Sage Summit 2014 – The most valuable business event ever!

Well 4 days (and nights) in Las Vegas at The Mandalay Bay for Sage Summit (the most valuable business event for small and medium sized businesses) 2014 just flew by!  What an awesome week of learning, networking (there were over 5000 participants!), being inspired and deepening relationships it was. In this blog I will highlight perspectives from our team, our customers and our awesome partner Sage as shared at Sage Summit 2014!  Yes it was hot – but it’s a dry heat!

Sage
Sage’s vision is to be recognized as the most valuable supporter of small and medium sized companies by creating greater freedom for them to succeed.  And they are delivering!  Sage has shifted away from providing data to providing insights into customers’ businesses. You may not know this but Sage has the largest small and medium sized business (SMB) footprint in the world!  In surveys recently completed by Sage, 70% of Sage customers are planning to leverage mobility in the coming year.
Sage dared to reimage Sage Summit!  Sage supports 6,000,000 businesses around the world. Every day small and medium sized businesses share with Sage what they need to be more successful. Sage has listened.  Their goal is to help SMBs grow their business by making Sage Summit the most valuable business event attended in 2014.
As shared by North American President and CEO Pascal Houillon and Chief Technology Officer and Head of Strategy, Himanshu Palsule, Sage is reinventing themselves. The change is being driven by the inspiration and diversity of their customer base. Customers are demanding timely insights into business data. Sage is choosing to respond to this demand – Sage can provide solutions on premise, in the cloud, or a hybrid solution. The choice is the customer’s!
Based on demands from their customer base Sage is responding to key trends such as:
1) Complexity – how to use the cloud – customers want to know how to extend their ERP investment
2) Convergence and Mobility – how to access / leverage and have global access to data. Access to the Sage data cloud is free with any purchase of a Sage ERP.  Up until now a mission critical foundation has been laid – whereby most of us have spent the last 30 years moving from manual data entry to automation. The next step is getting access to this data in a meaningful way.
3) Accuracy and Simplicity, Compliance, and Security and Protection
To listen to and enjoy other information shared by Sage please visit: https://www.sagesummit.com/videos
Mantralogix team
I really enjoyed the time spent with all of the Mantralogix team members who attending Sage Summit – they were excited, engaged, and came back super charged!
As shared by our team member Charito:
You know how they say ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’….? It happened, but the memories I will certainly keep for the rest of my life. Sage Summit was an incredible experience!   The keynote and breakout sessions were amazing!  My favorite was Brad Smith’s interview with Biz Stone the co-founder of Twitter and Jelly. I love these exceptional quotes from Biz Stone:
“There is value in vulnerability, don’t make your company seem bulletproof.” 
“When I do good things for other people I see it as getting, not giving.”
“Only 1.4% of what we know, is on the internet, the rest is trapped in people’s heads”
Also, this Lil Wayne quote shared by Pimm Fox during his keynote address “The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done… you lose valuable time planning what you can and will do.”
Sage Summit encouraged dialog and learning.  It focused on three pillars for its small business offerings – cloud, mobility and connected services.
I feel energized by the new direction of Sage Summit.  I met lots of inspiring people.  Thanks to everyone at Sage Summit for a great conference!
Jess shared the following:
“It was a wonderful time to reflect ON the business – we get so deep into working in the business that you need opportunities like this to be reflective and strategic.  I thought so much of our customers who work so hard to run their amazing businesses and wished they could have all heard and seen what I did.  I came back with dozens of pages of notes on what can be done to enhance our business – collected from people with mega successes of their own.  My favourite part was having the time and access to deepening relationships with our team, our customers, and various Sage team members.  There was so much genuine care and support shared and I came back feeling like together we could do anything”

Our customers
I cannot thank our customer enough for joining us – truly a delight for us to deepen our relationships, have some fun together, and understand even further what value we can provide.  Here are some perspectives:
Greg
“I valued the different perspectives on the different business aspects and processes from professionals in the industry.  I thoroughly enjoyed the keynote sessions with top business executives and even celebrities! Being 2 rows back was fantastic and got some great photos.  Attending different sessions whether it will benefit me now on the project or in the future was greatly informational.  Last if not least, attending the private concert with Neon Tress really tops off the Sage Conference!”
Stuart
“Sage Summit 2014 was an eye-opening experience for me. It was a fantastic forum to be able to share with individuals who had similar experiences.  It was wonderful to experience the “Sage family” feeling and participate in full range of seminars and learning opportunities.”
Sage Summit 2015 promises to be bigger and better – with a goal of doubling the number of participants.  Will you join us?  You won’t be disappointed!  See you next year, July 27-30, 2015 in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Look forward to the Creole food, Jazz music, and spending time with you!