Guest blog by Rohit Kanwara, ZAP 

27th April 2020 | 4 min read

Sage Data & Analytics - a special free trial initiative

The latest webinar from Datel and ZAP tackles the world of financial reporting: how you can turn it from a thorn in your side to your company's best asset. 

In ‘Ensure Data Consistency and Automation of Your Financials’, Datel’s Lucinda Millen and my colleague at ZAP’s UK HQ Salam Al-Mosawi look at how you can use data – if handled efficiently! – to manage your assets, liabilities and risks.  How you can create and maintain financial metrics and benchmarks for all areas of your business, and how you can effectively communicate your financial position, from executive to operational level.

The session is particularly important for Sage X3 users and, to set the scene, the main software solution that tackles all the above is SD&A (Sage Data &Analytics), which is Sage's own-branded version of my company’s software, ZAP Data Hub.

I'll leave the product features, benefits and roadmap to my friends at Datel (and the ever-expanding SD&A page on Sage Marketplace) so I can use this guest blog to update everyone on a special new initiative we have taking place in the UK right now, in light of current events and the increasingly challenging and different set of circumstances the many UK businesses are finding themselves in.

Working together with Sage and our SD&A sales partners around the world, we're rolling out a programme called Do Good With Data in which we provide any Sage X3 customer with the installation, configuration and use of SD&A for 60 days.  All at no charge.  The software can be deployed either in your own infrastructure or hosted in a ‘ready-to-go‘ cloud environment. 

What are the three key differences this can make to your business, in the current era?  For me, I would say, it's:

1. Financial performance – being able to get an instant grasp on Liquidity Management, Financial Reporting, Sales, Accounts Receivable Performance, Accounts Payable Optimization and other General Ledger Insights

2. Supply chain – quickly get on top of and manage Supplier Performance, Inventory tracking and valuation, Manufacturing Performance and Purchasing Insight

3. Behavioural change - uncover and understand the new realities of changing customer behaviours and demands by getting across all your data, from all your data sources

"Do Good With Data is our broadest initiative so far (of this ‘new era’)," ZAP's CEO Garth Laird writes. "Providing the installation, configuration and use of SD&A free of charge will allow businesses to very quickly track and analyse numerous supply chain and financial metrics.  Each deployment will also include a two-day investment from our professional services team."

As my colleague, ZAP's VP Americas Trey Johnson recently blogged, "For us at ZAP, like many of you, COVID-19 is personal on every level!  Our employees are located in many countries and our global portfolio of customers are in dozens more.  On top of this, ZAP largely serves the medium business segment or ‘mid-market’, a business segment which will likely suffer greatly for the duration of the pandemic and long after. Sources like COVID-19: Implications for Business, March 2020, Executive Briefing set out very clear scenarios of economic impact but we are still in the midst of trying to determine when it will actually end and considering different outcomes."

Our plan is that, no matter what outcome - or outcomes - arise from the current situation, good access to the right data will help immeasurably. Being cognisant of all aspects of your business has never been more important.  Whether it's cloud-based marketing systems or production data in X3; AR data in Excel spreadsheets or X3 sales data. 

When we don't know what questions a business will be asking of itself in the months to come, it's never been more important to set up that ‘single version of the truth’ to be able to answer them.

Join the session with Datel’s Lucinda Millen and ZAP’s Salam Al-Mosawi on Tuesday 5th May 2020, 10:15am: Ensure data consistency and automation of your financials.