At its annual Sage Insights conference in the Drakensberg, Sage executives detailed product roadmaps and customer strategy to product- and channel partners. The company has seen strong growth in Africa since the launch of version 7 of Sage ERP X3, and hopes its renewed focus on cloud and mobility, as well as new capabilities in HRM, CRM and BI, will continue to drive adoption.
Sage HR Management is a new product, available either standalone or as a module within Sage ERP X3, which automates payroll, hiring, talent acquisition, performance management and budgeting. Like all new Sage products, it inherits the company's newly designed, mobile-friendly interfaces. Of particular importance is localisation: any HR suite must fully encompass the local tax and employment regulations in any region where it is deployed, and Sage has given South Africa and other African countries, priority to ensure that local requirements are fully supported.
CRM is an increasingly important focus area for the company. Padraig O'Neill, GM Sage CRM, says Africa is lagging in CRM deployment, and believes businesses should get on board quickly before their hands are forced. "The adoption rates in the US and Europe are much more aggressive than we see elsewhere in the world. We don't want to tell people they have to do it - we want to provide choice - but the danger for business of falling behind is that it stops being a choice of deployment and becomes a mandatory way of doing business - a way of engaging your customers."
Keith Fenner, senior vice president of sales in Africa for Sage, emphasised how important CRM is becoming to customers. "Analysts say good CRM returns five to six dollars for every one spent on CRM: simple things unlock huge value. CRM is growing at double the rate of ERP - right now it is almost all on premise but 50% of new sites will be in the cloud in 2015."
The latest version of Sage ERP X3, version 7, was released to the market in 2014, featuring a complete interface overhaul and extensive work in support for mobile users and cloud deployment. "The heart of version 7 has been around the technology platform, focusing predominantly on usability and accessibility," said Jayne Archbold, CEO Sage ERP X3 global. "It was completely reengineered with the latest technologies, based on some quite brave decisions taken a few years ago in areas which were not mainstream technologies yet but now are. What that means from a customer perspective is really easy implementation, it's easy to use and easy to configure. Gone are the days of long complex projects."
The conference also hosted Sage's annual partner awards banquet, with several partners recognised for their contributions to the business. AccTech Systems won the Sage 300 ERP top Business Partner of the Year award for the eighth time, and was re-awarded Premier Business Partner status. Lorge won Sage ERP Africa Premium Dealer, Sage CRM Dealer of the Year, Sage Intelligence Dealer of the Year and Pacific Technologies South African Dealer of the Year. Data Support Software won Dealer of the Year for KwaZulu-Natal. e-Novate won Dealer of the Year for the Western Cape. Devote won the Best Achiever award.
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