What a Year. 2008 started on the coat tails of an industrious and busy Christmas and New Year period for the team at Enabling. With a number of new projects on the go - and an ever productive consulting team, the small (yet well needed) break was but a distant memory as January turned into February, and then suddenly the Olympics rolled around!

As a team - we made a commitment to better serving our customers and potential customers by diversifying the solutions we are able to offer. Our selected product suite now encompasses Sage, Microsoft, SAP, Greentree and Cognos - with the skills of our team being focused in order to provide unparalleled support for all customers.

In terms of trends shaping the market, the current Global Financial situation has become meal time conversation - and businesses are readying themselves for whatever lies ahead. Australia and New Zealand may once again be sheltered by internal abundance and favourable trading positions with our partners, however undoubtedly it is no time for complacency.

If you want to ensure that your business system is delivering and protecting your organisation during this period we suggest including these tips: use your system to budget and forecast, review your trading and account terms, assess your stock management and reporting, and most importantly - use the systems you have in place to take care of your customers!

Whilst the lead up to Christmas is a time for businesses to frantically prepare for the exodus of staff going on holidays and ensure projects will be right to start in the New Year , it is also a time for each of us to reflect on what we have achieved as individuals. Hopefully we can all take some time during the break to think about what our goals for 2009 will be, whilst also spending valuable time with family and friends.

Once again, as a team - we at Enabling thank you for your continued support and we look forward to ensuring your Enabling Experience is bigger and better in 2009.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.


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THE SAGE AWARDS - 25 NOVEMBER 2008

Sage Business Solutions has announced the winners of the 2008 Business Partner of the Year Awards - which pay tribute to the work and success of the best of Sage’s 120 business partners across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Winners were announced at Sage’s annual 'Insights’ partner conference held last month.More than 200 people attended the conference, including business partners from the all Sage product lines including Accpac ERP, Sage CRM and Sage Timberline Office. This year saw significant growth in numbers; conference registrations grew by 50% from 2007.

Enabling was the highest achiever on the night, claiming awards in four categories: 'Sage Business Solutions Partner of the Year 2008’, 'Third Party Partner of the Year,’ 'Top Performing Maintenance Renewals for Sage
Timberline Office’ and 'Top Performing Partner for Sage ERP’. The company was also co-winner in the 'Master Business Partner’ category.Managing Director of Sage Business Solutions, Mike Lorge, stressed how
crucial business partners like Enabling are to Sage’s success and the importance of the continuing innovation from development partners to build on the core functionality of Sage’s solutions. "We would like to congratulate all the winners on the success they have achieved. 2008 has been an exciting year with the introduction of a range of new and upgraded products across our CRM and ERP suites," Lorge said.

WHAT'S PLANNED FOR 2009

2009 brings with it world economic turmoil and new political directions for Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Within our customer base, some are experiencing significant financial and business pain whilst others, although not feeling any immediate significant effects, are apprehensive about what the New Year will entail. One thing that is certain, 2009 will bring significant business change and the need for decisive decision making and strong leadership. Enabling is geared to support you as you look to enhance efficiencies and productivity in your business, or to provide you with better information and insights into your business performance.

Our software partners continue to lead the market in delivering technology that advances the way businesses operate. We will continue to evaluate and advise you on suitable technology that will add value to your business. Internally we are continually enhancing our skills and methodologies to ensure we are efficient and effective in the services we provide you.

We value highly the trusted and long term relationships we have with our customers. In 2009 we would like to build upon these through shared success in the projects and support we provide to your business.

EXCITING PROJECTS THAT WE HAVE WORKED ON IN 2008

WaiveStar

Since its launch in 2000 WaiveStar's tremendous success has been accompanied by some significant growing pains. They called in Enabling to streamline their financial and accounting systems as well as implement a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. With Sage Accpac ERP and CRM software, Enabling was able to restructure WaiveStar’s backend business processes into a centralized solution. This was achieved by making use of standard functionality and features, as well as utilising the software architecture or framework to develop components to complement the core application. A significant component of this design was the use of inbuilt workflows within CRM, assisting WaiveStar with streamlining a wide range of day-to-day business processes and dramatically improving the accuracy of data.

PNG Forest

PNG Forest Products has varied business interests including saw mill operations, hydro power generation, township maintenance, livestock and agriculture, retail operations and a golf club, all in one centralised business district. Over the years, the operation developed pockets of several independent sub systems to handle the areas of Overseas Invoicing, Local Invoicing, General Ledger Management, Payroll and Point of sale systems. However none of these systems talked to each other, so it involved the strenuous task of sourcing all the information every month and then trying to compile a set of management reports.

Enabling analysed the situation which included a requirement for total integration of the systems. A 5 Phase plan was proposed to migrate the legacy systems and provide a common platform for the co-existence of all the required modules such as Financials, Operation and Purchase Workflow, Payroll, Fixed Assets and Retail POS systems. The modern platform introduced to them was Windows, SQL & Terminal Services Technology coupled with the powerful Sage ERP 500 suite of products.

Duffill Watts Limited

Duffill Watts Limited is a major engineering consultancy group and part of the Australian Downer EDI conglomerate. It needed to automate its data handling and create an efficient and reliable system to handle complex time and cost recording and billing across multiple offices in New Zealand and overseas. Enabling delivered an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution based on Microsoft Dynamics AX. The critical requirement was the need to improve time sheet handling and integrate time sheets into an ERP solution. This had to be capable of automating the processing task by seamlessly moving data into Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and General Ledger.

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE CUSTOMERS WHO HAVE RECENTLY JOINED ENABLING

Cash Stop Financial Services
Combined Community Trusts of New Zealand
Combined Rural Traders
Cottonsoft
Crumpler
Darley Australia
Deutz Australia
Digara Construction
Eastland Group
Epuron Pty Ltd
Hanna Group Pty Ltd
Healthzone Limited
Heatpumps & Air Conditioning
Huthwaite
Horncastle Homes
Haulotte Australia
Interrelate Family Centres

Imerys
ING Real Estate Finance
James Design
Keysnaps
Lachlan Partners
Lifestyle Communities
Livingstone Brothers
Markis Corporation
Masonry Concepts
March Construction
Mental Health Research Institute
Metered Energy
M & H Power Systems
NEC Australia Pty Ltd
Newman’s Entertainment Group
Polynesian Limited
Prosec

P&J Plastering Contractors
QAIAS
RecruitR
Rockend Technology Pty Ltd
Rogers Civil
Rotors and Drums Australia
Russell Group / Dominion Construction
Star El ectrical
Simplot
Stresscrete
Synlait Developments
TSNT
Vitality Brands
Wasco
Wilh Wilhelmsen Investments P/L
Wolpers Grahl
YesWest

ENABLING WHITE PAPER- PRODUCTIVITY IN THE WORKPLACE

For the second time this year Enabling hosted our Customer & Executive Briefings throughout Australia and New Zealand in October through to November. The focus of the briefings was on increasing productivity in the workplace with a practical guide to leading a business through the process of productivity improvement. The guide was written in the form of one of Enabling’s growing series of white papers which have been developed by experienced Enabling consultants to address real issues facing today’s work place.

Please find below an extract from the Whitepaper

Productivity in the workplace

Improving productivity is seldom about the drastic overhaul of procedures and processes in a company where good, solid managerial processes already exist. It is more about management technique and iterative improvements in culture, procedure and process. Improving productivity in a well-established organisation is complex and needs to be well considered. There is no silver bullet – the experience of productivity improvements involves a fair bit of disturbance, patience and above all, perseverance.

What is productivity?

Productivity can be defined as measuring outputs against inputs, typically quantity and/or value of products and services (outputs) measured against the cost or time used to produce them. Inputs may include capital, materials, tools and employees. To measure productivity, we measure the quantity or value of outputs divided by the cost of inputs, in dollars or quantity.


Click here to download the complete White Paper (Right Click and Save as)

SUCCEEDING IN 2009

In a desire to help you succeed in the New Year, Enabling sought the advice of a select number of our customers and business associates who have expertise in creating opportunities in tough economic times. The responses that they gave us are listed below and are un-edited. We hope that by reading this advice you can take away something positive and use it to further the success of your company. We would like to thank everyone who helped contribute to this section; your input is greatly appreciated.

Dr Amanda Gudmundsson
Director Graduate Studies, Faculty of Business, Brisbane Graduate School of Business, Queensland University of Technology

Astute business leaders and managers appreciate that in the current demanding economic climate, organisational success or indeed survival
depends upon the ability of our organisations to create and maintain sustainable competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is arguably
achieved through organisational capabilities that are valuable, rare, and difficult for competitors to imitate. Capabilities such as innovation, efficiency, leadership, collaboration, flexibility and the ability to engage in rapid change are the intangible assets that we may not be able to see or touch, yet these are precisely the capabilities that make a substantial difference to organisational performance.

To achieve competitive advantage through organisational capability, research evidence derived from the resource-based view of the firm advocates enhancing organisational core competencies. These competencies are the collective expertise, abilities and skills of your organisation’s talent pool. The human capital of the organisation is thus instrumental in determining company performance and success.

In times of economic distress it is easy to withdraw from investing in your human capital. However, to ensure that your organisation is able to foster a sustainable competitive advantage, investing in your people is fundamental. Now is precisely the time to reflect on your organisation’s current human resource policies and practices and ensure that investing in the learning, development and maintenance of your organisation’s core capability - your people - is fostered and nurtured.

John Goddard
CEO of Rockend

So it looks like 2009 will be a tough year, so what will you do to keep your business on course and meeting the KPI’s set back in early 2008?

A key theme in our business is to constantly focus on the success of our customers. We really do believe that when our customers succeed, we at Rockend succeed. We also promote the importance of believing in the theory of abundance as outlined by Steven Covey in "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People!"

Now believing in abundance theory, when the "economic world" appears to be in freefall, may not seem to smart. But I suggest it supports the real importance of focusing on customers when conditions get tougher. Remember it’s the customers who support you now, will be the ones that continue to promote your business to others, therefore delivering the growth every business needs.

Weak companies that only react to the tougher market conditions are more likely to retreat and protect what they have and therefore they fail to see the opportunity presented by the failure of competitors. In 2009 plan carefully for the new conditions and always be prepared to compete for every opportunity that will help build your business and exceed your KPI’s.

Ben Bardon
CEO of Central West Group Apprentices

Whilst the credit crunch has preoccupied the attention of the world’s governments over recent months we believe that in the medium term the financial crisis will pale by comparison to the adjustments society will need to make to mitigate the impact of climate change.

In 2008 we have embarked on a sustainability program that will transform CWGA and prepare us for a vital skills development role in the future. We aim for this to play out well across the various scenarios we can envisage. Our whole of business development goals are to:

• 1 Become a sustainable business prepared for a low carbon world
  
• 2 Develop diverse and complementary products oriented at new and emerging skills
• 3 Invest in developing our capability for the future
  

This year we have made a start through the following initiatives:

• Executive staff must have at least one sustainability KPI in their current individual work plan
• Performance is assessed against these KPIs
• Other staff having sustainability KPIs where relevant (mainly those with business development or budget responsibilities)
• Implemented a car policy that focuses on smaller, hybrid or gas powered cars for staff
• Purchasing carbon offsets for vehicles through Greenfleet
• Reducing the size of the car fleet
• Tracking and reporting on emissions to executive team
• Purchasing Green power
• Purchasing carbon credits for flights and the balance of emissions
• Raising awareness of all staff and the Board about climate change science and its implications for our business
  
• Leading a sustainability project with 3 local businesses.
  

We are also working on the development of Electrotechnology training that will focus on the renewable energy sector. This year we will retrofit our central office, transforming it from one of the least energy efficient buildings in the region to an exemplar of green redesign.

What's New in Tips & Tricks

The most consistent feedback that Enabling receives from customer have been for more Tips & Tricks to be made available. For the recent the Customer and Executive briefings Enabling created a document that focused on Sage Accpac and CRM issues that consultants have dealt with real customers. This Tips & Tricks document looked at the following issues:

Sage Accpac

• FR Drilldowns
• Account Groups
• AR Follow Ups
• Export / Import Functionality
• AR Writeoffs
• Save Settings as defaults

Sage CRM

• Advanced Find
• Dynamic and Static Groups
• Editing Coaching Captions
• Send and File Email
• Attach Shared Documents

To download your copy of the October 2008 Tips & Tricks Document click here (Save as)

SAY HELLO TO THE NEW ENABLING EMPLOYEES

VIC

Peter Oliphant
Peter joins Enabling Melbourne as our Customer Services Manager. Peter will be responsible for the management and delivery of ERP and CRM solutions to Enabling customers and has a wealth of experience in his field.

Jaco Ungerer
Jaco and his family have moved to Australia from South Africa to join Enabling. Jaco is an experienced ERP, ePos, WMS and Service Manager Consultant and he is a welcome addition to our team.

Kelly Kramer
Kelly and her fiancé have also moved to Australia from South Africa to join our team. Kelly is a certified Microsoft Dynamics NAV consultant.

Stacy Yanti Sim
Stacy joins us after working in the South East Asian region (most recently Singapore). Stacy is an experienced Sage Accpac ERP consultant specialising in Crystal Reports

Tim Perkin
Tim is an experienced end user and joins Enabling as a Consultant for Sage Timberline and SAP B1 products. Tim excels at Project Management and the construction industry.

Tommy Kwok
Tommy has joined our local Development team. Tommy is an experienced application developer with web support. He is also a stand out web graphic designer and is a certified Microsoft CRM consultant.

NZ

Chris Heyhoe
Chris has been the sole NZ Timberline Business partner for the last decade, and joins Enabling to head up the Construction Engineering & Property Vertical. His construction background of 30 years gives him a strong industry knowledge and in-depth understanding of the Estimating and Project management disciplines in the Industry. Chris is looking forward to the synergies Enabling bring with CRM integration into Timberline, and added consulting resources.

Amit PRakasht
Amit has 8 years experience as an ERP Consultant, working with several accounting/ERP products. Originally from Fiji, he has worked for an Accpac Business Partner for 6 years before relocating to NZ and joining Enabling to pursue consulting in his favourite product Sage Accpac. Amit looks forward to enriching the business of Enabling customers, with his strong consulting and ERP background.

Peter Sinclair
10 years experience in IT including network management, software development and managing IT departments. Prior to joining Enabling Peter was responsible for managing all HR systems at the University of Otago including development of enhancements and system integration. Peter has strong business analyst and project management skills having worked in a variety of business environments. He is client focused and is able to convert business needs to solutions that will address customer issues.

Pete Stratford
Pete has 12 years experience as a software developer and analyst, working with several accounting/ERP and health care products. He moved into consulting 18 months ago, where his understanding of accounting/ERP software would be combined with his strong writing and presentation skills. Pete looks forward to enriching the business of Enabling customers, with his strong consulting and software background.

Megan Still
Megan has 3 years experience as the sole Timberline accounting consultant in New Zealand and has been working in accounting for the construction industry for the last 8 years. Prior to Enabling Megan was a contractor and changed over to an employee basis when Enabling became the Timberline distributor in New Zealand. Megan is looking forward to the expansion of Timberline in the NZ market and is excited by the prospect of more Timberline consultants in the country.

QLD

Sejal Shah
Sejal has moved to Brisbane From India and is married to Sapan Shah our local Timberline Help Desk Consultant. Sejal has taken over the role of office co-coordinator whilst Nicole enjoys her maternity leave. Sejal is interested in becoming qualified to work with Enabling's product range.

Ashley Sharpe
Having waited for many months Ashley has finally arrived in Australia from South Africa. After nearly loosing Ashley to visa difficulties he has now taken up residence in Brisbane and is enjoying the glamorous life of a certified Enabling Accpac consultant. Ashley loves Rugby Union, Moto GP and would really like to get a bike to zoom around the Brisbane peak hour traffic.

Alexey Cherepanov
Alexey is originally from Siberia and has decided to come to Brisbane to join the Enabling Development Team. Alexey who is married, is settling in very well and is enjoying the slight change in temperature that QLD offers to his homeland.

Neil James
Neil has joined the Enabling Sales team and has hit the ground running, already getting in to the massive number of leads and prospects throughout CRM. He is currently completing his MBA at QUT and has worked in IT sales for over 10 years. Neil has taken on the responsibility of SAP B1 sales but is also learning as many of the Enabling product range as possible.

Extended Enabling Product Range

With the continuing goal of providing customers with the best possible solutions for their specific business requirements, SAP Business One was added to the Enabling product range. This allows our customers a greater choice of viable options to address their needs.
Enabling would like to thank all our software vendors for the support that they have given us throughout the year and their assistance in allowing us to provide our customers with the support that they deserve.

Thank you Sage, Microsoft, Greentree, SAP and IBM Cognos.

Enabling's Birthday

Enabling reached the magical milestone of turning one this year and there has been much to celebrate. From coming together for our first ever Enabling conference in 2007, to landing our first group customer it has been an amazing experience for everyone involved. As our first year as an international company progressed, there have been significant additions to the company with both new personnel and product becoming Enablised.

As we look forward to our second year anniversary we would like to thank everyone who has helped make Enabling what it is today. Everyone from our customers, suppliers, employees, business partners and industry contacts, you have all been part of the process and we hope that the next year is just as rewarding for us as it will be for you.

Customer Survey

Thank you to everyone who participated in the second Enabling Customer survey. Enabling puts great value on the results we receive. The purpose of the survey was to find out how well we are doing at our job and ascertain if our service is good enough for you to recommend us to your friends or business colleagues. Recommending is a key indicator of how you rate us.

This year we were very pleased with the results. It demonstrated to us we had made an improvement since last year’s survey and that overall, customers were happy with the quality and level of service they are receiving. The feedback helped identify where we are succeeding but most importantly, where we need improvement, which is worth its weight in gold to us.

Thank you again to all those participants in our survey. We encourage you to provide us with feedback on a regular basis - either through your Account Manager, the Help Desk or any member of the Enabling team.

We would also like to congratulate the winners of the Survey Competition, who each received a new I-Pod Nano. The winners were: Stephanie Dean (NZ), Debbie Berens (QLD), David Higgins (NSW), Brian Cain (VIC).

Enabling Executive & Customer Briefings

For the second time this year in October and November Enabling hosted our Executive & Customer Briefings throughout Australia and New Zealand. These briefings were presented with the goal of providing customers with an educational and informative event that allowed them to interact with Enabling staff face to face. Attendee satisfaction for the briefings was highly rated, with feedback questionnaires showing that 8 out of 10 customers indicated they would recommend their colleagues attend the next event.

Executive Briefing
The focus for the executive briefing was Productivity in the Workplace, with a practical guide to leading a business through the process of productivity improvement. The guide was presented in the form of one of Enabling’s growing series of white papers. The response from attendees was very positive and their submitted suggestions will be used to help create the next Enabling publication.

Customer Briefing
The Customer Briefings were a product focused session, to help customers learn more about the software solution they use on a day to day basis. Our Enabling team of consultants showcased the latest features to improve your productivity in the workplace – including Tips & Tricks, new business tools to enable better business for your organisation and upcoming vendor news. Feedback from this event was noted and will be used to improve future Enabling customer events.

Victoria Office Move

After spending close to 5 years at Ferntree Gully Rd, the Melbourne Enabling team decided it was time for a change of scenery and have moved office. This decision was helped by the fact that with every new employee added to the roster, the closer they came to either stacking consultants on top of each other or finding a bigger office.

In the last week of October everything was packed and moved 3 km down the road to the nice and newly built Compark Circuit building. While the office still has that "New Building" smell, Enabling warmly invite any customers who are in the neighbourhood to pop in and say hello

Get in touch with Enabling

Melbourne - Sydney - Brisbane -
Auckland - Christchurch - Wellington - Dunedin

Australia - 1800 enabling
New Zealand - 0800 enabling
Email: info@enabling.net

If you would like to find out more about our company and product range, simply visit our website at www.enabling.net

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