Sage Partner Kick Off: Two Cities, One Future, and One Host at Home

UnSage PKO Hype (1) (00:05)
Welcome to the unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast, the most official, unofficial Sage podcast in the world. Every episode we bring together Sage insiders, industry leaders, and global voices. Well, maybe not today, but we'll get there in a second.

Half of them deep inside the Sage ecosystem, half of them bringing a perspective from well outside it for honest conversations about accounting, finance, and technology that you won't find anywhere else. I'm Matt Lescault I'm Doug Lewis. I'm Salma Kaida And today, no guest, just the three of us talking about two cities in about two weeks from now. Now, before we get into any of that, I think we officially

Have a new host with us. Salma I know you came in and did an intro episode with us last time, but you are now officially indoctrinated

we have swag boxes gonna go out to her. We never sent one to Doug, by the way. and and uh you know we're gonna be at a conference together and I'm hoping that she's gonna be sporting uh unofficial shirt at least one of the days. I'm pretty excited about it. One less thing I need to pack, you know? It is and and in what city will we be doing this in? Because you know, I think you said something about two cities. Um

Just treat me like I'm a golden retriever. You know, talk to me like I have no clue what you're even close to talking about at this point. See, when I think about golden retrievers, I think of like really energetic, bubbly kind of stumbling over themselves. But I don't think that was where you're going with this. No, no. I I that's how I view myself, but apparently I'm off base on that. But go ahead. please. What cities are we talking about? What's going on? Who's who's going where? And why was I not invited? Let's start all this.

Matt and I will be first Atlanta. Right? Sage Future for Partners, or also known as PKO Partner Kickoff in Atlanta at the convention center. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. yes, yes, yes. You're right. And that's for North America. And then we got Sage Future for Partners for the rest of the world in Amsterdam. And I will be going to Amsterdam.

I'm just so disappointed that I have to do that. It's it's a hard terrible. But and Doug, where are you gonna be? I'm just around. You know, I gotta I g I'll just hanging outside. Yeah, you know, peeking in the windows. Maybe, I don't know. I just you never know where I'm gonna pop up, you know. Um no, I I'm actually hitting the the circuit myself here over the next couple weeks as well.

Totally different cities. I got uh Frisco, Texas, then Miami, and then back in Chicago, a couple events going on. So uh the calendars didn't uh align uh perfectly for this one for me to be there, but that's why I'm relying on the two of you to actually tell me what people are gonna expect of this thing. And then more importantly, in the recap, what actually happened and how wrong you both were. So would love to dive into a little bit of that. Is future for partners. What even is it for those who have no clue? This is the first rodeo.

What is this event? So Matt, I think you've been to a few more than I have. Well, I don't even know. How many have you been to? This will be my second. This will be your second. So I think you actually give the perspective because my experience in in the conference is is much different. If I remember my first conference walking around, I knew nobody and I just sort of aimlessly found things to do and tried to introduce myself but felt very out of place to now almost

10 years in, not quite, but almost 10 years in, it's much different experience. So tell me about your experience last year, what you're looking forward to, what you're gonna focus on. G give a little bit of insight from your your your perspective. So for me as a Canadian, we kind of go in as a little posse. It's kind of cute, actually, right? So, you know, so we've got the Canadian leadership team from Sage that attends. It's well attended, both on the sales side and in the operation side. And then we've got

a quite a small network of Canadian partners. So it's very unusual that I show up and I don't know anybody. And we have our like little special lunches and our little special parties and stuff like that, just feeling like a little bit of a smaller community within the larger sort of Sage ecosystem. So I always enjoy that. Like everybody works remote. We don't have a lot of chances to actually connect with the people that we talk to virtually every single day. So I always look forward to that. Awesome. How big is this Canadian convoy that we're describing here?

Convoy. We stay away from that word here. The Kane Con. I don't know. I think maybe I would expect to see about maybe like 30 to 40 people. Not when you say 30 to 40 people, I assume you're saying both Sage employees and partners. Yeah, it depends on how many partners actually end up going or how many people they send. I think that for Sage Future, the other one, the bigger ones in Chicago this year, people send larger contingents. It's just a

technical show they bring their operational team. This one feels like it's a little bit smaller. It's more like the the leaders of the organizations, the sales leaders, those types of things. But who knows, maybe last year was an anomaly. No, I actually I think that for partner kickoff specifically, they limit the number of uh people per firm. And certain tracks come and certain tracks don't or channels if you want to put it that way. Um I'm glad that you brought up Chicago.

Because that's the one where Doug doesn't get to not show up because I'm double booked. All right. You know, make the donuts. A lot of time to make sure that doesn't happen. I do, but I can't control the last minute calls where it's like, hey, you gotta be here. So we'll see. Right now it's on the calendar. It's planned. It's on the calendar. Uh unless something goes haywire or a better opportunity arises, I will be there. I can promise you that. And that's the first step.

Better opportunity. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Um, so I actually really like so last couple uh conferences I went to, I was uh I was I was honored to be invited to some of the Canadian get togethers. Uh and um I have to say they're a little more fun than some of the other ones. We are fun, we are very fun, right? I I find that like we're really good at like blending personal and business.

Right. It's kind of like all one big mishmash. People are really open. They were like, anyways, I really enjoy the Canadian events. Now, the one funny thing that happened at last PKO. I don't know if you're in the room because I didn't know you at the time, uh obviously, is they invited everybody to a Canadian happy hour, but it was actually a demo that they just gave you drinks at. So we walk in, uh sit down, get a drink, and then now they're demoing AI.

And Mark Hickman walks in and Cincia walks in. They're like, this isn't a happy hour. I don't know. There was one Canadian session, but they were giving out awards. I don't know if it was the same one. I don't think there was a I don't think there was awards. Um but did I not get invited to a Canadian happy hour? Now I'm mad. That's a tough way to find that out. I gotta say, this is

You're like a you're like a sports player who found out he got traded from the Yeah, out of like topic Canada. Like that's terrible. Anyways, I'll keep my eyes open this year. So, I mean, when I think about PKO, um, this is the partner event, but also right before this is SKO for the Sage team. So that's their sales kickoff for the new year. And so really this whole entire event from before we get there to once everybody's gone is all about

How we're going to approach 2027, FY 2027, from a target perspective, strategy perspective, and how we're gonna grow and as organizations and with Sage, obviously. Um so when we thought think about the tracks that we're gonna see uh for us as partners, we're gonna see a lot of things around what is new in marketing, what is new in sales, what is on the roadmap, what uh what

Type of uh restructure is happening within Sage, where the focus is changing. And so for me, um, I get really excited about hearing the information of really where where the vision of Sage is going. What does that roadmap look like? Because this is basically a conference in which we're under NDA and they're sharing things that aren't necessarily public information. Where if we go to the customer conference, Sage Future.

Um, that's more centric around customers. There's there's a couple things that are partner only so that we get some inside information, but it's far more heavy on the training aspect of how you use intact, what the feature sets are, you know, things of that nature. Um, so I'm pretty excited about where uh what new, what we don't know is going to be presented and what is really being focused on and driven by uh by leadership at Sage.

So you both you both kind of mentioned this too. Some of you mentioned it, you know, it's mostly leaders of organizations that are going. It's not as much technical staff that go to this event. You know, there's a lot of heavy hitters in this room, Matt. You just mentioned it yourself. Some big speakers lined up, all this fun stuff for the North America event. Is there any one session that is standing out to either of you that's like, uh I cannot miss this? Like I'm going for this session and everything else is just a bonus.

That's really hard to say. Salma, anything? I'll come back to it, but well, for me, um, Chinzi Abazo, who is the managing director of Sage Canada, had a like brainchild called the Women in Tech Leadership Breakfast. It started, I think, two years ago. And it's kind of awesome and it's very exclusive. And I love it so much. So she gathers, you know, women in the leadership community. And this year they have a focus on wait for it, AI.

Um but I do think it's kind of interesting because I think a lot of women are a little bit like slower to the uptake or the the enthusiasm around AI, kind of just like feeling their way around, trying to figure out how to get started. So I'm really curious when you're sort of in the safety of this breakfast room listening to women leadership, how they're using it, like for real, you know, with all all the jargon and stuff like that. It's a bit of a safe space. So I always enjoy it. I expect it to be awesome again this year.

Sorry, you can't come. Uh I'm I'm not sorry. I think it's great. I think it's great that chromosome, I think. uh Sorry, not sorry. yeah. Matt, you mentioned something too. While while you're still thinking about that one session that you can't miss, you're really looking forward to. You've been doing this for

over a decade. You've been going to this event in on the various formats that they've thrown it, right? Over the years. I assume you had hair at your first event. Uh well, I think twenty eighteen was my first event. So I guess technically this is year eight.

Yeah, okay. Well okay, you so you were just you were just starting to lose it at your first event versus now. I had hair then. I did. Okay, sure. Yeah. Okay, oh buddy. Sure. I'm gonna send you a wig. I'm gonna get a custom wig made for you so you can wear it. Well you know what? Maybe for Halloween everybody should dress as their younger selves. Oh, there you go. All you have to do is put a wig on and shave. You're good. That's it. I have to get in much better shape. Um so that's a separate issue.

Matt, uh, so you've kind of seen different iterations of this event evolve over the years coming up, looking at the agenda for the North American event. We'll touch on Amsterdam in a moment here. North American event, is there something that's jumping out to you that is the must-see? If this is your first event, you know, if you're not going to go to any other session, what would that recommendation be? So I mean, I think there's there's what I'm particularly interested in. I think what I what if I think everybody should be thinking about.

are those mainstage speakers. Um hearing what Dirk has to say, I think that's really impactful. Uh Dirk really controls a commercial engine within Sage. And if you want to understand where they're focused and where where they're really investing as an organization, listen. Listen to Dirk. Aaron Harris obviously is one that everybody goes to see because he really drives the technology innovation within Sage.

He's a leader from the AI perspective. And so I think those things are really uh really impactful. What I wanna mention is like this is built for role specific individuals. So like what is important to me may not be important to the next person that is going to the to the conference. Um if

She gets a ticket, my director of marketing will be there, and she'll focus on some of the marketing stuff and see what the what Sage is doing from their own marketing track. For me, I'm actually pretty interested in two uh two things that are not intact, actually. Uh one is X three, uh, because it's a pillar going forward, something that hasn't been really focused on too heavily in the in the US or

or North American markets, maybe a little bit more in Canada. You'd know more than I do, Salma, when it comes to comes to that. Um, but I think that one, I'm really interested to see what their roadmap and path is and how parallel or you know, Sage Intact and X3 sit from a from an initiative. HCM, Sage's HCM product is another one that is just being rolled out to partners. Um, you know, we are uh supporting it in a multitude of ways right now.

with Sage and uh it's all new information and getting our our heads wrapped around it from a from a value proposition, a delivery and implementation. And so those two things are really kind of a focal point for me. Cause I think they really speak to the global initiative that Sage has, not just US or Canada or any one specific region. That's why it's cool that you're kind of going to them back to back, right? So you get to hear what they're

priorities are in North America, but remembering that Sage is a global company. So getting that sort of what's what's different? What are they saying over there that they're not necessarily telling us about over here? Just having that sort of global perspective, I think would be really interesting. Yeah, it it is. Now there's a lot of um I would say similarities between the two. Uh a lot of what Sage puts out is how obviously scripted. So your main stage stuff is going to be very, very similar.

uh where you get into some nuance, which I think is impactful, is what's different per region, per country, what are the challenges that are happening within the different regions on a c when it comes to feature sets and things of that nature. Um, and how to priorities, and I think you touched on this, how do priorities differ region to region? And there's different the and each region is is in a different place in their journey with intact.

within the d within the product set. And so you're you're kind of double dipping, right? North America, right over to the European event. How many others do you think are really going to both inside the overall ecosystem? Are you kind of the outlier that is doing both or is that more of the norm? You know, I'm I'm really curious on that. Um there's some overlap. I don't see a ton of it. Um there is not many organizations

That are truly global partners of Sage in the sense of a unified delivery model. What I mean by that is you have PWC, but PWC is a conglomeration of offices that are partner led in a lot of ways. And so what they do in intact in one region is not what they do in intact in another region. It's not that not what they do, but it's not the same leaders. So you don't see the same people. Um there's a couple partners that are uh leadership, like myself, are

globally focused. but it is it is I I would say more rare than than common, but not not solely unique. Which one's more fun? Ooh. So that's gonna be hard to tell. So last year was the first year that there was truly a sage future for the rest of the world and one for North America. Historically

They had sprinkled Sage Futures around different regions. So like AME did it in South Africa and it was just for AME. And then UK did their own kind of thing and so on and so forth. Last year was sort of that flagship, you know, that welcome to the to to the event. It was in Barcelona and it was, I would say, more fun than content.

Okay. More of an experience than uh in an educational. Sure, sure. Yeah. Now um there's still a lot of content. There's still a lot to to to get through. But I mean again, you're in Barcelona. Like there's it's a little bit different than going to Atlanta tomorrow. just saying. Uh you heard it here, but Matt hates Atlanta. Make sure you say hello. No, I actually love Atlanta, by the way. Uh we've we've seen each other in Atlanta, Doug, and we had a we had a good time.

Interesting time. Yeah. Good time. Uh yeah, but uh and w and this time's Amsterdam. Amsterdam is a you know history rich city. And so I'm excited to get out there, walk around, see a little bit. I've never been myself, surprisingly. And uh and so I guess I'm looking forward to that because of the venue. I'll have to report back on like difference in content and and so forth.

so as like uh like a newer partner.

Matt, what do you think are the mistakes that partners are making when they go to these kinds of events? Or like what advice would you give sort of a newbie on how to get the most out of it? Well, if we focus on newbies, um, or people that are brand new first or second, you're yourself included, but you're a pretty outgoing individual is I don't think that always partners or the entire ecosystem realize how open Sage

execs Sage leadership, Sage employees are to spending time to communicate, talk about uh what's impactful, important to them and uh and socialize and really get to know those individuals. And for me, that's kind of what I enjoy more than anything else when I go there is because I see these people on screen all the time. I talk with a heck of a lot of people, but person to person, you you can't beat it.

Okay. I try to stay, I try to like not spend a lot of time in my room to kind of force myself, right? Like just so much of a room. You sleep in your car. So just so much of the conversation happens in the hallways. It happens in the, you know, in in the bar afterwards. It happens at dinner or that kind of stuff. Um, so you kind of get that unofficial version.

Which is where for me I really find a lot of value because it's like, yeah, here's the scripted version, but like what's really going on? How do you really feel about this? And, you know, um, there's been a lot of changes in leadership um in the last year. So I kind of just want to get a pulse and not just from leadership, but also from, you know, like the salespeople. We work with them every day. So it's kind of our chance to connect like on a personal level and a business level. So um that's what I heard is take all your prospects and people like network.

with to the bar, get them drunk so you can drive more business. That's your official You get more information. So I'm I'm like I love information. That's next conference taker. Yeah, that's the other one. That's future. This one is to get information from each other. An actual educational conference. I I do love that. Um so two events coming up here, North America, Amsterdam. Um would love to get a bold prediction. Could be right or wrong.

on some piece of information that's going to be dropped at each of these conferences. So Matt, I'll start with you since you have both to choose from and you kind of have different markets you play in a little bit. Is some bold prediction coming out of the North America event as well as the Amsterdam event.

Bold prediction. um I probably should have prepared for this one. Probably. But it's fun when you don't. My guess, and maybe this isn't even a guess. Maybe this is some somewhat of inside knowledge, is I think we're gonna see a huge shift in the way Sage wants us to sell and go to market and how we compete against the other products in the marketplace. Um up until

This year it really was a three horse race between Net Suite, uh Intact and Dynamics, frankly. Uh and I think now it's a it's a race with more horses, quite frankly, and a a need to reimagine the value proposition that we communicate to customers. Uh and we need to reimagine the way that we approach the sales process and reimagine the way that pricing

happens. And so I think there's gonna be, and maybe this isn't a bold prediction, but I think there's gonna be a lot of emphasis around that and how and how we stay uh ahead of the curve when it comes to those things. Some I'd love to hear your thoughts. A bold could be wrong. New product. You know, I don't could be anything. Someone gets fired on stage. I don't know something. Gosh, I hope not. I think I I think you're spot on, Matt. It really is. Like it's a it the ecosystem is evolving so quickly.

Um, and so from from my perspective, an operational perspective, when I just reviewed the agenda, there's a lot of talk of this speed to launch, right? Speed to to like the the timelines on implementations have to be shortened if we're gonna stay competitive. The the cost of implementations has to come down. And I think that Sage is really has spent a lot of time and work in the background on trying to help some of us, so the implementation teams.

just get better, faster, cleaner as a means to compete. So that's really what I'm looking to hear. Last year there was a session for X3 that was talking about a six week to launch X3 implementation. And that was the one that like made me gasp. I was like, wow. So let's compare six weeks versus what historically have we been looking at? they're like a year, year and a half, pretty like it's a it's a big implementation. And so that was the like mic drop moment. I haven't seen it yet.

Right. So I I I I really, really want to see it. I just want to see if we're still on track for that. I want to see what we're doing on the in-tack side of things. Um, and based on the agenda, I think I'm gonna hear a lot of it. So well, I hope I and and not to not to beat you up any, I hope they don't communicate it that way. I don't think this is about cheaper implementations. I think it's about moving the budget into more value-added services. So a less focus on the

the work to go live and more focus on the post go live consulting. Exactly. I believe that budget doesn't have to change for our customers, but their expectation of results will change. And that's where we need to meet them. And if we focus on just the cheapest implementation, we're going to lose the value conversation and we're going to lose to competitors. That's that's my opinion. And competitors, interesting. You you had mentioned before it was kind of a three horse race for the most part. And you're now starting to see some more competitors come out of the woodwork.

gaining a little bit of market share. Anybody that's I don't want to say uh a concern to anyone in the Sage ecosystem, but who's really making some noise that's kind of a newer kid on the block? Well, I I mean I think we have three new kids on the block. Uh I don't know, Salma, if you guys are seeing it in Canada as much as in the US, but between Campfire Rillet and Double Entry. ah are you seeing are you are you coming across that a lot on your side as well? We're hearing about it. We're not seeing it. Okay. Okay.

Like it's not, it's not a big thing. I think the Canadian tax situation remains a very difficult nut to crack. So but I expect to see more of it. Um I think then I think we have two longstanding players that are really trying to move into the mid market and into it and in zero. Zero just just announced that they're gonna have multi-entity, multi-entity or multi-tenant uh capabilities into it as

It's putting absurd amounts of money into uh getting enterprise suite where it needs to go. And it makes sense because think about what what QuickBooks built itself on. It built itself on getting people at the very beginning of their entrepreneurial uh journey. So in that simple start, you know, you know, small business or you know, I forget the exact tiers at this point. But AI can put together something that can do invoices and reconcile a bank pretty easily. But it it

AI is not you're not gonna build an AI application that can do complex allocation methodologies or revenue recognition things like that. So into it, whether the same or not, my guess is going, okay, we have this uh base of small businesses that are buying into our products. Not not not very expensive, but we have a big risk from a market share perspective there. And that was always our pipeline. So I think we go from a three horse race to what now is an eight horse race.

Um so that's yeah, and and we're looking for stage to like tell us what's the plan? Like, what's the plan, guys? I mean, it's exciting, it's exciting times to be in this line of work in general, right? I think the sophistication of the clients that are coming through the door is higher, right? So what what they're looking for from us as a partner is changing, which makes the job a bit fun. Yeah, look, I mean

Put me on stage, I'll tell you exactly what, you know, the way that I would value prop it. And I'm already doing it from a sales perspective. And AI, the, in my opinion, the the lazy way to use AI is like, I'm gonna replace that product that I pay money on. And the innovative way to use AI is to build out applications that that automate your unique business processes that are unique to your business and not something you can get off the shelf.

But what's important in that is that you have your strong data sets. And your finance system is a strong data set, your CRM system is a strong data set, and then your operating system is a strong data set. And that that is varies by industry greatly. uh And so now if we think about it that way, the best ERP to choose from is the most stable with the most information already in it that already knows how to get the work done. And now you can elevate that.

as opposed to in my opinion

going to products that are kind of building from the ground up, don't have the don't have the true data set that a sage does and so forth. The key to the future is data and how data delivers us information and helps us drive our decision making. see you almost did a really good quote there. The key to the future is data, but then you just kept talking. You know what I mean? Like that was perfect quote there. And then you just you ruined it. You could just horrible uh

Uh speaking of which, um we can keep this one kind of nice and short here today. Uh would love to toss it out to either of you. A terrible dad or mom joke. If not, I will bail you out.

I don't have any terrible jokes. All my jokes are good. Oh boy. Well, that's I love that confidence. Right. Bring that, bring that to Sage future. Matt, do you have a terrible dad joke on standby? Nope. Nope. Nope. That's your job. All right. Um Okay, I've got one. Oh. But you can't steal it. All right. How can you tell an extroverted accountant?

They're staring at the other person's shoes. my gosh. I thought you said you didn't have any bad ones. And then you and then you throw that out into the ethers. I'm supposed to. That was that. That really hits.

so Salma, I have to ask when when are you arriving in Atlanta? I think I'm arriving the third. Yeah. Yeah. Um the I know the whole thing starts. I'm coming from really far and they cancelled my direct flight, so I'm pretty salty about that. Um, but yeah.

I think I ride the third. Okay. I do too. How about you? I'll I'll arrive the afternoon of the third. Uh so yeah, hit me up if you want. Yeah, no, probably won't. Great to meet in person. I wouldn't hit him up. I wouldn't blame you if you don't either. you said it wasn't really a great time, huh? I said the interesting was my exact word. We can play that back.

Atlanta, November fourth.

Amsterdam, November ninth. Two cities, one future, and one host at home, which would be me.

We're the unofficial Sage Intact podcasts, unfiltered, insightful, and officially packing our bags. See you there.