AccMan Pro (now moved to www.accmanpro.com)

Why Twinfield can beat Sage in a heartbeat

Last week I reviewed Twinfield. I think it's an excellent tool for the professional wanting to mine new revenue streams along with achieving improved customer intimacy. I know David Terrar - the MD  - is looking for market traction and I wish him well. I look forward to readers telling me whether their assessment comes close (or miles away!) to/from mine.

I think it's helpful to share why I believe he's on to a winner that could displace Sage in certain markets.

Sage's business model relies on making repeated single sales and raking in a single, annual maintenance fee. Over time they hope to migrate you to more sophisticated products. But there's more to it than that. The estimated cost of running a product over a decade is 7.5 times the original software costs. That means you (and your clients) are always paying not 3 x (software + 20% annual charge x 10). When that doesn't work, Sage acquires market share and then bleeds it to death through smart marketing. Occasionally, it will do some re-engineering and re-badging. To date, it has been successful and I wish Sage well in holding the premier global brand for SMEs..

In Twinfield's model, you pay for what and how you use on a monthly basis. Figures range form as little as £3 per month to £52 per month, depending on the role. That's smart pricing. With Sage, you pay the same regardless of whether you hammer the software to death or use it once in a flood. The cost of ownership for the hosted solution is therefore relatively low, predictable and role based. That's also fair on the user. So you, as a professional have a better chance of selling the proposition to your clients. (There's two campaigns here...)

If you're a Sage dealer, you are left to fend the problems and if you can't help then Sage steps in. There is no collective consciousness about issues though many arise and become part of reported issues - often in a disorganized and distorted way.

In the hosted model, there's one butt to kick. Everyone knows who it is and they will demand exemplary service. When they don't get it, they'll kick the crap out of Twinfield. So the company has to deliver a better proposition. At present, it looks like it has that capability. But it's early in the game so I won't predict that outcome!

Sage cannot morph itself effectively onto the service model in time to fend off a concerted attack by Twinfield. Sage will scream 'nonsense' and assume its brand will carry it through. News boys. Wrong. The brand isn't enough when it comes to service. Users and professionals have been screaming about this for years. The difference today is there's an alternative.

I expect and anticipate that Sage will counter attack. They have to . For which I had better be ready. In any next phase, I expect Sage to take some ground. But I'm not worried. I still think SaaS is a powerful and effective proposition.

Disclosure: I have no commercial relationship with Twinfield, its authors, D2C or David Terrar - yet.

Maneuver marketing

The number one reason for marketing is to increase revenue.  The question that rarely gets asked though is: "At whose expense?" The competition of course. So who is the competition for you? The firm down the street? The 30-partner firm that just bagged one of your best clients? The Big Four as they make off with the last of your FTSE 250 clients?

Here's an alternative thought. It is possible to beat off the big guy by adopting the tactics of maneuver marketing. It's how modern day warfare is prosecuted and being in business is a war on many fronts. (Feel free to disagree but if you do then be prepared to be bombarded with facts about my own current war! Oh - you didn't know?  Great - it's working.)

What you should intuitively know is that your larger rival is often vulnerable to attack because they don't have the structure in place to act swiftly. They may appear to be more skillful - and therefore more attractive - but in reality they don't have the ability to create the one thing you can. A strong relationship that ties you to the client in an emotional manner. In sales language, they call it 'customer intimacy.'

Here's an example: "I'd never leave XXX because the reception people always make me simile. Even when I'm here to pick up the bad tax news." Here's another: "Jim called to offer the use of his land when we had mastitis in the herd. Why would I leave his firm?" Get the idea?

So how can you use maneuver marketing to attack (you heard it right) your target competition and create clear water between you and the guy you want to win against? I'm happy to take assignments where I teach this stuff and help you set out the strategy that goes with counter attack. (Traditional marketing folk take note: What I say can be very uncomfortable.)

BTW - do I eat my own dog food? Sure. But to let that cat out the bag would be bad timing!

4-card trick

A number of folk have asked how I develop traffic for the site and in particular the right kind of traffic. So here goes:

1. AccountingWEB sends a lot of folk over here through both direct links, the comments I make there and the occasional riff of stuff I've written. It demonstrates these are complementary information sources
2. This site is developing what's called 'Google juice.' It means when people search for something specific where I've already posted, there's a good chance I'll be up among the first posts read on the topic.
3. I access 100-150 sites a day, usually through my newsreader or through bookmarks to a hatful of specialist sites. Where I find something of interest then I tend to comment, trackback or post about the topic on hand. If I'm writing about something I've seen, then I'm almost always taking a tack that's specific to the profession.  Visitors who see my comments may be curious to get my full take so come over to the site. Those who wish to leave comments do so and may themselves link back to this site. So now we have two sites with uncommon links with information that spreads to others. It's viral.
4. Finally, I have certain contacts who tell me interesting things that I can then pass on but again with a professional twist. These may be the start of new comments, trackbacks etc and so the circle (sphere, triangle or polygon) of influence expands.

It's a 4-card trick, get it?

Bridging the departmental divide

The professional practices I speak with are usually organised along functional lines - audit, tax and so on. Rarely do I find practices specifically aligned to industry specific client groups. Where this happens, partners are usually the 'collection point' for industry expertise. From a communications perspective, that's a real problem.

When people work in functional silos, they become highly territorial. Their perspective narrows. That's necessary for the development of expertise but it doesn't help client and internal relationships. This is particularly problematic when firms are geographically spread. Some staff may never meet each other and so lose the opportunity to share experience. Permanent file notes help but they don't provide a collective flavour of how common client group issues impact results for instance.

Sedgwick Claims Management  in the US has found the start of an answer to this through internal podcasting. Each week they create a minute podcast that's available to every employee. The results are staggering. They are discovering many things they didn't know about their employees and customers. It's a global first but one where there are  great lessons to be drawn.

Shel Holtz interviewed the leaders of this project and his podcast can be found by clicking the podcast icon at the top of this post.  I thoroughly recommend investing the 25 minutes the podcast takes. It is a fascinating and forthright insight you rarely come across. If you don't have the time, Shel's excellent show notes can be used to access different parts of the conversation.

How influential might your website be?

One of the people I enjoy reading is Vinnie Marchandani. He is one of the smartest people ever to have worked at Gartner, the 800lb gorilla tech industry analyst outfit.  In respect of influence, he recently said:

"If Google or Yahoo are becoming the universal search tools, us bloggers, followed by print media, followed by analyst firms are getting more hits and getting our perspectives read. The ratio from what I can tell is almost 7 to 2 to 1 for tech topics. So from the Google channel, many of us have more of a following than a Forbes journalist or an industry analyst."

I can vouch for the truth of that statement. In following the referral URLs - these are the sites through which people click through to your site, I can determine how people found this site. Many are finding AccMan simply by entering the search term into Google. That implies they've heard about the name rather than already know it. In that sense, Google is behaving like a directory.

Curiously, if you do a search on KPMG at MSN, you see a critical piece I wrote earlier in the month way up there at the third spot in the rankings. The referring URL brought someone from the US Ministry of the Interior, Reclamation Department to AccMan. Whomever it was took a good long look around. That's both scary and exciting.

Exciting because I'd love to  know the context for all the things the reader viewed and I can't get that information at the moment. Scary because I wonder if it is in connection with issues of trust? If so then I'd like to know the extent to which the reader's thinking was influenced by what he/she read? But of this, I'm sure. The reader was sufficiently intrigued to read at least 6 independent articles.

That's important when you know the average person reads 2.5 pages each visit. If USDT has bookmarked the article or site or has put my RSS feed into a news aggregator then chances are they'll be regularly following posts from this site. That's influence.

Now imagine if you operated a site like this and exposed or discussed issues of importance to your target client groups. What would that do for your standing as a reliable source of information? What would that do for your trust ranking?

Try this on your desktop

A professional practitioner will use a combination of one/all of the following: email, browser, word processor, accounts prep application, tax prep app, practice management app, document/content management app

How about if it could all be housed in a single environment - browser? Most can with open source or browser engineered or hosted software. It can't in the Windows client/server environment. Why should this matter?

The image at the top shows my desktop. I have 4 apps running in the foreground and 3 others in background. But in the browser, I have 3 different 'instances' with 2 running in foreground. On the main browser, there are 5 different functional toolbars, 19 different hosted apps or sites running. Try that on your desktop.

Service provider apologises

In a couple of previous posts, I talked about the problems I've been having with SixApart. They're the people that power this site and on Tuesday they had a BIG outtage. I had complained about favouritism in communications and this evening I received a personally addressed email from the CEO.

A detailed explanation was given as to what had happened and the actions the company is taking to resolve their issues. I applaud them. I already know that off the back of this site, SixApart has gained additonal customers. Great. But I would be less than transparent if I didn't let you see my response:

Thanks for this Barak - much appreciated. Could I suggest several things:

1. Put these issues on the 6A landing page so everyone can easily see what's happening. 6A's site is a bit quirky and it's not always easy to see these things.
2. Let us know, within the bounds of any stakeholder restrictions how you've worked out the next year's requirements. The impression I drew was that 6A had lost sight of its friends' growth over at Technorati and so had not adequately planned for outtage/redundancy. That may be completely unfair but at this point I don't see that being demonstrated. Bare numbers won't do it for most people.
3. Be a bit careful about where emails are sent when issues unfold. Steve Rubel received what many (and I include myself) thought smacked of preferential service communication. Not a great idea.

Thanks again and I hope you see these suggestions in the spirit they're meant - helpful.

Dennis Howlett
http://www.accmanpro.com

Recte numerare and other mottos

Someone reminded me today that a literal translation of the ICAEW motto  'recte numerare' could be 'numerous bums.' To which I can only add my personal motto: nil illigiteme carborundum. And they don't.

No IRIS Accounts Office Online review anytime soon

I remember the day when Rob Steele, product head honcho at IRIS  made a 400+ mile round trip to give me a demo of Exchequer for review in one of the technology trade titles. It was 1996/7 and the company was trying to get press visibility. Anyone that determined is either desperate or committed. Rob's committed and the product was a breath of fresh air. How things have changed.

Yesterday I asked Rob if he fancied arranging a demo of IRIS Accounts Office Online  so I could update my knowledge of Exchequer (not looked at in about a year) and for public consumption. I am particularly interested in seeing how it compares with the 'old' Citrix version piloted by Cooper Parry.

Unfortunately, it seems IRIS is too busy sifting sales leads. In email Rob said:

"To be honest we are just about coping with the high levels of interest at the moment, generated from the IRIS customer annual roadshows we are doing at the moment.  But it could well be a good idea for the future.  Thanks for the offer."

I could throw a few toys out the pram (my first thought!). Instead, I say:

• Congratulations for having a successful run of shows - I love success as much as the next person and I hope IRIS gets a high conversion rate
• I guess the shows were an expensive exercise...telesales, room hire, running around the country...I wonder the acquisition cost per customer?
• The days of the 'comparative software review' are over for what are largely commoditised products - like accounts prep. But there is a LOT of current interest in hosted solutions. Exchequer was early out the gate on this - perhaps a little too early. It would be good to see how it's progressed - I already know it's been a hit at Griffins. I'd like to see if I can add to the mix and in my opinion, timeliness matters on this occasion
• 'Hosted' is early in the adoption cycle so readers need independant opinion if they are to reasonably assess its usefulness to their situation
• A review can throw up questions the vendor missed but which could add value to its customers
• What I publish is free for all those that choose to read - if a review produces sales leads then great (free always wins!)

Offer's still open Rob.

Update: AccountancyAge has a less than wonderful commentary on what it calls a 're-launch.'  On this occasion, the central thesis isn't correct as it compares apples and bananas.

My service provider is struggling

The other day, I was talking about having problems. It transpires the entire service has been in trouble for some days now. To cut a long story short, SixApart's TypePad service has grown too fast for its own good and the company's made something of a hash of moving to increased capacity. That meant millions of sites were down for several hours and not for the first time.

One member of the blogerati, Steve Rubel, said:

"Everyone who has issues with customer service from time to time should take a page from Six Apart's blogging playbook...yet the CEO took the time to email me."

Nice when you get preferred treatment. No-one else records getting email - I didn't. And as a result, SixApart is taking a hammering. Not over its attention to public worry, but for three reasons:

• Users want service, an explanation can follow but timely information is useful
• Unless you know where to go, you've got no information to work on from the main SixApart site
• The selective treatment thing kick started a fair amount of ire

The fact is the outtages were avoidable. When you're growing as fast as SixApart you've got to plan ahead. This is one of the problems with today's technology. The people running some of these companies may be brilliant technicians but they just don't have the experience to solve 'grown up' problems. Many of the outtage issues can be avoided altogether by using a different platform like WordPress - which is free - and a reliable hosting partner like TotalChoice Hosting.