Member Spotlight Series: An Interview with Dominic Ballinger, Director of FP&A and Integration at Sage
The coronavirus pandemic has forced companies to pivot, refocus, and overcome challenges they couldn’t have imagined. Last month, we spoke with Dominic Ballinger, director of FP&A and Integration at Sage, to discuss how the new business environment we’re in has affected them, how they’ve adapted, and what advice they have for their fellow SaaS and software community members.
Who are your typical customers and target companies?
“Small to Mid-sized service companies. Typically, we work with CFOs, Chief People Officers, and senior finance and HR executives.”
How has the new business environment affected your business, and are you considering any changes to your business model going forward?
“When the pandemic first hit, we had a number of new business deals put on hold, as our prospective customers paused and assessed the impact to their business. Over the subsequent months, we have seen an uptick in new business as customers increasingly see the benefits of being in the cloud, especially as they work as part of virtual teams.
Do you have any best practices in the current environment that you'd like to share with your peers in the SaaS and software community?
“We are a metric-driven company, and, as a rule, we do a great deal of modeling using these metrics. This has been an advantage for us in being able to look at pre-pandemic and current metrics in determining trends. One example would be opportunity creation as a key leading indicator; we have been monitoring this very closely. As a result, we are using the “new normal” metrics in our budgeting and planning for 2021.
“We have also made it a priority to increase collaboration between departments. For example, looking at flexibility in payment terms to help our smaller customers has allowed us to be more proactive and increase the speed at which we are able to make changes.”
How do you use benchmarking, and the BenchmarkEngine™ to help with your business?
“We are heavy users around the annual planning process and use the BenchmarkEngine to get very specific peer data.
“This year, we used it for efficiency ratios, reps per customer, and more. In addition, using BenchmarkEngine proved very helpful in planning for international growth. We are really enjoying the new BenchmarkEngine.
”Sage is the global market leader for technology that provides small and medium businesses with the visibility, flexibility, and efficiency to manage finances, operations, and people. Key native cloud solutions include Sage Intacct, Sage Intacct Budgeting and Planning, and Sage People. By helping organizations modernize and move critical business applications to the cloud, we enable digital transformation through continued accounting, continued trust, and continued insight. Sage gives leaders of digital-savvy, intelligent organizations the visibility and agility to make the right data-driven decisions at the right time, to steer their organizations and people to growth and recovery.
