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Sage Group Launches Global CRM Initiative and Rebrands Award-Winning CRM
Product Family
Sage CRM Solutions
offer Freedom of Choice for SMBs
London,
UK - October 19, 2005 -
The Sage Group, plc
(London: SGE) announced today the launch of
a new global CRM organization to drive the
company’s market-leading CRM business around
the world. The company also announced new
branding that will be adopted worldwide for
its comprehensive line of CRM products,
underscoring the strength of the company’s
leadership in providing CRM software to
small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
Worldwide, Sage serves more than 2.5 million
registered users and 38,000 corporate
customers of its ACT!, Sage CRM, and
SalesLogix products.
The new global CRM strategy is a first
for Sage, whose business has been built on
the strength of regionally-based products
that are designed to meet the local needs of
SMBs.
Sage Group Chief Executive Paul Walker
stated that the creation of a global CRM
organization is an important step in Sage’s
long-term growth, allowing it to fully
capitalize within the CRM market on its
existing advantages in products, local
service capabilities, and customer base.
“No other vendor today reaches small and
medium-sized businesses with the breadth of
product selection that Sage offers,” said
Mr. Walker. “CRM is not bound by the
taxation and jurisdictional necessities of
accounting products, enabling it to cross
boundaries easily. We have a unique
opportunity to use our leading global
position, expertise and resources to bring
effective CRM solutions to SMBs worldwide.”
Dave Batt, who recently joined Sage as
Senior Vice President and General Manager of
Global CRM heads up the new organization
that includes product strategy, product
research and development, and product
marketing resources. Mr. Batt is a long time
CRM professional, with significant
experience both within industry using CRM
solutions and with CRM vendors including
Microsoft, Oracle and Siebel.
“Sage is unique in its strict focus on
business applications for SMBs,” said Batt.
“That makes Sage people true SMB experts.
Our expertise and global presence with
leading share of business applications in so
many markets makes Sage the player to
emulate. It’s my goal to drive our existing
leadership even further with a comprehensive
approach that builds the individual
strengths of Sage CRM products into a
stronger whole for our customers around the
world.”
The Sage CRM products, each of which was
named as a market leader at the CRM Magazine
2005 Market Leaders Awards, will be
delivered with a new common branding program
that includes:
• Sage CRM Solutions, and the tag
line Freedom of Choice, branding for the
entire family of Sage CRM products; http://www.sagecrmsolutions.com
• ACT! by Sage, customer and contact
management for individuals, small businesses
and business workgroups; the innovative
product that created the CRM category with
its launch in 1987; winner of the CRM
Magazine Market Leader Award in Sales Force
Automation, and Customer Interaction
Solutions 2005 Product of the Year; http://www.act.com
• Sage CRM, configurable, full suite
CRM for small and medium-sized businesses,
winner of a 2005 CRMGuru Summit Award and a
ContactCenterWorld Member ‘s Choice Award
for Best Global CRM; http://na.sagecrm.com
• SageCRM.com, the only on-line CRM
service that is also available for
on-premises deployment; outranking all
evaluated hosted CRM services and named
Editor’s Choice in the Network Computing
September 1, 2005 comparative review of the
leading hosted CRM services; http://na.sagecrm.com
• Sage CRM SalesLogix, customizable,
full suite CRM for small and medium-sized
businesses and small enterprises, named by
Gartner Inc. along with ACT! as market share
leader for small businesses (1). http://www.saleslogix.com
CRM industry analyst Sheryl Kingstone
with The Yankee Group comments that Sage’s
portfolio puts the company in a unique
position. “CRM is rapidly becoming a key
ingredient of SMB operations,” said
Kingstone. “Developing a coordinated global
approach to CRM puts Sage in a better
position to capitalize on its global reach
and seasoned portfolio to serve SMBs with
different options.”
Sage CRM Solutions offer attributes that
are especially designed for SMBs, providing
them with significant freedom of choice,
including migration opportunities to more
advanced functionality in the family as
business needs grow, choice in hosted and
on-premises CRM, individual user and
workgroup capabilities, integration with
mobile devices, integration with accounting,
a global channel of CRM solution providers,
and an extended channel of more than 22,000
reseller partners with expertise in the
business management processes that CRM
interfaces with.
The announcement of the global CRM
initiatives coincides with announcements of
the impending launch of Sagecrm.com in the
UK and France, and Sage CRM in Germany, and
Spain. Sage CRM and Sagecrm.com are the
latest additions to the Sage CRM Solutions
global family of products, supporting the
company’s strategy of providing SMBs with
broad choice in their business application
selections. Sage CRM is offered for both
on-premises and online use, enabling
businesses to choose the deployment form
they require. The product is written with a
Web architecture and provides two way
integration to back office accounting.
“Three of the most important aspects that
SMBs look for in business applications are
selection, integration, and local service,”
said Denis Pombriant, Managing Principal of
CRM industry analyst firm Beagle Research.
“Sage’s portfolio, integration strategy and
extensive partner channel provide them with
key competitive advantages. Sage’s strategy
correlates extremely well with SMB needs.”
About the Sage Group
The Sage Group plc is a leading
international supplier of accounting and
business management software solutions and
related products and services for small to
medium-sized enterprises. Formed in 1981,
Sage was floated on the London Stock
Exchange in 1989 and the Group now employs
over 9,000 people worldwide and has 4.5
million customers.
About Sage Software (formerly Best
Software)
Sage Software offers leading business
management software and services that
support the needs, challenges and dreams of
more than 2.4 million small and medium-sized
business customers in North America. Its
parent company, The Sage Group plc (London:
SGE.L), supports 4.5 million customers
worldwide. For more than 25 years, Sage
Software has delivered easy-to-use, scalable
and customizable software for accounting,
customer relationship management, human
resources, time tracking and the specialized
needs of accounting practices and the
construction, distribution, manufacturing,
nonprofit and real estate industries. For
more information, please visit the Web site
at www.sagesoftware.com/moreinfo or call
(866) 308-2378.
(1) Worldwide small business CRM software
applications market. “CRM Software
Applications Spending by SMBs on the Rise,”
Gartner, Inc., January 15, 2004, Topolinski
and Close.
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