Business & Money | Saturday 11 November, 2017 5:38 am |

Sage, the market and technology leader for cloud accounting, people & payroll, and payment systems, hosted an exclusive forum in Dubai examining the role of business intelligence and the impact of value-added tax (VAT) on UAE businesses.  

 

The ‘Embrace Your Digital Destiny with Sage Business Cloud’ forum saw industry leaders from the ranks of enterprise clients’ C-suite and senior executives come together for a series of thought-provoking conversations.

 

During the event, the FTSE 100-listed company unveiled Sage Business Cloud, its latest suite of small business accounting, advanced financial management and industry-specific enterprise management software. Catering to the needs of modern companies, the cloud-enabled platform helps businesses boost productivity and efficiency. Regarding UAE-specific requirements, Sage products can provide business owners with more control in managing their operations and can assist them in achieving VAT compliance.

 

Pieter Bensch, Executive Vice-President for Africa and the Middle East at Sage, said: “The ripples caused by low oil prices have led to positive reforms and economic diversification across the Middle East. At the same time, companies need to take advantage of new trends in digitisation and disruptive technology to stay ahead of the curve. This is where Sage can help - by empowering entrepreneurs and enterprises with practical solutions.  With innovative, purpose-built solutions using the very latest technology, Sage cloud applications are the only business management solution that companies will ever need for every step of the journey.”

 

Speaking on the impact of VAT on UAE-based firms, Mansoor Sarwar, Regional Technical Director for the Middle East at Sage, said: “Compliance with the UAE VAT law requires significant changes to a firm’s technology, operations, financial management and accounting practices. The reality is that businesses in this region have never had to deal with taxation before, and it is unlikely that their current systems are VAT-ready. “

 

He added: “Investing in a cloud-enabled accounting solution can streamline the VAT collection, record-keeping and reporting processes. Sage has proven to its partners that implementing such a solution need not be an expensive or tedious undertaking.”

 

The digital revolution driven by the Internet of Things (IoT) and self-service cloud was also a key discussion point at the forum. IoT promises a world where all humans and objects are connected and communicate with each other via Wi-Fi and the cloud. Forecasts by leading technology researcher Gartner suggest that there will be about 8.4 billion connected devices in use worldwide by end-2017, and an estimated 20.4 billion by 2020. Always one step ahead, Sage has already integrated IoT as a value creation tool in its systems to sense context, transfer vast amounts of data, process information and initiate actions for businesses.

 

With 35 years of experience in providing business management software solutions, Sage’s strength lies in its ability to bridge complex concepts with actual application. Business intelligence is a key aspect integrated into the Sage system that offers insight on how businesses operate and how they can be improved.

 

Sage employs more than 13,000 people across 23 countries. The company has more than three million customers, who use Sage software to drive their businesses and power the global economy.