Sage Helps Business Partners Grow Business, Add Cloud Services for SMBs

WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwire - Jul 11, 2011) - Sage North America announced today new programs to support business partners in driving business growth and preparing their businesses to deliver cloud-based services to their customers. As part of the Sage Partner Advantage Program, the Sage Partner Transition Journey, a new educational curriculum, and the Sage Partner Marketing Platform help partners better model their business and make it easy for partners to use current online marketing methods.

As businesses increasingly look for flexibility in purchasing options and for choice in business applications and deployment, whether on-premises or in the cloud, business consulting and integration organizations, such as Sage Business Partners, are recognizing the need to adjust their own business. To assist its partners with the transition, Sage is introducing the Sage Partner Transition Journey, an educational program consisting of development symposiums, workshops, and webcasts on leadership and functional business aspects specifically around the evolving Web business model. Sage recently launched the first element of the program, its Firm of the Future symposium, which examines a business model for professional firms that enables them to understand how their intellectual knowledge impacts their customer's business, not just from a technology perspective but from a management consulting one -- well-suited for those partners offering connected services.

"Our customers' businesses are constantly evolving, and we are constantly evolving to ensure we are able to help them reach the best decisions to achieve their goals," said John Shaver, President of Sage Business Partner Aries Technology Group. "The Firm of the Future symposium has given us real insight into how we can offer even more value to our customers. In today's knowledge-based economy, customers expect us to engage with them in a more strategic relationship. The knowledge that we gain from the Firm of the Future symposium -- from learning how to establish value pricing to becoming effective project managers and executive leaders -- will serve us well as we advise our customers on incorporating cloud services into their business processes."

With businesses increasingly researching online to inform their purchasing decisions for business solutions, online marketing is imperative for professional firms. The Sage Partner Marketing Platform provides rich content that Sage Business Partners can easily build within their own websites that answers prospective customer questions and provides resources to help customers learn more. Among the many features Sage partners can leverage are successful e-marketing campaigns that can be tailored for their individual use, as well as complete integrated online marketing campaigns that incorporate social media, whitepapers, live events and other content. Early adopters of the platform have experienced rapid success.

"The Sage Partner Marketing Platform has been a cost effective and easy-to-use tool for our organization," said Kent Hollrah, president of Sage business partner JMT Consulting. "Working with the tools offered through the platform, we simply loaded our prospect list, customized the ready-to-run campaigns and began sending monthly mailings. In just over three months we have generated 12 leads."

"We are investing in partners that want to invest in Sage to grow their business and, over time, we will offer more programs and services that help partners evolve with the ever-changing market," said Tom Miller, VP of Channel Management for Sage. "The new Sage Partner Marketing Platform and Sage Partner Transition Journey offer unique value to business partners and help lay the groundwork for a successful transition from the traditional business model to today's evolving business model."

About Sage North America
Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and services. Sage North America employs 3,900 people and supports more than 3 million small and midsized business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs 13,600 people and supports more than 6 million customers worldwide. For more information, please visit the Web site at www.sagenorthamerica.com. Follow Sage North America on Facebook, www.facebook.com/SageNorthAmerica, and Twitter, www.twitter.com/sagenamerica.

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