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Founder's Blog

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Phil Martin, MBA’s founder and Director of Software Development, earned his BA degree from North Carolina State University with a major in Economics and later received his MBA from Georgia State University with a double major in Marketing and Finance. He started his professional career in the late 1960’s as a Programmer/Analyst on IBM mainframes writing in Cobol and Assembler Language. It was a time of growth for the computer industry and Phil was there to grow with it.

During the ‘70s, Phil was employed as a Systems Consultant. He was the On-Line Systems Project Manager for the Bank of Montreal’s implementation of a nation-wide MasterCard authorization and settlement system. He was later given assignments to facilities manage the Peachtree Data Center in Atlanta and as Director of Consulting Services for a local software consulting firm.

Phil founded Martin Business Associates as a proprietorship in 1981 to extend consulting services and custom software development to the emerging mini-computer market. As mini-computers gave way to networked micro-computers, he incorporated the business as MBA Business Software and in 1988, became one of the earliest resellers and the first Master Developer in Atlanta for State of the Art’s MAS 90 product, now Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200.

This is his Blog. It’s about anything and everything that is Phil. We call it the Founder's Blog.

Merry Christmas

Written by Phil Martin on 30 November 2011.

MBA Business Software is celebrating Christmas. Not because it is a religious holiday but because it is an American tradition.

Our employees have diverse religious beliefs as do most business entities so individually, we will be following our own customs. Christmas at its core is a Christian celebration and because the overwhelming majority of our country’s founders and present day Americans are Christian, the day of celebration is also recognized as a legal holiday at both the state and federal level. In spite of this fact, interestingly, no government facility can display Christmas symbols.

Christmas has come to be more than just a religious holiday. It’s also Santa Claus, presents under a Christmas tree, company Christmas parties, and gatherings of friends and family. There’s a season to Christmas that runs from about Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day when homes are decorated and “Merry Christmas” is a common greeting to friends and strangers alike.

The political pressure to be more inclusive and less offensive to those not sharing in the Christian belief has unnecessarily marginalized this great American tradition. It’s in this spirit that MBA, as a company, wishes you a Merry Christmas. So join us in celebrating this special time of year.

See you in the Mall.

Is Your Software Worth What You Paid For It?

Written by Phil Martin on 05 May 2010.

Accounting principles teach us to value business assets at acquisition cost. Dutifully, you’ve booked your Sage MAS 90 or Sage MAS 200 ERP software at its purchase price. But is this truly what it is worth to your business? Accounting software is just a tool, like a lathe or a milling machine. What that investment actually contributes to the welfare of your business depends heavily on the skill of the operator running it.

User Training – Getting What You Paid For

Much of the value paid for in the purchase price of software is lost when its users have inadequate training to operate it. If your users got half the training they needed, how can you expect all of what the software is capable of doing? For most businesses, good employees are the most important aspect of a successful and thriving operation. But what makes an employee good? Can you make them better by paying them more money? Not really. We do know there is a relationship between compensation and ability. In most cases, more knowledgeable employees cost more money. But paying an employee more money doesn’t make them more knowledgeable. Rather, it is money invested in training that makes an employee more knowledgeable, and therefore, more valuable to your business.

The Wisdom of Software Maintenance Subscriptions

Written by Phil Martin on 15 May 2006.

When Sage Software first introduced the annual Software Maintenance Subscription Plan some years ago, frankly, we didn’t like it. Up to that point, version upgrades had been priced individually and were an optional investment. Now our customers were being asked to pay in advance for version upgrades that might contain features they wouldn’t opt for otherwise.

Not Getting What You Expected From Your Software - Part 1 of a 2 part series

Written by Phil Martin on 02 October 2006.

If you are not getting what you expected from your software, you’ll be surprised to learn that it’s probably not the software’s fault. PC based accounting software has been around for quite a while now and most of the popular products are mature and can do just about anything necessary to run a business. We find the most common cause is how the software is utilized in the business. In this first of two parts, we’ll talk about user training.

Not Getting What You Expected From Your Software - Part 2 of a 2 part series

Written by Phil Martin on 01 December 2006.

Last issue we learned that not getting what you expect from your software is probably not the software’s fault. We talked about individual user training and in this part, we’ll examine software utilization at the organizational level. Certainly, these two are tightly intertwined; insufficient employee training will most likely result in ineffective utilization company wide. For this discussion, we’re going to look at the business’ processes and procedures.