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Brief us about your product line. How do you classify your partners
according to them?
Sage Software India has been offering its customers with CRM and ERP products
across industries, and also offers number of industry-specific solutions to
address the need of the Indian market. The products that we offer to the
customers are ACT, Sage CRM and SalesLogix as the CRM products and Sage Accpac
ERP. We want to appoint more resellers/partners according to their skill sets.
Our partners offer mix of all the products but now we are emphasizing on
segregating them based on the product line.
What is the reason for giving so much emphasis on ACT?
ACT has great potential in market and has got high value proposition for
SMBs. It is more affordable for them. It is a product that needs concentration
and focus. For partners who start dealing in multi-Sage products, they initiate
with SOHO and later start expanding to enterprise segment due to which their
focus on SOHO starts narrowing down. We want to have a dedicated set of partners
who focus 100 percent on ACT because this product is a market leader in sales
force automation for SMEs.
Does the classification cause overlap of accounts of customers among the
partners?
Yes, at times overlap happens and we try to minimize the gap by giving every
partners a wider scope of growth for whatever account they are handling.
Historically, what has happened that partners who start with ACT, they start
diverting towards enterprise segment and therefore their focus starts shifting
to larger account. That is the main reason why we want our partners to
concentrate on specific product line.
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Thomas Abraham
MD, Sage Software India |
What are your current channel programs?
We are in the mode of expanding our channel base. We are looking to add 20
more partners to our list in the next six months and are focusing on Chennai,
Kolkata, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. They should have the required bandwidth that
assures promising service. We aim at giving value to the partners so that they
can grow independently and enjoy a robust market position. Once the process of
appointment is over, Sage will impart technical and sales training to the new
partners.
What is your take on the growth of ERP and CRM market in India?
As the companies are growing and are aiming to have a more organized system
in place, ERP is witnessing a steady growth. To churn out more benefit,
organizations are aiming to have a better management and for this, they look for
solution that could provide them greater accessibility of the resources.
Which verticals you see as potential markets for you?
Though more and more segments are utilizing the solution but service is one
industry that will offer maximum opportunities to the players. Sectors like IT,
health care, banking and financial services are the top verticals that realize
the importance of a managed working environment and hence, these are the areas
where our products are getting a boost. Manufacturing is one segment that has
still not adopted ERP and CRM on a larger scale and the companies have to
identify potential of the products. Though, we are rapidly increasing our
customer base with focused marketing efforts addressing the specific verticals.
What are your channel strategies?
Our main strategy is to get our partners maximum RoI so that they are able
to accomplish profitable business with us. Therefore, after appointing the
partners we provide them technical and sales training and help them in upgrading
their manpower so that they are able to offer a higher level of service to their
own clients.
What kind of challenges you face?
Selecting the right set of partners, especially in the upcountry market has
always been an issue, as in these regions the technical skill of the manpower is
comparatively low, and it takes lot of time and efforts to identify and enroll
them.
To solve the issue, we encourage our partners in metros to expand their
business in the upcountry market so that the demand of the customers in those
locations can be met with high quality level. Of all the requests we get from
the partner to get associated with us, 95 percent of them does not fit into our
criteria, as we are looking for people who are ready to set-up a dedicated
division for Sage.
Amrita Tejasvi
amritat@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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