Analytics and BI for Sage 100 (MAS 90 / MAS 200) - 140417

Good morning everyone. Happy Thursday. Thanks for joining us. This is Johnny Girardi, co founder and CEO of dataself. We're going to have a 25 minute informative section today about analytics. NBI for sage 100 or mass 90 and mas 200 as they were called before. Before I jump into the presentation, a quick overview of why I founded this business and what the vision behind is. So I'm an electrical engineer as my background and in my early career I was a programmer for several years and eventually I fell in love with the business area. I had my mba, became a business person and for me, reporting data analysis was never an issue. I was a programmer, so getting complicated reporting tools, going to databases was my trade. I could do it, but most of my business peers, they would have challenges, they would have to call someone else, they would have to call me to help them with their reporting needs. So I joined the business intelligence industry back 14 years ago and in 2005 I decided to spin Data Self. And the main idea was, well, mid sized companies that use, let's say sage products like Mass 90, Mast 200, they need easy reporting. But usually the good solutions, the easy to use, the very good Solutions are from Fortune 2000 companies. They're usually too expensive for midsize companies and too complicated to deploy. So my vision was, hey, I want to find best of breed technology out there in the Fortune 2000 world. I want to make it simpler, I want to make it better for mid sized companies. So that was the vision from the beginning. You know, find best of breed components, add my own technology to simplify them and to amplify them and to provide to mid sized companies. We came a long way. What we're going to show here today is the latest and greatest and I hope we're going to have some fun and interesting things here. So let's get started. First of all, all lines are muted and if you have questions throughout the presentation or at the end, Please use the GoToMeeting Chatting Panel to ask the questions and we will address them. Towards the end of the presentation, I'll spend a few minutes talking about why analytics and why us. I'm going to spend most of the time showing the product and then we're going to go through questions and answers and talk about some interesting things going on with our business. So first of all, most people come to us looking for analytics for Mass 90 or Sage 100 when they're looking for better sales analysis, supply chain analysis, financials and also, you know, for anything else, job cost services and so forth. But these are the three most popular ones on the sales side, pretty much just having a better understanding of sales and profitability. Let's say if you have customers that you're following, which customers are the most profitable, which ones are growing the most or declining the most in any given period, which ones are no longer buying or looking from a product standpoint or salespeople standpoint, analytics can help a lot. Having a very good grasp into your sales and profitability initiatives. Some people, they have, you know, elaborate sales commission calculations that may take hours, days or even weeks to close at the end of the period. Usually with, you know, analytics, we can completely automate that process. Having a better forecasting of sales, maybe looking at past sales to project your future sales, or maybe bringing information from your own clients, projections, your salespeople. We can quickly combine that Data with your Sage 100 to help you with forecasting on the sales side. If you get engaged in large long term contracts, maybe with big boxes like Walmart and Target, having the right price strategy to be sure it's a win win situation is critical. We can also help with that. And sometimes simply having a better understanding of your sales, you have to bring data from your POS system, point of sale system, maybe from your clients, your salespeople from Excel spreadsheets. So the ability to easily combine data with your, let's say sage 100 may be critical and analytics can help you with that. On the supply chain, sometimes just plain inventory management, you know, where the products are, for how long they have been sitting on shelves, what the inventory turnover, should you move inventory to different warehouses? You know, those kind of questions can be easily answered by analytics. You may be collaborating with your supply chain, maybe with your shipping companies, your vendors or your clients get all of this data along with your sage 100 to better supply chain can be critical. We also help you with that purchase processing processes. Maybe, you know, you need to analyze the cost from the vendors, which vendors are more affordable in different time of the year, or that they deliver more quickly, more on time. So analyzing those things sometimes can be critical and analytics can help with that. Forecasting, you know, are you going to be able to ship your products or deliver your services in a timely fashion? Manufacturing maybe. So helping with forecasting can be critical and analytics can help you with that. In the same token, data integration, sometimes when you're analyzing your supply chain, bringing data from your vendors, your shipping companies, your customers into a single place where you can see all the data together can be critical and we can help you with that. On the financial side, Sage 100 comes with a good financial reporting tool. People who miss FRX now they're a little bit challenged which one they're going to go to. There are great options out there, including Sage Intelligence. But whatever you're using for your financials, if you're still not happy with, we can help. Specifically, if your financial reporting technology is proving to be too labor intensive, talk with us. We may have a better way to go. If you have challenges with the multi company frameworks consolidating them, talk with us. We maybe have a good solution. And if you're trying to have better slice and dicing putting your financial information on mobile devices, definitely we provide great functionality in those regards. So on the financial side, those are the three topics that we cover the most. So let me talk a little bit about our technology in circling back to my initial vision. This is from Gartner. Gartner is one of the most reputable companies doing a technology assessment in the Fortune 2000 world in every Oops every February. So we just had a new one A couple of months ago they released an assessment for the past year of the BI and analytics platforms. Make a long story short, the more you are on the right on this axis, the better for Fortune 2000. So not so critical for mid sized companies. However, the higher you are on this axis the better you are executing your vision and better products you have. These are upper market BI and analytics vendors and these two highlighted tableau right now is the top leader on data visualization, dashboarding and analytics in the Fortune 2000 world and Microsoft is considered the best BI infrastructure in the upper market. What about them? What about us? What about you? Well it goes back to my initial vision when I started the business. What I'm doing today is I'm taking the top two leaders from the Fortune 2000 world. So Tableau Microsoft. I'm using them and putting a box along with our own technology that eliminates programming from these other two products. So we simplify the top leaders right now and then we add more than 2,000 reports, dashboards and KPIs for Sage 100 to amplify it. So data self analytics, what we provide is best of breed technology simplified and amplified. So what you get from this package is pretty much the easiest to use technology for business people anytime, anywhere. They can use their desktop, web and mobile devices to get the information and for it to maintain. It is also one of the easiest to use platform because we simplify them by removing programming and we provide a Very comprehensive setup from the get going. When it comes to deploy, it usually takes hours or days to deploy and if you build from scratch, the same thing. If you try to build yourself, you absolutely can do it, but it's going to take you months or years. So we shortcut to a few hours, maybe a few days. The core team of Data Self has been working with this for over 14 years now. So you also get expertise with us knowing Sage 100 database, knowing BI tools, how to connect these pieces for mid sized companies. So you get expertise and at the end of the day our cost is really low. Usually if you go with the monthly subscription, the license costs you a few hundred dollars per month. So from a license standpoint is really affordable. And because we use best of breed components, our solution is like a Ferrari among mid market vendors. If you look at other reporting and providers we call them the Bimmers, the Mercedes, the Porsches and we have the Ferrari, the fastest, the most exciting ones. So let's go for a test drive now. I'm going to show the product and I'm going to break in three different segments. I'm going to show secure access, some simple KPIs and ad hoc examples. So let's put our seat belt on, let's buckle up, put some helmets and let's drive our Ferrari. All right, so most of the time when people are using data self analytics they're going to log into a web portal using a desktop, web or mobile device such as smartphone or tablets when they log in. This is a highly secure portal, can be behind your firewall or it can be in the cloud. When you log in you're going to get your own dashboards. So let's say if I'm the CEO and let's say I'm not very tech savvy, I would click in very simple dashboards like this one that give me in a simple snapshot what I really should be paying attention to. So my gross profit in past due are green, I don't need to worry about. My sales are a little yellowish so maybe you know some problems. And my cost on hand is red. So I need maybe to call the inventory manager to see what's going on. So if I'm the CEO maybe I just want something simple, as simple as this that gives me some big insights into what I need to worry about today and go about my decision and my business. If I'm a salesperson I log into this portal and maybe I'm looking at the sales dashboards and we have lots of Interesting dashboards. For instance, this one is very intriguing. This kind of dashboard shows the tip of the growth curve of major key performance indicators. This example I'm looking from a sales growth standpoint. So I'm looking at which customers have been growing the most or declining the most in sales since, let's say last year to date. So these customers are happy customers, buying a lot more, maybe not a problem, but these ones are declining the most since last year to date. And maybe there is a problem that if you don't know and if you don't fix in a timely manner, this customer may be gone for good. So looking at the tip of the growth curve for your major key performance indicators such as this one usually is critical. And we have many reports looking at this from a sales standpoint. Profitability, items, quantity on hand, expenses, purchasing, you name it, financials all over the place. So you can focus your time or resources on where it matters the most. Let me show another critical KPI that's usually interesting to look at. We call exception reporting. Exceptional reporting is look at transactions that are no longer happening. For example, if you have recurring customers, why these customers are no longer buying. In this example I'm looking customers who are buying the last 60 days, but not in the last 30 days. Maybe if you want to know what customers were buying the last year but not in the last three months, you name it. It's very easy to change the buckets. But the point is look at the exception reporting, look at things that are no longer happening is usually critical and it can help you focus on your sources. Maybe if you want to know which items are you no longer buying the last two months or three months, things like that can be helpful. And we have many reports out of the box covering those things. Let me show some other intriguing dashboards here. Let me slice and dice them. I'm going to use a geography analysis. Sometimes geography analysis can be very critical to see warehouse location, sales expenses, you name it. So this dashboard here, it has on a map bubbles. Bigger bubbles represent bigger sales. And then we have sliced the bubbles by different colors representing how large the deals were. So blue color means aggregation of large sales. I can easily get this dashboard, let's say on an iPad, and I can use this slicer here to see if sales are changing over the years and see this growing or declining. And this year could be quarter, could be month, could be week, could be fiscal, period, could be anything. Now I also have in this dashboard on the left, sales by rep and then the profitability of the sales Represented by this color schema. So I can tell some of these salespeople which ones are more profitable by the color of the bar. And the size of the bar is represented by sales. And I also see here on a grid what products has been shipped. So once I see this dashboard and I understand the pieces now, it's easy to make decisions from there. So let's say if I'm the big boss, I access this dashboard and I'm meeting the west coast team, I could come here and select, using my mouse or my fingers, the west coast states. And when I do that, the dashboard changes to show salespeople sales for those three states and what they've been selling. Very easy. Now, if I click one of these bars like Sam sales, I'm further drilling down and I'm showing what Sam is selling in those three states and what product has been shipping. So making changes like these are very easy. And most business people will learn how to change this with almost no training. It's really intuitive. Now, if I'm a power user and I want to be able to slice and dice and change things dramatically anytime, anywhere, let's say using my dashboard on a mobile device such as an iPad, then I'll have this edit button. When I click the edit button, I go into the power user interface. Here I have access to full functionality or how to change this dashboard. Now, before I show how to do it, the engine behind this dashboard tool was designed by Stanford university professors who studied how business people look at business data and have insights from it. You know, it's a journey, it's a process. Business people, they ask a question, they have an idea for where they want to go to, but until they see something, they don't know exactly the final destination. So this tool helps them walk through this journey without calling an IT person. And that's what I want to show right now. So suppose I'm a power user. I look at this dashboard, I see these salespeople, but I want to see numbers by the penny. I click this show me button and it gives me what kind of representation. I can show this different kind of chartings, but I want to see numbers. So I click the grid approach. So right there I see sales by the penny and gross profit by my salespeople. Okay, cool. What if I want to break down sales by product line description? Well, I go to my data panel and I see here the sales reporting parameters. If I go to the product list, I see subcomponents like product line description, and I just drag and drop into My report, I use my fingers on my iPad, on my mouse and there we go by salesperson, by product line, sales and gross profit. Very easy, very simple. Maybe on a breakdown by year, I find my document date, which is the invoice date, and I drag and drop into my columns or rows and right there I have the report broken down by year, sales and gross profits. Very easy. What if I want to break down by customer? You just keep on dragging, dropping. It's very straightforward. Customer name. I can put before the salesperson between or at the end you just drag and drop and there it is. You get by salesperson, by customer, by product line. Very straightforward, just drag and drop. So the idea is to empower business people anytime, anywhere to access their information. So I hope you have enjoyed the Ferrari spin. Let me go back to my PowerPoint show a little bit more and then wrap it up. So first of all, we have some exciting things going on. We have right now a Ferrari promotion that because you attended this webinar, you're going to be getting a ticket to get into a draw. And in July, we're going to take five lucky winners to drive a Ferrari on a racing track. If you're going to increase your chances to winning this, just follow us on Twitter, follow us on LinkedIn. Do social media interaction with us. If you're evaluating it yourself, you're going to get tickets as well. And if you buy, subscribe, you get as well. So just do some business with us, interact with us and hopefully we're going to be driving together some Ferrari on a racing track in July. So that was my one way presentation. If you have questions, Please use the GoToMeeting chat in box. And we're going to be addressing questions now. So let me see if we have questions. Yes, we have some questions here. One comment here from Kerry. Can we get to the meet? Kerry, hopefully you saw some of the myth, but we can connect later to talk more details of other things. Question here from Paul. How do you compare with Sage Intelligence? Good question, Paul. So Sage intelligence, first of all is more focused on financial reporting and we are more focused on operational reporting. So we kind of complement each other in that perspective. We do better on operations, sales, purchasing, receivables, payables, inventory analyzing services, whatever, while Sage Intelligence does much better on purely financial balance sheet type of reporting. But sometimes we compete on both areas and Sage Intelligence is more affordable. But it's like a, you know, a Beamer, like a Mercedes. While we are more like a Ferrari. We're faster, easier to use and a little bit more expensive. We do not charge at all a Ferrari cost. It's more like a Fiat and actually Fiat lease if you go the monthly fee. So that's how we compare. We're faster, more sophisticated than Sage Intelligence and easier to use. Paul, thanks for your question. The next question is from Carla. What's the price of the solution? So price wise it varies significantly depending on your needs. Again, if you go with the monthly subscription, the license can be literally hundreds of dollars per month. So usually pricing is not really a big issue. More is is there value for you and if so, usually price is not an issue. Let me show you here before I go into other places. Here on our website if you want to have more information you can go to dataself.com and under analytics by product. If you choose sage 100. Here we have you can ask for Test Drive View Demo. You can have the software architecture of Solution see some further information brochures, sample KPIs tomorrow you're going to have a recording of this session and also we have several upcoming webinars including a BI panel next week. So if you want to interact with us more, please feel free to use those resources. So we're running out of time here. We have a few more questions but we will address them on a one on one basis. Let me just put back my information here. If you have any questions, comments, please feel free to call me. That's my cell phone. You can email me again, feel free to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn and then that's going to increase your chances to win a Ferrari. Besides today's ticket that you got, I hope you have a great Thursday. Thank you very much for your time and looking forward to interacting with you in the near future. Thank you. Have a good one.