Sage CRM

I was told yesterday by my RSM that any day now we will receive an announcement that all resellers will need to have consultants recertified for CRM and, as a reseller, authorized to sell it. Fees will be based on last year's sales - over/under $10K. I would guess that if you have consultants recertified, you are authorized to sell it. Or perhaps there will be a class on how to sell it. I'm hoping today is ""any day now"".

Is this new? Actually let me clarify because by ""new"" I could be referring to two things (or more). First that Sage has no clue how to drive CRM adoption or (b) Sage certifications for CRM which I thought already required this? I remember taking a very short CRM ""certification"" then about 6-9 months later there was another full certification for CRM that I took.It was never clear to me that the second one I took was required and frankly I refer all my CRM as I think most people do. Hell I don't even know if I'm fully certified since I gave up trying to find someone at Sage who would respond timely to my inquiries. It seemed to be a crapshoot as to whether you were on the Sage ""naughty or nice list"" which the certification area most definitely seemed to use to determine how quickly - or whether to respond at all to you.

Yes - I've heard that this is coming as well. I don't believe it will be today though. From my understanding, the intention is to determine who is serious about selling Sage CRM and who was certified / authorized because Sage said to do it (which is a lot of partners). For people with under $10K in Sage CRM sales (to Sage), I believe there will be a class for the recert process but I'm not sure how long, where, or who is teaching that class. I can try to dig up more specific information if people are interested.

@WayneSchulz - You are right - a big part of this push is to compensate for the previous over-enthusiasm on the part of the certification people who mandated Sage CRM certification. People became certified after taking a 30 minute test. Not really the way to maintain a quality experience for CRM customers. Imagine if I could become Sage 100 certified after a 30 minute test and started selling and implementing Sage 100. <shudder>

From a 10,000 foot level the way to approach this is to ensure that customers who adopt an integrated Sage 100 ERP -- > CRM have an amazing experience. And I keep seeing comments that indicate this is no the case. First black mark - Sage is technically unable to have hosted Sage CRM integrate to Sage 100 on-premises. Huge huge huge flaw. What Sage is chasing here is the Sage 100 ERP -->CRM integration. They're not attempting to mint new Sage CRM VARS. And most Sage partners are, I believe, looking at the integration experience of their customers and coming away not overly enthusiastic about recommending it. But long story short - executive bonuses and careers are based upon adoption of CRM so get ready for CRM certification part 3.

You're so cynical for such a promising young lad, @WayneSchulz. You are right on two counts: 1) the integration isn't an amazing experience and 2) you can't integrated Sage CRM Cloud to Sage 100 ERP. Sage understands that the integrated Sage CRM isn't where it needs to be. They are investing heavily in internal resources on all fronts: product management, product development, product marketing, etc. to right the ship. The current thinking is that the rose bush is sickly so they need to prune it back a bit to help it grow healthy and strong. As a dedicated Sage CRM partner, I've never been more excited by what I'm seeing from Sage these days. (Of course, there has been 10+ years of pretty dark days so my expectations might be really low.)

Sigh..... Sage thinks that CRM is the greatest thing since the last greatest thing. Clients see that they get a ""FREE"" license but wonder why it costs 10K + to set up. Clients see the word ""SAGE"" on both products and wonder why (after they commit) why the integration isn't better. I am sure the CRM product as a stand alone package is phenomenal, but tell that to my three clients who are struggling.......... We are between a rock and a hard spot right now and dang it if Sage isn't making it worse.

We had the certifications previously, which turns out to be 2012. Last year at this time Education was in such disarray, none of us know if we received notifications to renew or not. I am guessing not. This resulted in not having a certified CRM consultant on staff, and another CRM reseller selling additional licenses to a recently acquired customer. Since we were not certified, it appears it may be open season on all of our customers until we are. My issue in this case is that if it was evident that we as a reseller could no longer sell/support CRM, shouldn't someone at Sage called me to point this out? Of course, now I'm a Consultant Manager on SageU, so I can track all the consultants certs. (Note to self: Add ""Consultant Manager"" to LinkedIn profile.)

Is this CRM certification the one that took about 5 days in Scottsdale AZ, @PeterWolf?

The new one will be yes for anyone with less than $10K in sales is my understanding.

I hope we don't have to go to AZ for that.

Big waste of time. There are multiple people who I've talked to who have been to these on-site training courses. Without a true focus of your business to sell xxx -- the training is worthless and only fulfilling a check box for certification.

And I think that is Sage's point. They have finally woken up to the fact that ERP != CRM from most aspects. Demanding ERP partners to become CRM certified is a losing game. If you are serious about CRM and want to invest in learning the nuances, get the certification and go for it. There are opportunities with CRM and they want committed partners. This will protect the customer experience which in the end is better for the entire ecosystem.

If they can't figure out how to offer the tech training virtually, Sage is misunderstanding something huge. SLX has been accomplishing good tech training remotely for more than a few years. I see no difference in quality of end learning. I do hope we're misunderstanding what they want to do. It is still unclear to me exactly what Sage really wants to do with Sage CRM. I think the reasons the uptake on CRM cross-sell are low fit into 2 buckets. 1. if the customer hasn't yet any CRM, then they don't yet see a reason to do it. I think most Sage 100 customers who are in the bucket need a very different message than what Sage is generally pushing now. 2. If the customer already uses some CRM, then Sage needs to offer a compelling reason to change. ERP integration is usually not enough, although that is changing. If Sage wants its CRM to tick up in the US, I think they need to make a lot more noise about it as a stand alone product. Even then, it's tough to get traction when salesforce, Dynamics CRM, Sugar CRM and zoho take the attention of most CRM partners in the US. I plan to be more involved in Sage CRM, as I really do like what's on their roadmap for the next couple years, especially their Cloud. But I think they're beating a dead horse to push current Sage 100 partners who don't have CRM now to do something with it. It is stand-alone 1st, and integrated 2nd.

And I'm such a slow and verbose typist that I ended up repeating Peter's thoughts by the time I hit ""post"".

Until Sage can get hosted CRM to easily connect to Sage 100 - this whole integration dream is DOA -- .02. By and large nobody wants to learn how to performance tune, upgrade, install and configure a whole new complex program (Sage CRM),. And you know what (wait for it, wait for it) .... customers don't expect to pay for that type of setup. It's really pretty easy and since Sage doesn't have the chops for the remote integration they are forced to tap dance. Remember EES? It wasn't easy to install and there's no hiding that you are forcing pieces together that sometimes don't seem to fit well.

I disagree. Tell your theory to Microsoft CRM, Sugar CRM, Oracle CRM, and other CRM partners who manage to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of products and related services.

We're talking Sage 100 ERP integration to Sage CRM and it has not taken off (integrated) despite every effort. The integration and sales numbers prove this. What does Microsoft, Sugar or Oracle have to do with Sage's efforts?

There isn't any fundamental hurdle in the way of integrating Cloud CRM with On Prem ERP. sData can do this quite well. It is how Sage CRM and SLX's new X3 integration works. Whether Sage has the chops to get the relevant teams to cooperate enough to pull off an integration to Sage 100 is an open question.

The customers are out there and willing to pay to implement CRM. In many ways, the sale of CRM product and services is easier to justify than ERP systems. CRM can be shown to have a direct correlation with improved revenue without increase in cost. The challenge is that it's a different beast than ERP so it's not the natural product line extension that Sage has been espousing for a decade. It takes a new perspective and commitment to see it through. And even then, it's not easy because ... unlike ERP, people can just stop using CRM and, unless management is on the ball, it will fall in to dis-use. Try doing that with ERP and see what management says.

I don't think Sage has taken ""every effort"" to move Sage CRM. I think they also have finally realized that. They have done the same effort for 10 years: Hey, ERP partners - sell this stuff. It's simple. That strategy is ineffective and always has been.

The ""different beast"" issue is the main reason that Sage NA has been unsuccessful in this effort so far. The CFO has little to do with making it work. And the VP Sales usually has his/her own ideas about what's best and doesn't have to listen to the CFO. CEO's in companies that don't already have some sort of CRM doesn't really understand what CRM can do, and so don't have a strong opinion, as long as it doesn't make his life harder. Bottom line: there is little leverage coming in from the financial side. This dynamic is what Irvine has apparently missed for a very long time.

Peter knows more about Irvine's thinking. But I suspect that what really galls them is that the CRM market continues to grow at double digits, while ERP growth is ~3%. And yet Irvine can't get a piece of that action.

Agreed with @JerryNorman's point above about CFO and sales dichotomy. You don't typically sell things by revolving your entire strategy around the wrong contact. Sage has figured that piece out finally in my opinion.

I'm going to save the rest of my argument for Peter and my session ""Sage CRM integration to Sage 100 - A Big Honking Helping of FAIL or Best Thing Since Sliced Bread? "". Please don't miss the session !!

We need to separate the issues here: 1) The Sage go-to-market strategy (pushing CRM through the ERP contacts and ERP channel) is flawed. 2) The Sage integration is less than stellar. If they fix 1, then they will have sales. It's a very good product. If they fix 2, then they will enable their current strategy better but ... their current strategy is flawed so I wouldn't think it's a priority. I'm not saying that they shouldn't fix or improve integration - they should - but it's not essential to selling more Sage CRM.

Peter nailed it. If they focus on making Sage CRM a player in the CRM market, the rest will essentially work out. The product itself is good and getting better. Industry analysts generally place it well. It remains to be seen if NA Product Marketing will grasp how to pull it off, though. Peter, do you know if Irvine is responsible for that?

Yes - Irvine is responsible for it. They are making big shifts in their approach to CRM - the re-cert is only one of the steps. Using my metaphor from before, they are pruning back the rose bush to help make sure it grows strong and healthy.

Thanks. That is very encouraging.

@JohnHoyt the AZ course no longer exists as they closed this facility a few years ago.

Let's hope Sage remembers to fertilize and water the roses.

So perhaps they'll hold the class in Dallas to optimize convenience for the entire country. :-p

Fertilizer is likely.

Water...Arizona...agree, more likely fertillizer

Update: With our certifications for Sage 100 Financial/Distribution we are authorized to license CRM users that are integrated with Sage 100 (including the current ""free"" license). The notification about certification for 7.2 and authorization to sell is only for the standalone version of Sage CRM. The certification class is the 4-day class, but it is on-line. It was difficult to extract this from Sage, but this is now my understanding. @PeterWolf Are you in agreement with what I was told?

@JohnHoyt - it is my understanding that the notification about recertification is for both standalone and integrated Sage CRM. I'm on the Sage CRM BPAC where it was discussed and that was the intent even if the language is not clear. What Sage is attempting to do is clean up the mess that they made by forcing people to certify on Sage CRM as part of the Sage 100 recertification. (No one at Sage listened to me when I explained it was a bad move when they mandated it in the first place. This is where I would ""I told you so"" but most of the people responsible have moved on since then so it's a hollow gloating at best.) They want people to be engaged in Sage CRM either by actively building up a practice area (they have finally determined that it is not just another module of ERP) or partnering with reputable Sage CRM firms (I would say ""like Azamba"" but there is no other firm like Azamba). One of the challenges is that firms that are certified but not really engaged are authorized by Sage to sell Sage CRM to partners that ask for CRM but the satisfaction levels aren't always where they should be because the partners aren't doing enough CRM to do it well. (This is from Sage - not Peter Wolf - but I am not sure it's incorrect.) Sage understands that they have helped create the problem and so to partially rectify it, they are requiring the re-cert so people can decide if they are serious or not. Does that make sense?

@PeterWolf Yes, it all makes sense. What doesn't make sense is Sage itself (and I'm not gunning for ""likes"" here). Among the sales group, education and PSR's they do not agree on what is required. The only safe move is to have someone take the 4-day on-line class and be certified, which is what I have done.

You've taken the class already @JohnHoyt ?? Your thoughts? Was it worthwhile (as a learning tool, not a recert tool)?

Was it actually a new class or are they still using Bruce's class from the 6.1 days?

No, I have not. The next class is scheduled for the week of 1/6, and I assigned one of my people to take it. (Remember, being from Hollywood, we have people to do things for us.) We will provide details on the class, the test and it's value right after that.

Remember when Sage did away with Extended Solutions? It took them internally about 4 month to all agree on what the policy was about selling the Extended Solutions to existing customers. I literally had two Sage people call me to ask where I'd heard that it was ok.