer until it’s recovered. Any cloud computing provider with meager financial stability, lack of back-up infrastructure and no long terms plans to complement the needs of the customer is a definite risk for any mission critical deployment.

Source : http://bizcloudnetwork.com/2011/bizcloud-overview-of-top-10-security-threats-of-cloud-computing/
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IEV Groups fuel growth by upgrading to Sage Accpac Project ERP for the entire group of companies.

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia – 03 May, 2011: In line with their expansion IEV Group of companies has entered into a ERP implementation engagement with Careware Systems Sdn Bhd the leading Sage Accpac Business partner in Malaysia,

The implementation will cover the entire groups of companies staring from its Head office in Kuala Lumpur and rolling out to other region simultaneously.

IEV group of companies are upgrading from their previous ERP system as it was unable to cater for their unique project requirement in the Oil and Gas industries. According a spokesman Careware was selected as she has established itself as a leading supplier of business solution for the project & engineering based industry based on Sage Accpac Project ERP suites with many successful implementations and references. Careware offer the project based companies a complete and integrated business solution that manages the entire lifecycle of contracts, projects, assets and services.

The major Sage Accpac modules that will be implemented are Financial Management, Project & Cost Management, Materials Management, Assets Management, Sales Distribution Management, Purchasing Management and Sage Accpac Intelligence & Analytics.

With the implementation of Sage Accpac Project ERP, IEV group will significantly realize benefits by improving efficiencies in processes such as “procure for project” and “cost overrun monitoring” which are critical for bringing transparency and efficiency into its business. Significant benefits are also expected through integration of business processes, standardized systems, processes and controls. Being a highly diversified Group, they embarked on this project in order to have a seamless integration across all companies and points of presence for financial consolidation, better control and standardization.
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About IEV Group
IEV Group is one of Asia leading engineering solutions provider to the petroleum and marine industries. The company is presently servicing customers throughout North America, North Sea, West Africa, Middle East and Far East. Its subsidiary IEV Gas is one of Asia’s leading providers of integrated subsea engineering solutions to the oil and gas industries. She is also a leading provider of mobile gas (CNG & LNG) infrastructure in the South East Asia region.

About CareWare SystemsThrough its partnership with Sage, CareWare Systems helps small and mid-size companies in Malaysia reach productivity levels at the top of their respective industries. CareWare represents a variety of business management software including Sage Accpac ERP, SageCRM, and MISys Manufacturing Software. For companies interested in growth, profitability and superior software support, CareWare is the Sage business partner for you. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.careware.com.my/.
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http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/5/prweb8414563.htm

Amazon's cloud nightmare

The exact feature that was supposed to be Amazon EC2's strength -- reliability -- is what failed and brought the cloud low yesterday. Still, cloud computing isn't going anywhere.

By Dan Mitchell, contributor


FORTUNE -- The snafu at Amazon's EC2 hosting service on Thursday, which knocked several big web sites out of service, is being called a "black eye" for the cloud-computing business -- a "we told you so" moment, according to cloud critics. But it could simply be a black eye for EC2.

It seems unlikely that this incident will cause startups to turn away from cloud computing, which for smaller companies is much cheaper than self-hosting. More likely, some of them will think twice about hosting with EC2, one of the industry leaders. That's because this was a particularly nasty, widespread, and long-lasting outage. A whole bunch of sites were thrown totally or partially out of commission for most of the day Thursday, including Quora, Foursquare, Reddit, and HootSuite. (Update: some sites are still down as of midday Friday.)

Technical glitches are bound to happen, of course, whether they're in the cloud or in an expensive, staff-managed corporate server room. Sites go down all the time. But most often, the outages are brief and isolated. Apparently, this one jumped across various parts of Amazon's cloud like lightning – in a way that Amazon had vowed it never could thanks to its "Availability Zones."

"Availability Zones are distinct locations that are engineered to be insulated from failures in other Availability Zones," Amazon (AMZN) says . The zones "protect your applications from failure of a single location."

"It would seem they don't exactly work as they're designed," notes The Register's Cade Metz, who goes on to explain how Amazon's cloud is (or is supposed to be) set up to avoid such failures. The company isn't talking yet, but promises to publish a "postmortem" on the situation.

Some customers and observers said on Thursday that Amazon has a history of cloud trouble, though never anything this bad. Michael Hussey, chief executive of PeekYou, told Dow Jones that he's been "seeing problems all year long" from Amazon's Northern Virginia facility, where the failure occurred. The problems haven't been severe, he said, but they have caused his company to consider moving its data to a different cloud provider.

PeekYou didn't go down, because it also runs many of its own servers. Foursquare was knocked out entirely, but said in a blog post Thursday morning that Amazon is a "usually amazing" provider that was suffering "a few hiccups."

The notion that this outage says anything about cloud computing's utility as a whole seems far-fetched. "We don't think the cloud is enterprise-ready," Jimmy Tam, general manager of Peer Software, told The New York Times. His company provides data-backup services. "Are you really going to trust your corporate jewels to these cloud providers?" he asked.

Well, sure. Why not? Lots of companies have been doing it for years now (since before "cloud computing" became a popular term, as Oracle (ORCL) chief Larry Ellison has noted), with little trouble. And even this glitch, though nasty, didn't put anybody's "corporate jewels" at risk. Many companies, like PeekYou, use the cloud for routine data handling, and keep their more "mission critical" tasks in-house. It all comes down to quality and service -- there's nothing inherent in cloud computing that makes it less reliable than the alternative.

According to the research firm Gartner, the cloud market will grow to $102.1 billion net year, up from $68.3 billion last year. Startups and other companies will continue to weigh the benefits of cloud computing -- mainly, massive cost savings and easy scalability -- against the relatively small risk and annoyance of outages. Risk and annoyance, by the way, that they would likely have to face anyway.

The level of cost savings from moving to the cloud depends on all kinds of variables, of course -- from the size of the enterprise to the nature of the data being handled. But just for example, a 2009 study by Booz Allen Hamilton, "The Economics of Cloud Computing," found that "the benefit-to-cost ratio of a non-virtualized 1,000-server data center could reach 15.4:1 after implementation, and total life cycle cost may be 66% lower than maintaining a traditional data center." In other words, Amazon and its cloud customers will learn from this outage, but those savings are simply too great to dismiss.

It's unknown how much Foursquare, for example, has saved by operating from the cloud. But if the savings are typical, it's probably worth the occasional annoyance of its users being temporarily unable to become mayor of their local coffee shop.
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Source : http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/22/amazons-cloud-nightmare/?iid=EAL

Read  also :
Why Amazon's cloud Titanic went down

Amazon EC2 outage downs Reddit, Quora

Dubious Awards in Asia.

So you want to get an award to boost your company or your own image. There are many in the market: Golden XXXX awards; Entrepreneur of the year for difference level; Brand awards & “C” level executive awards of the year. It is easy and the public is none the wiser. And the event organizer move on to various countries in Asia.
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Dubious awards: 'Winning' firms asked to provide sponsorship

PETALING JAYA: Winning an award may not be all that good as some companies have found out.

The practice of dishing out awards has become a lucrative business with the “winning” companies being asked to provide sponsorship or buy tables during lavish presentation ceremonies.

Starprobe discovered that this form of sponsorship can range between RM4,000 and RM30,000, with the “winners” being made to understand that if they fail to fork out the money, they may lose out to business rivals.

Some companies have admitted to being forced to pay up, calling this an “investment” for their business.

Industry players, concerned that such dubious awards may be jeopardising the country's competitiveness and misleading the public, want more transparent and better methods in the selection of winners.

They also call on all parties to work together in stamping out such awards.

Source : http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/3/25/nation/8347889&sec=nation

Related Stories:
Winners' say they were forced to foot hefty bill for brand awards presentation

CareWare Systems Teams up with Sage to Announce Launch of Sage ERP Accpac 6 and SageCRM v7 in Malaysia

Top Sage ERP reseller in Malaysia organizes a Sage solutions seminar for Sage ERP Accpac customers and prospects at The Garden City Hotel in Mid Valley City, Kuala Lumpur

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia – February 28, 2011 – CareWare Systems Sdn Bhd (http://www.careware.com.my), Sage’s top business software reseller in Malaysia for 2010, teamed up with Sage to hold a seminar and announce the launch of Sage’s latest product upgrades: Sage ERP Accpac 6 and SageCRM v7.

“Rapid advances in technology are driving major gains in efficiency for small and medium sized businesses across Malaysia,” says Robert Tan, Managing Director of CareWare Systems. “Our close partnership with Sage on the Accpac 6 and SageCRM v7 launch in Malaysia was a way to showcase Internet-based solutions that are available today to help our customers and prospects be more successful.”

The seminar hosted at The Garden City Hotel featured two separate meeting tracks focused on Project & Job Costing and Manufacturing. “We have a concentration of customers in manufacturing and the construction and engineering industries,” Tan says. “We were able to show how technology can make an important contribution to successful performance in those highly competitive industries. From real-time reporting dashboards to automated transaction processing, many SMB companies have much to gain by keeping up to date on technology.”

According to Tan, Accpac 6 and SageCRM v7 form a seamless platform to provide an unprecedented level of integration and information sharing between sales, operations and accounting departments. “Accpac 6 marks an important development in the way an ERP system can functionally integrate with CRM as one integrated suite to help SMB companies achieve new levels of visibility to business performance,” he says.

Unlike most traditional ERP applications used by SMB companies in Malaysia, Accpac 6 and SageCRM v7 operate over the Internet in a browser environment. “Sage’s new Internet-based approach helps companies organize their ERP activities based on roles assigned to employees, a fact which makes it even easier for us to deploy Sage solutions for our customers,” notes Tan. “For instance, accounts receivable clerks, general ledger accountants and controllers will have separate and unique roles with pre-assigned access to their respective functions in Accpac. This degree of operational functionality and productivity represents a huge leap forward for many SMB companies looking to compete and win in today’s marketplace.”

About CareWare Systems

Through its partnership with Sage, CareWare Systems helps small and mid-size companies in Malaysia reach productivity levels at the top of their respective industries. CareWare represents a variety of business management software including Sage Accpac ERP, SageCRM, and MISys Manufacturing Software. For companies interested in growth, profitability and superior software support, CareWare is the Sage business partner for you. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.careware.com.my/.

CareWare Systems Selected to Implement Sage ERP Accpac 500 for Construction giant WCT Berhad

Top Sage ERP reseller in Malaysia expands upon its extensive record of Sage ERP Accpac 500 implementations for construction and engineering companies.

WCT Berhad, a construction & Engineering giant in Malaysia, have chosen to use Sage Accpac ERP 500 to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their business processes.

WCT cites Sage Accpac’s flexible chart of accounts and project accounting capabilities as the fundamental reasons for choosing the Sage Accpac 500 software. Sage Accpac unique feature helps WCT in the timely reporting of project profit & loss and other financial statements.

They were impressed with Sage Accpac premier partner Careware Systems Sdn Bhd domain experience and track records in the construction & project based business. Careware was able to present to WCT the Sage Accpac’s capability and flexibility that meets WCT current needs and allows future growth path with its modular modules concept.

WCT while maintaining its presence and businesses in Malaysia has successfully established a strong presence in other parts of the world including the Gulf region with the undertaking of high profile mega projects. WCT’s presence in the Gulf region has been in the Kingdom of Bahrain and Qatar with the successful construction of Bahrain F1 International Circuit, Manama Corridor Improvement Project - Al-Seef flyover and Bahrain City Center. In Qatar, WCT together with its JV partners are currently undertaking 2 (Two) projects, namely, the RM1.88 Billion civil and infrastructure works of the New Doha International Airport and 780 Million Dukhan Highway. WCT will continue to be active in Malaysia as well as other parts of the world, most notably in the Middle East countries.

The Sage Accpac 500 is being installed and implemented at WCT Doha, Qatar office and also in the Shah Alam Head office in Malaysia. Moving forward in phase 2 will see WCT implementing Sub Contractor Claim Management module developed by Careware.

Robert Tan, managing partner, of Careware is pleased to be WCT business solution partner. “We are pleased to provide WCT with a flexible and comprehensive business solution to manage their global businesses. Sage Accpac ERP is the best choice for mid range software with its project accounting capability, modularity and flexibility to help WCT compete globally. We are also thrilled to find that one of the major deciding factors was based on our track record and domain experience which is a testament to Careware’s dedication and commitment to our customers’ success, and to building long-term partnerships.”

About CareWare Systems
Through its partnership with Sage, CareWare Systems helps small and mid-size companies in Malaysia reach productivity levels at the top of their respective industries. CareWare represents a variety of business management software including Sage Accpac ERP, SageCRM, and MISys Manufacturing Software. For companies interested in growth, profitability and superior software support, CareWare is the Sage business partner for you. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.careware.com.my/.