At its annual Insights conference held in Denver last month, business management software vendor, Sage, announced new partner workshops and resources, as well as enhancements to its existing channel initiatives to help make partners more profitable.
This year’s Insights conference marked the last partner-specific event to be hosted by Sage, because starting next year, the vendor will put on a combined partner and customer conference event, known as Sage Summit.
Tom Miller, vice-president of channel management for Sage North America, has been the company’s channel chief for just over a year now. Prior to Sage, Miller worked at Microsoft for eight years. Reflecting back over year one, Miller said he’s “pleased” with the progress the company’s made with its channel thus far.
“I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made but I think we still have a lot of work to do.” Miller said. “We need to make sure we have the right sets of programs for our partners and help them find new customers and opportunities. We also have to get communications out to our partners and provide training so we’re all partner-ready. I’m confident that we can get there, but it’s an evolving work in progress.”
Among some of the new partner offerings are four workshops around sales, consulting, customer experience and business strategy.
Miller said when he joined Sage last summer and had a look at the existing programs, one of the improvements he wanted to make was increasing the number of partners participating in them.
“We found that some of these programs were too expensive from a time and out-of-pocket standpoint,” Miller explained. “Partners also wanted a more condensed version that was offered closer to home.”
To give partners more of what they wanted, Miller said Sage introduced its sales, consulting and customer experience workshops. The sales workshop is a free, one-day intensive selling workshop to help partners improve on their sales performance. The consulting workshop, which is also free, is designed to help partners further develop their business and consulting skills. And lastly, the customer experience workshop is a free two session workshop that coaches partners on customer experience and also on developing specific skills in order to better serve their end-user customers.
The Sage business strategy workshop is a one-day event that focuses on helping partners build a tactical operational framework to help form and implement a strategic business plan, Miller explained.
Sage also announced the formation of its Channel Management BPAC (Business Partner Advisory Council) Organization to further engage with and spark conversations with its channel. Miller said the council is open to partners on all levels and the organization will represent partners from across the entire Sage Business Solutions product portfolio.
Some of the vendor’s enhancements to its existing channel programs include the Sage Fast Track for Growth program. To make it more accessible to partners, the company has reduced the financial investment that’s needed in order to take part in the program. The program is now $2,000 and partners also have the option of repeating the program. Previously, the program had a one-term restriction for partners. The cost of the program can also be recouped by partners as they sign up new customers and earn credits. Fast Track for Growth includes sales, training, lead generation support, a 12-month mentoring program, and more.
The Sage Marketing Alliance Program has also been revised so that it’s now a 12-month mentoring program that’s conducted by a third-party marketing company specialist.
“The program helps partners be more customer-focused through marketing efforts,” Miller said. “Before, the program came with a peer advisor that worked with the partner to build a marketing campaign. Now, we have marketing professionals from an external marketing provider so partners can realize even more benefits. Before, the peer advisors we provided to partners were Sage employees, who may not have been marketing experts in the field.”
Miller says his objective for the North American channel this year is to continue to ensure that Sage partners are successful and are growing their businesses.
“When partners are successful, then you’ll be successful as a vendor,” he said. “I want our partners to understand just how important having a relationship and communication with us is. That way, we can take that information (from partners) and translate it into programs that provide value and help partners to achieve their goals.”
Next year’s Sage Summit conference will take place in Washington, D.C. from July 10-15.
Follow Maxine Cheung on Twitter: @MaxineCheungCDN.
