I believe today is Gary’s last day at Pegasus. Here is what Gary said to his channel partners:

Before I ride off into the sunset for my micro-retirement, I thought I should drop you a short note to express my personal thanks and appreciation for the support you’ve shown towards both Pegasus and to me personally over recent years. I have enjoyed our challenges and successes in equal measure and will always hold warm memories of my 18 of year’s service both inside and alongside the Pegasus channel community.

Wow 18 years of service! That is a long time. I wish Gary all the best. He will no doubt resurface after the micro-retirement.

Resources:

• Gary Turner plans to leave Pegasus
• Great Leaders 1 – Gary Turner of Pegasus

Tags: Pegasus, Gary Turner

I am currently trialling IntelliContact. Here is a screen shot of the e-mail shot I created for the forthcoming NW StartUp 2.0 event. It looks much better than the website. I am yet to fully test IntelliContact, but early signs are it’s a great tool to publish and manage mail shots. The only disappointment is that trial period is limited to about 2 weeks.

Tags: NW Startup 2.0, IntelliContact, Marketing

Phil Blything, co-founder of Internet and Marketing Consultancy, Glow New Media has accepted the challenge to run OpenCoffee Liverpool. The first event will run on 19th June 2007. Please register here. The plan is that Phil will run Liverpool events on every 3rd Tuesday of the month, whilst Manchester events will be held on every 4th Tuesday of the month. I hope Sheffield and Leeds will select the remaining two Tuesdays.

Tags: OpenCoffee, OpenCoffee Manchester, OpenCoffee Liverpool

On 15th May 07, I and other bloggers present had the privileage to drill Amit Chatterjee, SVP for Commercialisation and Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC). GRC seems to be an emerging theme within SAP whilst it has been part of the expertise provided by some of the Big 4 (and other) accountancy firms for sometime.

L to R: Amit and Axel

According to Amit, part of GRC includes Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which I came to know whilst undertaking my Executive MBA at Manchester Business School from 2002 to 2004. In 2003, I attended a Business in the Community conference in Manchester, which focussed on CSR. To me, CSR makes good business sense, if used correctly, it can add significant value instead of joining the band wagon, simply because it is a trendy subject. A story I remember very well is how United Utilities (told by then CEO, John Roberts) used CSR to achieve a competitive advantage by filling a skills gap they had at the time. They started training prisoners to became fitters and electricians with the promise of guaranteed employment after they completed their sentences. This ensured a steady stream of skilled labour force that United Utilities could not find from the labour market due to skills shortage and competition. In addition, it removed a burden from the society – stopping newly released prisoners from re-committing offences. A win-win for all those concerned. Another favourite CSR activity is releasing work force for volunteer activities, perhaps 1/2day each quarter. So the question is how can SAP add value? Is it by simply capturing CSR initiatives and then using that data for planning and marketing perspectives? It would be great to get some feedback in this area.

According to Amit, there are more than 1.1 trillian regulations, that makes compliance a nightmare for companies to adhere to. Most companies do not get to hear nor have resources to follow each applicable regulation. Most regulations are adhered due to publicity campaigns. Simply publishing a new regulation and expecting companies to comply does not work. GRC tools should help manage this process. In this situation, how does SAP justify ROI given the intangible nature of the problem addressed?

According to Amit, SAP GRC will be delivered via PWC, Deloitte and Protiviti. SAP GRC will also address carbon offsetting. This bring my mind to a conversation I had at OpenCoffee Manchester 2nd event, setting up a business to track carbon offsetting and related expertise.

Tags: SAP, SAP SAPPHIRE 07 VIENNA, Amit Chatterjee,  Governance, Risk, Compliance, GRC

edocr will be presenting at i-TechPartner on 12th June 2007 at Daresbury Innovation Centre. Hopefully RJ will rise to the challenge and an early beta will be available for demo. There will be 29 other companies pitching on the same day. If you are a startup, you might be interested in registering.

Tags: i-Techpartner, Daresbury Innovation Centre, edocr

SAP’s answer to streamlining invoice processing within an enterprise is SAP Biller Direct application, which seems to be designed for mySAP ERP. It enables an organisation to submit invoices, receive invoices, make payments, manage accounts and settle and reconcile transactions through the web. Not sure whether there is a similar application for SAP R/3. If you know, please let me know.

I split the EIPP market into supplier-centric, buyer-centric, enterprise-centric and exchanges. Whilst exchanges deliver the maximum benefit and best Return on Investment (ROI) opportunities, solutions such as SAP Biller Direct also brings significant benefits to the organisation deploying the application. But it adds another level of complication to the organisations’ trading partners, if they do not have the ability to take SAP format directly into their application.

However, SAP Biller Direct can achieve maximum value when connected with organisation’s trading partners through an exchange, so therefore two solutions complementing each other, as was the case for SFS Services AG implementation (through PayNet).

Tags: SAP, EIPP, e-invoicing, SAP Biller Direct, SFS Services AG,  PayNet

Tags: SAP, SAP Biller Direct, SAP SCFM, EIPP, e-invoicing, e-billing

Philip Baddeley of Equity Fingerprint just pinged me to say hi after coming to know about OpenCoffee Manchester. According to the site:

The site is about equity distribution; from the first equity split to the angel and VCs rounds. Use this business plan resource to shape your equity road map. Entrepreneurs and investors come in all shapes and sizes; some with ties some without. The illustrations are there to help, not to typecast anyone!

I love the way the site graphically represent equity split during the lifetime of a company. He has included two case studies for illustration. One of these is been none other than Google.

Suggestions to Philip:

1. Strike a deal with Library House, and build these graphical and tabular presentations for VC (and angel) funded companies in UK and Europe.
2. Sell these representations to analysts, etc for inclusion in their reports.
3. Provide a subscription model for punters to access all information on companies.

Just few thoughts off top of my head. Philip, thanks for getting in touch.

Tags: Philip Baddeley, Equity Fingerprint, Library House

It seems OpenCoffee Manchester is seen as a bit of a joke by the London crowd due to small number of attendees. There aren’t any London VCs prepared to attend Manchester events. So, Ed French of Enterprise Ventures came up with a marvelous idea to combine Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield under one common brand, known as OpenCoffee North. The idea is for each of the city to hold its monthly event on the same day of each month, so for example, OpenCoffee Manchester will be held on 4th Tuesday of each month.

In addition, we would share a common database. Click here to visit the brand new club on upcoming.org. The plan is to hold a single database of contacts which could be managed through this group. So who would organise each of these events?

• Manchester – moi!
• Leeds – Imran Ali
• Liverpool & Sheffield – I requested two of my contacts to consider organising events in these two great cities. Will keep you posted on the outcome.

Let us know what you think?

Tags: OpenCoffee, OpenCoffee Manchester, OpenCoffee North, Ed French, Imran Ali

3rd event of OpenCoffee Manchester (OCM) was held on 22nd May 2007 at Starbucks, Television House, 10, Mount St, Manchester, Manchester M2 5NT. Here are the attendees (15, the most we had to date) and some of the conversations that took place:

Entrepreneurs:

1. Mike Carter – Co-founder of Ixis – Ixis operates from Daresbury Innovation Centre (same place as ebdex’s home). With steady revenue growth over the last two years, Mike and Chris Haslam just added another staff member to its growing team. Ixis provides web development and network management facilities. Mike and Chris are also co-founders of edocr.
2. Paul Rouke – Owner manager at prwd, a specialist in the usability and optimising conversation rates of websites. His key challenge is scalability. Paul, I hope you found Ixis and Vagueware of interest. Do also contact Hawdale Associates (I was expecting David Hawdale). 
3. Paul Robinson - Owner manager at Vagueware. Paul is promoting co-working in Manchester. Sorry Paul, I did not get much of a chance to speak to you, other than interrupting your conversations to introduce new faces attending the event.
4. Philip Hemsted – Co-founder of Yuuguu – Philip, it was great to hear that you have turned on the revenue generation machine. Yuuguu is a company I admire (and track when I can) – I constantly learn from Philip and Anish. These guys are really into networking and can be seen at OpenCoffee London events.
5. Manoj Ranaweera (moi!) – Just to let you know, ebdex withdrew ebdex Document Exchange and ebdex EIPP from the market in Dec 06. I now provide strategic input to ebdex’s competitor, Causeway (my day time job) in addition to running OpenCoffee Manchester and NW Startup 2.0 events. I am also a co-founder of edocr (first real case study of the events I run) and interested in building a portfolio of software startups (that would be ebdex Labs!).
6. Stephen Henesy -  Creativityetc  – Apologies, I did not get much of a chance to speak to you.
7. Tom Cheesewright – Head Egg of eggheads, a company that unscramble modern technology.
8. xxx – A young graduate with startup ideas. You know who you are! I am waiting for your e-mail, so I can introduce you here.

Investors:

1. Tony Bray – Co-founder and face behind Version One, a Poynton based company. Tony recently sold Version One to CedarOpenAccounts for an undisclosed sum. Tony has two options, become a beach bum (I do not think this is Tony’s style) or get involved in other ventures. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to speak to Tony much to understand his interests – this needs to be corrected quickly. Tony, its worth giving a call to Gary Turner, who will soon step down from the role of CEO, Pegasus.
2. Ed French – Investment Director at Rising Stars. Ed has continued to support my initiatives in promotion of entrepreneurship in the North West. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to speak to Ed. This needs to be corrected.
3. Mark Rahn – A fellow Executive MBA from Manchester Business School. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Mark has joined the Rising Stars team working closely with Ed. Mark also won an iPod from Yuuguu.

Deal Makers (anyone who is not an investor or an entrepreneur):

1. Graham Salmon – I first met Graham (a Consultant at Beever and Struthers), when Dennis Howlett visited Manchester sometime back to attend a Sage conference. Graham is a passionate blogger and was very much interested in getting involved with the startup scene in the North West of England. Wow!
2. Charles Lucas – a colleague of Graham Salmon at Beever and Struthers
3. Stewart Townsend – Regional Partner Manager of Sun Microsystems – I am currently having significant dialogue with Stewart and fellow Executive MBA, Arvind Sud about startup scene in the North West. These conversations warrant a separate post, so I won’t bore you here.
4. Steven Livingston – Senior Tax Manager at KPMG. Steven sponsors NW Startup 2.0 events. A rare breed among professional service companies, Steven is well conversant of the business advantages that web 2.0 technologies bring. He will be a guy to watch for in the NW professional services market. He is also trying to put together a package for startups – KPMG is a hard egg to crack!

Next event will be held on 26th June 07 from 10am to 12am. I would like to get some feedback on the venue. An alternative venue is Starbucks in Borders book shop in Stockport Peel Centre. I am hoping to speak to their manager this week with regards to free Wi Fi access. This venue provides better car parking (30p for 2 hours), easy access (just off the motorway) more space and a nicer environment. Please let me know your thoughts. Please always check upcoming.org to catch any changes to the event. I also appreciate everyone joining the OpenCoffee Manchester and NW StartUp 2.0 Clubs set-up in upcoming.org. You may want to consider adding meaningful information to your profile on upcoming.org (I also need to update mind). You should be treating this as a marketing opportunity. Please keep your feedback coming. You are welcome to bring your laptops and demonstrate your solutions, etc. Please spread the word. Don’t forget the NW StartUp 2.0 event is on 14th June 2007.

References:

1. Mark got creative with Yuuguu
2. Web 2.0 and
3. The penny dropped at OpenCoffee Manchester

Do send any links you have to add to above list.

Tags: OpenCoffee, OpenCoffee Manchester, entrepreneurship, startups, funding, seed corn capital, business angels

Moderator – Manoj Ranaweera – ebdex
Manoj founded ebdex in late 2004 to reduce the pains felt by organisations in dealing with their suppliers and customers with respect to exchange of structured documents. The result was ebdex Document Exchange, with ebdex EIPP (Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment) being the first application offered to both SMEs and multinationals. Manoj made a significant error of judgment by outsourcing software development to partner, Affno, who failed miserably to deliver technology on time and to the budget. In fact, Affno was intended to provide a competitive advantage to ebdex. At the end of 2006, Manoj took the decision to withdraw ebdex EIPP from the market and now provides input to ebdex’s competitor, Causeway Technologies’s Tradex platform (similar to ebdex Document Exchange) achieve a step change in revenue growth and profitability. Manoj also runs OpenCoffee Manchester, a relaxed version of NW StartUp 2.0 events and blogs at http://www.manojranaweera.com.

Keynote Speaker – Ajaz Ahmed – Freeserve, Callserve, Tiva Services, Browzar, …

Ajaz Ahmed is the founder of Freeserve, the UK’s largest ISP at the time, now owned by Orange. His eureka moment came when he bought a PC at PC World in Leeds and nobody in the store could tell him how to get onto the Internet. After much persuasion by him, Dixons launched Freeserve in September 1998 and became the UK’s largest ISP in just three short months. It floated just nine months later at a market cap of £1.5bn and entered the FT 100 soon after, in March 2000 it had a market cap of £9bn.

Ajaz was one of the three founding executives to launch the business, seeing it through flotation and the £1.6bn sale to Wanadoo (Orange). Ajaz held the position of Business Development Director until April 2001 when he left the company to pursue a variety of business interests. He now sits on a number of boards including Tiva Services and Browzar.

Speaker 2 – Sam Sethi – Blognation, Vecosys

Sam Sethi is a London based entrepologist and consultant. Sam has worked in the IT industry for over 18 years for companies like Microsoft, Netscape, Gateway Computers and CMGi, in a variety of senior technical and marketing roles. Sam has also experienced the joy and pain of running his own start-ups. Recently Sam has been working as a freelance consultant with companies such as MSN (UK) and BT, helping develop their Web 2.0 strategies.

When not blogging, consulting or presenting, Sam loves nothing better than spending time with his wife & young family, running, drinking fine wine with his friends or watching his beloved Liverpool FC – YNWA.

Speaker 3 – Alain Falys – OB10, Omnis Mundi

Alain Falys co-founded the OB10 global e-invoicing network in May 2000 with three fellow Visa executives. He was Chairman and CEO until March 2005. OB10 is now the leading e-invoicing network with circa 25,000 companies worldwide exchanging 2m transactions annually for a value of $20bn. OB10 was successfully launched in the USA and Europe and the network’s key global clients include HP, GSK, Sara Lee, Cargill, Kelloggs, Barclays Bank. After leaving OB10, Alain spent nearly a year in Asia evaluating entrepreneurial opportunities in payments.

Between 1996 and 2000, Alain was Senior Vice President at Visa International EU region, in charge of the commercial cards division. Before joining Visa, Alain was head of European Business Development at Paris-based International Computer Group, a start-up joint venture created in 1989 by Computacenter, CompuNet AG and other leading systems integrators.

Since July 2006, Alain is a partner at Omnis Mundi, a group of entrepreneurial CEOs who have joined forces to foster the creation of new business in Europe in the technology, Internet services and On-Demand sectors.

Speaker 4 – David Ingram – Izimi

David Ingram is VP of Product and a co-founder of web 2.0 startup izimi. izimi lets anyone instantly publish and serve photos, music, videos, files, any content straight from their own PC to anyone else on the internet with just a web browser.

“I’m an entrepreneurial product strategist and product marketer with a background in enterprise software sales. I’ve always worked in cutting edge markets with cutting edge products; I’m a hands on do-er and I’m used to working on projects under tough conditions. I’ve several start-ups under my belt, and at the other end of the scale I’ve worked in international multi-site enterprise-scale operations. For a number of years I’ve provided independent consulting, chiefly around development of new revenue streams and business development, in a number of international blue chip corporations.”

Please visit http://www.nwstartup20.co.uk to register. It is a free event.

Tags: NW StartUp 2.0, Ajaz Ahmed, Sam Sethi, Alain Falys, David Ingram, Izimi, Freeserve, OB10, Omnis Mundi, Blognation, Vecosys