Sage CRM Solutions today announced a forward-looking, global CRM strategy to guide its product development and delivery to small and mid-sized customers over the next couple of years.
Based on research among parent company Sage Group plc's 5.5 million business management and services customers, Sage CRM Solutions has developed a plan to increase the interoperability among its CRM product families, link front- and back-office information using open Web standards, and provide improved productivity using Web 2.0 applications to deliver what it calls an "anywhere workforce experience."
"CRM has reached a critical turning point. Customers tell us their requirements have moved beyond the on-premise vs. hosted debate," said Joe Bergera, executive vice president and global general manager, Sage CRM Solutions, in a prepared statement.
Under its new plan, Sage will offer common components to provide a consistent user experience, workflow, data access, and analytics across its ACT! by Sage, SageCRM, and Sage SalesLogix products. The increased interoperability will allow users in different departments using different Sage products to interact through synchronized, shared databases. The company said it will offer a seamless transition from its ACT! contact management suite to Sage CRM or Sage SalesLogix "without requiring a one-way, one-time migration of data."
"We wanted to make ACT more interoperable with those other CRM solutions," said Larry Ritter, Senior Vice President of Product Management and marketing for Sage CRM Solutions, in an interview with Managing Automation. "These customers wouldn't have to go through a migration. With interoperability, they can just start using the other products and all their contact information will just be there."
For the "anywhere workforce experience," Sage will offer both on-demand and on-premise delivery of its applications. The company already offers those options with its SageCRM products, but will add ACT and SalesLogix over time, Ritter said.
The company's anywhere workforce concept will provide several capabilities. For example, mobile users will be able to pull in relevant information from free online services, such as Google maps, or from the CRM system itself.
In addition, partner-supplied companion information eventually might include payment services for online commerce, mobility services for interacting with a cell phone, collaborative services, or social networking, according to Ritter. In addition, "We recognize that we all don't have the convenience of being online or connected all day long." The software will let users store information locally on a variety of client devices so that they can pull it up when they're offline, he said.
The plan to connect front- and back-office systems via Web 2.0 technologies such as REST (Representational State Transfer), RSS, and standard data formats will give users look-up and reporting functionality so that they can easily find information wherever it resides across applications. A common integration interface will let users easily interact with both SageCRM and the company's ERP products. Third-party business partners already integrate the CRM products with other vendors' ERP products.
Ritter listed several of the introductions slated for 2008:
- New functionality to make ACT more extensible.
- ACT will be available on a hosted basis in 2008.
- Integrated SageCRM suites, including deeper integration between front- and back-office systems.
- Expanded end-to-end reporting capabilities in SageCRM.
- Enhanced mobility of SageCRM.
- A buildout of the SalesLogix architecture, unveiled last year, including customizable workflow and task-oriented user interfaces, enhanced analytics.
Customers already on Sage's maintenance plan will receive extensions to existing products as they become available. "We want to protect our customers' investments," Ritter said.