Sage Expands Channel Partner Offerings, Lead-Generation Efforts
Channel partners attending the company's annual Insights '08 partner conference outside Washington D.C. this week generally gave the company high marks for its latest channel initiatives. That's in sharp contrast to six months ago when Sage resellers and business consultants were reeling over a sudden executive shakeup that included the dismissal of Taylor Macdonald, the company's popular channel chief.
"They are delivering on the changes they said they were going to make," said Yacov Wrocherinsky, president and CEO of Infinity Info Systems, a New York-based Sage solution provider that resells the SalesLogix and Act CRM applications. While acknowledging that Macdonald was "definitely a good advocate" for the channel, Wrocherinsky said: "I think it's good to change because you can add innovation to change."
Insights is also the first opportunity for Sage channel partners to hear from Sue Swenson who took over as president and CEO of Sage North America just last month. She replaced Ron Verni who was also dismissed in October 2007 in a broad shakeup of Sage Software by its U.K. parent company, The Sage Group Plc. The restructuring was launched because the North American company's growth was considered too sluggish.
In a keynote speech Monday Swenson said she has spent her first weeks on the job meeting with Sage employees. "We're doing a lot of things right to make our customers satisfied. But there's always more to do," she said, adding that while the company has popular products it needs to increase its brand name in the marketplace.
Swenson was chief operating officer of Atrinsic, a digital media company, at the time of her hiring. Before that she spent most of her career in the telecommunications industry, holding executive positions at T-Mobile, Cellular One and Pacific Bell.
Sage Software's new channel initiatives were lumped under four areas of helping partners grow their business, hire talent, build knowledge and earn rewards. To help channel partners grow their business, for example, Sage is offering a "fast track for growth" package that includes a one-year mentoring program, free access to marketing tools and consulting services, and other benefits that Sage values at more than $8,000.
Sage is providing programs and resources to recruit, train and retain new employees, particularly field sales representatives. For building knowledge Sage is offering more business partner certification and specialized training classes through its Sage Software University and new "centers of excellence" training facilities. Partners who sell only Sage products under the Sage Select program now earn co-op funds for development training and free access to the company's Anytime Learning training site.
In her keynote to the 3,000 partners attending Insights '08, Swenson exhorted channel partners to take advantage of what Sage has to offer. One executive said only about 20 percent of Sage's channel partners take advantage of the programs.
"We're delivering some of the best partnership programs in the industry. We need you to take full advantage of those programs," Swenson said. Noting that Sage offers a broad range of ERP, CRM, accounting and other applications, she also encouraged solution providers to consider broadening their product portfolios and the range of services they offer.
Sage execs also detailed plans to launch a comprehensive customer loyalty survey that will measure customer satisfaction with Sage, its products and its channel partners.
Sage is creating a new Partner Advantage portal that combines in one Web site with single sign"on capabilities services that have been scattered across 18 sites, said Nina Smith, president of Sage's Business Management Division, in a keynote Tuesday. The vendor will expand its lead generation activities to provide channel partners with more, higher quality sales leads, she said, adding that the channel's rate of converting leads to sales has only been 4 percent.
(After Macdonald's dismissal, high-level responsibility for Sage channel programs was assigned to Smith and Doug Meyer, president of Sage's Industry and Specialized Solutions Division, with more decisions about channel initiatives pushed down to specific business units.)
"I haven't really relied on them to give me leads," said Peter Elias, principal of PCAssociates, a Plano, Tex.-based reseller of Sage's PFW software for process manufacturers. In the seven years he's been a Sage VAR, Elias said he received only two sales leads from the company and both were of poor quality. "It would be nice to get some leads, but nothing has yet to materialize," he said.
Others are upbeat. "There's a clear vision, there's direction and there's execution on the plan," said Anthony Castle, CEO of New York-based Castle CRM, a SalesLogix and Act reseller. Castle was one of many Sage channel partners who expressed concern about the company's direction after the October restructuring and Macdonald's dismissal.
Infinity's Wrocherinsky sees the changes as part of the company's effort to transform itself and keep up with the changing industry. As for Swenson, Wrocherinsky said: "She seems as though she gets it, the commitment to the partners."