Inside ASI-AP

2 weeks ago I announced the cessation of support for Open Alms effective from 1 January 2009. All existing customers were sent letters, and these last few days Peter has been calling into all customers to confirm they have received the letter packs.

There is more information for customers on our public web site www.openalms.com.

And for staff additional information including staff FAQs is on the staff site www.advsol.com/staff - under Departments then Asia-Pacific.

A copy of the letter text sent to customers is below.

Lehman Associates in the US recently completed a study on Association Management Systems, which showed that iMIS holds 37% market share in the US, that iMIS ranks highest among major AMS vendors in implementation experience, and iMIS ranks higher than the combined average ratings of other major AMS vendors in product satisfaction.

We put out a press release summarising the results, which I have copied in below. Edward has a full copy of the report for anyone wanting the specific details.

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Lehman Associates Study Shows iMIS is the Market Leading Association Management System

On Tuesday, Sue-Anne Wallace (CEO of the FIA) and I attended the Sydney luncheon to announce the state finalists of The Prime Minister's Awards for Excellence in Community Business Partnerships. ASI and FIA jointly submitted a nomination for this award, which I had posted about a few months ago.

Unfortunately, we did not win the state award, so that's it for us for this year. But it was really a good thing to be part of, and already Sue-Anne and I have started to make notes on how we can improve our community partnership so that we can nominate again next year.

ASI Consulting has joined ASI Tech Support in the SCP certification program as a fully certified Consulting services business.

There are three programs under the SCP banner - the Technical Support Standards program, Field Support Standards program and Professional Service Standards program.

This certification is a true reflection of the quality and stature of ASI’s Consulting team and also of the support the consulting team receives from the other departments at ASI.

We have now signed a 3 year sponsorship agreement with the FIA (www.fia.org.au), the Fundraising Institute of Australia. While we have been principal corporate sponsors for a few years now, it has only ever been on a year to year basis. This year, we have signed for 3 years, which actually works out better for both of us.

This is a 6 figure sum for us over the 3 years, so it is a substantial investment in the fundraising profession and sector generally.

The sponsorship includes the usual ASI branding on all printed and electronic materials, website home page, chapter invitations, etc.

ASI has now formally signed a global partnership with Artez, the Canadian company that provides online solutions for social fundraising networks. Visit the Artez website here www.artezinteractive.com.

As part of the agreement, ASI will be integrating Artez into iMIS 15 with a bridge similar to that offered for Informz for iMIS. Formal announcements will be made over the coming month, but that's a heads up for now. Like the Informz partnership, this is a very important one for ASI going forward.

Peter Foley, CTO and owner of Artez, will be back to Australia in August for 2 weeks. He will be in Melbourne for the week of August 13, and in Sydney for the week of August 20. We will be organising some joint meetings with customers and potential customers, plus product training for selected ASI staff. You can email Peter directly if you have something he can help you with while he is here.

July 16: Advanced Solutions International Honoured with Prime Minister’s Community Business Partnership Award Nomination

Advanced Solutions International (Asia Pacific) has been honoured with a nomination for a 2007 Prime Minister’s Community Business Partnership Award by the Fundraising Institute Australia.

The nomination recognises the fruitful relationship between ASI, which provides software to the non-profit sector and the FIA, which represents the sector’s fundraisers. At the heart of the partnership is the innovative ASI SMART Company Scholarship Fund which funds training courses, conference attendance and professional development for individuals working in the non-profit sector.

July 16: Winter Suddenly a Little Warmer for ASI SMART Company Scholarship Winners - Seven more winners announced

Seven non profit professionals have reason to feel a little warmer this winter courtesy of the latest round of the ASI SMART Company Scholarships. The winners, who come from New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria will share in more than $6000 of funding to develop their professional skills and strengthen the non profit organisations for which they work.

The latest round attracted more than $20,000 of funding applications from Australian and New Zealand non profit professionals. The magnificent seven who most impressed the selection panel are professionals from Monash University Medical Foundation, The Mary Potter Foundation, Bush Heritage Australia, Australian College of Health Service Executives, YHA Victoria and two individuals from Diabetes Australia - Victoria.

July 13: From Sleepless Nights To A Dream Future - ASI’s New Strategic Partner Program Drives Non Profits Further

An innovative new partnership program by Advanced Solutions International Asia Pacific (ASI) will help some of Australia’s leading non profit organisations including the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Institute of Company Directors, get a better night’s sleep and wake to a brighter future.

The ASI Strategic Partner Program offers non profits such as associations and membership-based organisations, charities and fundraisers, the opportunity to build an ongoing plan based on the seven key non profit business drivers for high performance non-profits. They are:

The US office is in the final stages of the GA (general availability) release of iMIS 15. iMIS 15 GA was handed off from Development to Product Management on June 22, and Product Management is planning a mid-July GA release.

Here in AP region, our release announcements to customers will run 6-8 weeks behind the US announcements - and that means later in August.

Why the extra delay for AP? Mainly for logistics. We have to do the same things the US office does - like new pricing, training of sales/customer care teams, training of consultants, training of tech support - and we can't do some of those things until the US office has completed them first. For example, the pricing, which is our new 'named user' pricing, has to be completed in the US first before we can take pages of spreadsheets and convert them all to appropriate AUD$ prices. Then we run the scenario's against old AUD$ and new AUD$ prices to make sure price differentials between old and new pricing are in an acceptable range (a stronger dollar now makes this a little more complicated than it might seem). This all takes a couple of weeks. Since customers can't install their new iMIS 15 license key without having their licensed converted to named users, it is a show stopper.

Due to the increased costs of running our business, including salary rises for you, we have announced our price increases for 2007. For reference, the CPI is currently running at 3.5%.

Hosting price increases take effect from September, and these have been already communicated to customers. Our hosting prices have been increased more than CPI to address the correct market pricing (we are still cheaper than Webcentral and they provide a volume service), as well as to allow us to provide our own greater levels of service. Customers wanting to lock in the old pricing are able to prepay a year or two in advance if they are interested.

Keith has signed up our first Authorised iMIS Solution Provider (AiSP) in Singapore - TAK System Integrator Pte Ltd. The partner in charge of the iMIS practice for TAK is Chris Tan.

Keith will work closely with TAK to develop a sales and marketing plan to develop the iMIS Singapore market. We have already held several seminars in Singapore and are pursuing active opportunities that should close this year.

TAK is also a close partner with Ingram Micro, the largest Sun Microsystems provider in Singapore (revenues in excess of $1B US). Keith and TAK are also working on a joint marketing plan to sell iMIS in conjunction with Ingram Micro.

Together with the FIA we have nominated our ongoing partnership to the The Prime Ministers Awards For Excellence In Community Business Partnerships.

Sue-Anne Wallace, FIA's CEO, wrote up a terrific submission on the partnership between FIA and ASI. I have attached a copy below; please take some time to read this when you can. The title of the nomination was "A SMART partnership between FIA and ASI supporting professional education in the not for profit sector".

I am very excited to report that globally ASI achieved its first US$1 million license sales month in March. This was an outstanding performance and our March sales are a new company record for this quarter!

Congratulations to the US regional sales teams, the Asia-Pacific team, the Europe team, the Canada team, the Consulting team, Marketing, Product Management and most of all to DEV for building and providing such a great product for us to sell. The buzz surrounding iMIS 15 is already becoming contagious!

As you will have seen with Paul's announcement on Friday, ASI AP has commenced development of a program to offer a premium set of services to our large customers. This is directed at creating partnership relationships with these customers, where we will work with them to understand their strategic plans and show them where we can help them implement their plans successfully.

There will be a series of webcasts over the coming months to explain to everyone the key messages we are trying to deliver. These customers include: