Sage touts flexibility in partner recruitment drive

Sage Business Solutions has revealed plans to embark on a major partner recruitment drive this year.

Sage managing director Mike Lorge told CRN that the value proposition for partners was its flexibility and web-enabled products.

"We believe in freedom of choice for partners," he said. “We find it valuable to give partners options to access the software."

Partners could host the software, distribute it to other partners or sell it to end-users. Alternatively, Sage could host the service.

Last year, Rackspace extended an European partnership with Sage, allowing Sage to offer its business management software as a service to Australian customers.

Sage also allowed customers to rent on-premise products on a pay-per-month basis. If customers then chose to purchase it, partners would receive a rebate.

The vendor also had a “direct participation” model to help partners secure their first few deals.

“We’ve been able to shift to the web quickly and the market is recognising this and finding that we’re increasingly competitive," Lorge said.

“We’re finding a level of interest and demand far greater than we’ve seen in the past. It’s important to get our there and find new partners,” he said. 

In six months the company has “had good success" and added five new partners to its community.

It was also running an education exercise for its commercial and technical products.

“We use web-based training for all our training. Everything can be viewed, recorded and re-used. Cloud training will now be another track within,” he said.

Products

Sage Business Solutions has three enterprise resource planning (ERP) and three customer relationship management (CRM) products.

Its Timberline ERP product targets the construction and real estate vertical, while Accpacc and ERP X3 targets the mid-market.

Sage's CRM products include: the entry-level ACT; SalesLogix CRM for the mid-market; and Sage CRM, which integrates with its ERP products.

Sage has three subsidiaries in Australia and New Zealand: Sage Business Solutions; Sage Micropay; and Sage Handisoft, for accounting tax auditing. The latter two are not partner-oriented.