July 2009

ClearBooks: betting for profit?

July 31, 2009 Cloud Computing/SaaS

I just saw a tweet announcing that ClearBooks has reached 50 paying customers in its first year of operating. Actually that’s a bit misleading. ClearBooks started to offer paid accounts at the beginning of July with the following offer: for one month only, customers signing up for the £15/month premium service can have it for [...]

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Attracting new clients: what's wrong with this?

July 30, 2009 Marketing

AccountingWeb has a 12 point tick list for you to check off if you’re going to attract young clients. Some of it is OK but much of it is wide of the mark and representative of 20th century thinking. First up how do you define ‘young?’ 30, 25, 20, 15? There’s a heck of a [...]

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Quote of the day: tpa=bs2

July 29, 2009 Tax and Ethics

Tax is often seen as dull and uninteresting to many but sometimes you can have a good laugh when someone really muffs it. Thank goodness I wasn’t drinking my morning cuppa when I saw Richard Murphy’s: The Taxpayer’s Alliance needs an accountant: Oh dear guys: assuming that you really are creating an entrepreneurial trading company [...]

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PwC and KPMG greasing the government contract wheel?

July 29, 2009 Tax and Ethics

The Independent has a somewhat indignant post about the extent to which PwC and KPMG in particular are thought to be ‘donating in kind’ to the Tories: Analysis by The Independent has revealed that leading companies including PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and KPMG, have given the Tories nearly £500,000 since the start of last year as they [...]

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John Hagel III on innovation

July 28, 2009 Innovation

I’ve spliced together 4mins and 46 secs of a breakfast session I attended last week where John Hagel III was the main panel speaker. You don’t have to understand what he’s saying in relation to Chinese manufacture to understand the underlying message that networks can bring huge potential value. The question for those in professional [...]

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Sage cautiously upbeat

July 28, 2009 General

In a brief statement to the markets, Paul Walker Sage CEO said: “There has been no significant change in market conditions during the quarter ended 30 June 2009 and we are planning for markets to remain testing. However, our proven business model and large, geographically diverse, customer base give us confidence that we are well [...]

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Highlights from Xero's AGM

July 28, 2009 Cloud Computing/SaaS

It’s always a pleasure to see a company come into a market and do well. Even more so when that same company is prepared to sponsor your efforts. Yesterday, Xero posted an MP3 of their AGM and it’s all good news. I’m delighted with the company’s achievements but have comments on some of the points [...]

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Does saas matter to Sage?

July 28, 2009 Innovation

In a post entitled Saas doesn’t matter to Sage, the author says: Dennis Howlett contends that Sage are more interested in keeping their financial analyst community happy than their customers.  To my mind this is to fundamentally misunderstand Sage. It is absolutely the case that they are a public company, so their financial performance is [...]

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Collaboration matters for differentiation

July 27, 2009 General

I recently penned a piece called: Black cab innovation, so why not us? In recent days it has received some interesting attention – see the comments to understand what I mean. Last week I sat in on a panel discussion featuring John Hagel 111 talking about innovation in the emerging economies of India and China. [...]

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