WACCG TEC Talk - Sage CRM Interview with Sherman Dixon, National Customer Account Manager at Sage Software's CRM Division- Video Duration (5 min: 54 sec)
Are you familiar with Sage CRM? View this video to discover if Sage CRM can help you improve management of your sales, marketing and customers service departments at your business.
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For businesses that are not familiar with Sage and Sage CRM, tell us a little bit about Sage and the small business to mid-market solutions you offer?
Sage is a leading supplier of business management solutions to small and medium businesses. Overall we have 6 million customers worldwide. More than 12 thousand companies in 70 countries use Sage CRM software to manage their critical sales, marketing and customer activities every day! Solutions specifically offered by the Sage CRM division are Professional and Advanced Sage CRM on premise as well as Sage CRM on cloud.

Tell us about Sage CRM’s target market.
The target market for Sage CRM is small to mid-market business. So this could be any company ranging from one (1) user to (100’s) hundreds of users.

What are some of the business challenges/ needs you see in the market today and how does Sage CRM address these challenges in a proactive manner ?
Some of the challenges that we are seeing with customers and potential customers are that they are facing additional cost pressures, buyers have less disposable income, businesses have fewer lines of credit, so it is more difficult to attract and retain some of the customers in the customer base. Over all that is forcing companies to do more with less. Really become more opportunistic - it places a huge emphasis on pricing and discounting as well as doing more with less employees and smaller workforce.

Now in terms of addressing those needs : With Sage CRM itself some of the reporting dashboards that Sage CRM provides allow instant insight into business and employee performance facilitating informed business decision-making during this downturn that we have gone through. It also provides management with real-time analysis of current situations, that allow them to monitor and take action on change and performance indicators. Sage also empowers organizations to sell more effectively and efficiently by maximizing their ability to sell during this time.

What makes Sage CRM stand out from the competition?
There are many differences between Sage and some of our main competitors, whether it be the out-of-box integration with ERP, total cost of ownership, easy to use dashboards, easy to use workflow capabilities, flexibility that you also have with the solution. The primary difference is that Sage has been exclusively dedicated to focusing on small and medium-sized businesses for the past 20 plus years.

What are some industries where you have seen Sage CRM be most successful?
A couple of the industries where we have seen Sage CRM really shine are construction where we have some companies who integrate Sage CRM with our CRE solutions, which really allows them to stay ahead of whatever project they have been working on, whether it is strictly related to construction or if it is real estate. The CRE product is construction and real-estate, so it allows you to get a view into everything that has strictly to do with construction, whether it be pricing, placing bids on jobs that you want to obtain, following up on those jobs. The integration with CRM allows you to stay on task, keep those activities in-line by having a raw view of what may be going on with any given project. I have also seen where it has really helped financial institutions and healthcare providers.

What ERP solutions does Sage CRM already interface with?
Just out of the box we currently integrate with Accpac ERP and MAS 90 and 200, which are both Sage products. These are other ERPs that we integrate with, some customization is required for those solutions.

What words of advice do you have for businesses evaluating CRM solutions?
My advice would be to first determine how will you be using the CRM solution, what and if you are looking to integrate the solution with, what departments will be using it, and how will they use it. That will give you an idea of which CRM system may be better suited for your needs. Basically come up with a clear strategy of what you want from your CRM system and then following through with it, is the best course of action. It really is an investment and should be treated as such.