(914) 980-1472Sage Software looks to simplify channel program
WASHINGTON, DC – Sage Software is looking to make its partner program easier to navigate.
In a keynote speech at the company’s Insights 2008 conference here, Nina Smith, president of the Business Management Division of Sage, said the company had some 27 channel partner offerings under the Partner Advantage program, and that was just too much. In a bid to be simpler for partners, the company is going with four key points for partners.
“The simple way to think about it is grow, hire, build and earn,” she told partners.
In long form, those items are:
- Grow your business: programs to help resellers expand their capabilities;
- Hire talent: resources to help partners attract and retain the right staffers;
- Build knowledge: training and other resources to help partners educate themselves; and
- Earn rewards: simply put, benefits for working with the company.
At the same time, she signaled that the company is looking to get closer to its channel partners.
“We have to have a great relationship, we have to collaborate,” she said. “We’re in this thing together.”
Part of that effort to work more closely together is the creation of a new role for partner advocates within the organization. Defined by Smith as “a single point of contact for times when the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing,” she said that partner advocates will be able to “navigate through Sage for you” to get results.
And for the first time, Sage is going to look to segment its partners based on size. While details were still slim, Smith signaled that segmentation of its partners is on the way, saying that customers were looking to be treated differently and provided different resources if they were a $10 million partner versus a $50,000 partner.
She also unveiled a new single sign-on portal for access to all of the company’s partner offerings, calling it the new online home of Sage’s Partner Advantage Program and unveiled three new slots in the company’s President’s Circle channel program. The new slots will be for small business accounting, mid-market accounting and ERP, and for CRM, and unlike other positions in the Circle, which are based on sales revenues, the new slots will be reserved for “creating great customer experiences.”
Those great customer experiences will be at least partially determined by joint surveys between Sage and its partners on customer satisfaction with the company’s products and partner services.
Smith also outlined the company’s product roadmap, which include a number of new releases. In the Value Portfolio, Daceasy is out this month, while Timeslips ships in June, with Businessworks and PFW shipping in the fall. On the strategic products side, Peachtree is shipping a new version this month, while the various MAS editions will launch in the summer, along with FAS. A new version of Sage CRM is due in June, while Act and Saleslogix are due to ship in August.
Smith said that in the product roadmap, Sage is committed to both sustained and disruptive innovation. The former, she said, is looking at ways to add value to existing solutions, while the latter represents new markets and new opportunities.
“We are investing in those things that are driving customer satisfaction and customer loyalty,” she said.
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