Dear Partners,

 

Our company is at a crucial turning point where we begin to fully realize our potential in the US market. The time is right to accelerate our transition into a great SaaS company by fully combining Sage's experience of growth at scale with Sage Intacct's high-growth cloud-native leadership. 

 

This morning, Sage CEO Steve Hare announced, effective October 1, we will bring together one fully integrated US go to market and one fully integrated Medium segment organization with one common purpose and one aligned channel.

 

What this means for Sage North America partners

 

This means one message to market, one unified approach to partners, and one clear focus on beating our competitors. 

 

Harmonizing our market and our cloud-connected and cloud teams means that when a Sage customer using Sage 50, Sage 100, or Sage 300 wants to move to the cloud, Sage Intacct will be the natural choice. And when our customers look for people management, Sage People will be there to support them.

 

Providing Sage-to-Sage migration will enable us to win in the market. This really is the best of both worlds-and the key to meeting our ambition of becoming a great SaaS business.

 

We have made some early decisions:

 

As of today, Marc Linden, Managing Director for Sage Intacct, will report to Lee Perkins and lead the unified Medium segment. Marc will also continue to lead the Sage Intacct team through the end of September.

Following a handover from Marc, as of October 1, Nancy Harris will lead a newly unified North America go to market, inclusive of Sage Intacct.

Chris Rose, SVP of Sales for Sage Intacct, will report to Nancy Harris in an expanded role leading all US Medium segment sales.

Reporting to Chris will be Taylor Macdonald, who runs Sage Intacct's partner channel, and me, as I continue to lead the North America partner channel.

 

Thee following colleagues will continue to lead their areas of the Medium segment:

 

Oliver Herzig – Product for BMS Rob Sinfield – Product for Sage X3

Gaelle Bourven – Product Engineering for Sage X3

 

We will keep you informed over the coming weeks as we shape the organization into a single global segment and the single US go to market team-ensuring our new ways of working are operational as we head into the new fiscal year on October 1.

 

Looking forward

 

Let me reassure you, nothing will change for our customers. However, we are sure this move will help us bring more customers onto our native cloud products as these solutions become the cloud destination for Sage customers from across the Medium segment portfolio.

 

We are laser-focused on our vision to become a great SaaS company and believe the changes we have made today give us the runway for success in FY21. For now, we need to stay focused on closing out FY20 strong. This  is a big quarter for us and I need you to keep doing what you are doing!

 

Finally, I'd like to invite you to join me for a special All-Hands partner webcast this Friday, August 14, at 12 pm PT/3 pm ET-with guests Nancy Harris, Marc Linden, Taylor Macdonald, and Chris Rose-when we will talk more about these updates. Please make sure to register for the event.

Thanks for your partnership. Nancy Teixeira

VP Partner Strategy & Sales, North America Sage

------------------------------
Moira Goggin
Executive Director
90 Minds, Inc.
------------------------------

It seems like this news actually preceded the Sage press release - this is the first time I recall seeing Sage indicate they aspired to be a PURE SaaS business. Naturally, Sage could re-define the meaning of the word SaaS to be whatever they like. 

https://www.sage.com/investors/investor-downloads/press-releases/2020/08/sage-appoints-lee-perkins-to-chief-operating-officer-role/

In this new role, Lee will have responsibility for Sage's operations across all regions, and its product teams. He will be accountable for the day-to-day execution against the strategy towards Sage's vision of becoming a great SaaS company through our focus on customers, colleagues and innovation.

Lee returned to Sage in early 2018 having originally joined Sage in 2011, serving as Managing Director of the UK & Ireland until early 2016. He has over 20 years' commercial and general management experience in public and private equity backed businesses.

In this new role, Lee will focus on accelerating Sage's transition to becoming a pure SaaS business, further increasing the global availability of Sage's cloud solutions and driving customer retention and acquisition in all of Sage's markets.

Steve Hare, CEO, Sage said: "I am delighted that Lee is taking this expanded role having worked closely with him over the last few years. His experience will be invaluable as we accelerate the pace of transition to becoming a great SaaS company."

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

It seems that this is phase 3 of the Intacct acquisition
Phase I - Acquisition
Phase 2 - Intacct come under Sage NA Budget - October 2019
Phase 3 - Intacct Personnel part of Sage NA management

@Wayne Schulz I can't remember if Lee was part of the team that heavily prompted Sage CRM a few years back.  I recall that their Sage CRM Cloud was not as successful as they hoped. 

​

------------------------------
Moira Goggin
Executive Director
90 Minds, Inc.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-12-2020 12:36
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: One Sage NA & Executive Change Annoucements

It seems like this news actually preceded the Sage press release - this is the first time I recall seeing Sage indicate they aspired to be a PURE SaaS business. Naturally, Sage could re-define the meaning of the word SaaS to be whatever they like.

https://www.sage.com/investors/investor-downloads/press-releases/2020/08/sage-appoints-lee-perkins-to-chief-operating-officer-role/

In this new role, Lee will have responsibility for Sage's operations across all regions, and its product teams. He will be accountable for the day-to-day execution against the strategy towards Sage's vision of becoming a great SaaS company through our focus on customers, colleagues and innovation.

Lee returned to Sage in early 2018 having originally joined Sage in 2011, serving as Managing Director of the UK & Ireland until early 2016. He has over 20 years' commercial and general management experience in public and private equity backed businesses.

In this new role, Lee will focus on accelerating Sage's transition to becoming a pure SaaS business, further increasing the global availability of Sage's cloud solutions and driving customer retention and acquisition in all of Sage's markets.

Steve Hare, CEO, Sage said: "I am delighted that Lee is taking this expanded role having worked closely with him over the last few years. His experience will be invaluable as we accelerate the pace of transition to becoming a great SaaS company."

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

If all Sage 50, 100, 300, and possible 500 customers are now "Sage contacts for Intacct Cloud" will the sales credit/commission program work like Intacct's, Sage owns the lead if the customer moves to Intacct?

------------------------------
Moira Goggin
Executive Director
90 Minds, Inc.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-12-2020 12:49
From: Moira Goggin
Subject: One Sage NA & Executive Change Annoucements

It seems that this is phase 3 of the Intacct acquisition
Phase I - Acquisition
Phase 2 - Intacct come under Sage NA Budget - October 2019
Phase 3 - Intacct Personnel part of Sage NA management

@Wayne Schulz I can't remember if Lee was part of the team that heavily prompted Sage CRM a few years back.  I recall that their Sage CRM Cloud was not as successful as they hoped.

​

------------------------------
Moira Goggin
Executive Director
90 Minds, Inc.
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 08-12-2020 12:36
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: One Sage NA & Executive Change Annoucements

It seems like this news actually preceded the Sage press release - this is the first time I recall seeing Sage indicate they aspired to be a PURE SaaS business. Naturally, Sage could re-define the meaning of the word SaaS to be whatever they like.

https://www.sage.com/investors/investor-downloads/press-releases/2020/08/sage-appoints-lee-perkins-to-chief-operating-officer-role/

In this new role, Lee will have responsibility for Sage's operations across all regions, and its product teams. He will be accountable for the day-to-day execution against the strategy towards Sage's vision of becoming a great SaaS company through our focus on customers, colleagues and innovation.

Lee returned to Sage in early 2018 having originally joined Sage in 2011, serving as Managing Director of the UK & Ireland until early 2016. He has over 20 years' commercial and general management experience in public and private equity backed businesses.

In this new role, Lee will focus on accelerating Sage's transition to becoming a pure SaaS business, further increasing the global availability of Sage's cloud solutions and driving customer retention and acquisition in all of Sage's markets.

Steve Hare, CEO, Sage said: "I am delighted that Lee is taking this expanded role having worked closely with him over the last few years. His experience will be invaluable as we accelerate the pace of transition to becoming a great SaaS company."

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990

I've seen this movie twice.
Ended the same way both times. 

First was starring Taylor Macdonald in the Adventures of MAS 200 as a sure-fire migration path to MAS 500.
Then they remade it several years later starring Joe Langner and Doug LaBahn as "our spreadsheet shows your customer is a perfect match for at least x integrations"

From memory, both movies end the same way with a few low hanging fruits being picked and the main characters going on to greener pastures at another company

In  12 to 18 months we may see "prepare three envelopes" return to theaters...it's a classic that Sage keeps remaking.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

OH, @Wayne Schulz, how have you become so cynical?????  LOL LOL LOL​

------------------------------
Beth Bowers
Mom to Samson, Peanut, ChiChi, Canton, Cagney and Daisy (NO Oxford comma - shriek!)
Beth Bowers
269-445-1625
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-12-2020 20:35
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: One Sage NA & Executive Change Annoucements

I've seen this movie twice.
Ended the same way both times.

First was starring Taylor Macdonald in the Adventures of MAS 200 as a sure-fire migration path to MAS 500.
Then they remade it several years later starring Joe Langner and Doug LaBahn as "our spreadsheet shows your customer is a perfect match for at least x integrations"

From memory, both movies end the same way with a few low hanging fruits being picked and the main characters going on to greener pastures at another company

In  12 to 18 months we may see "prepare three envelopes" return to theaters...it's a classic that Sage keeps remaking.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
------------------------------

Iceberg AHEAD!!!!!!!!

------------------------------
Jeff Schwenk
FORMER 90M Board Member
Bottomline Software, Inc.
Waynesboro VA
540-221-4444
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-13-2020 04:53
From: Beth Bowers
Subject: One Sage NA & Executive Change Annoucements

OH, @Wayne Schulz, how have you become so cynical?????  LOL LOL LOL​

------------------------------
Beth Bowers
Mom to Samson, Peanut, ChiChi, Canton, Cagney and Daisy (NO Oxford comma - shriek!)
Beth Bowers
269-445-1625
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: 08-12-2020 20:35
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: One Sage NA & Executive Change Annoucements

I've seen this movie twice.
Ended the same way both times.

First was starring Taylor Macdonald in the Adventures of MAS 200 as a sure-fire migration path to MAS 500.
Then they remade it several years later starring Joe Langner and Doug LaBahn as "our spreadsheet shows your customer is a perfect match for at least x integrations"

From memory, both movies end the same way with a few low hanging fruits being picked and the main characters going on to greener pastures at another company

In  12 to 18 months we may see "prepare three envelopes" return to theaters...it's a classic that Sage keeps remaking.

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990

All hands meeting today - Friday August 14 2020 - 12 PT / 3 ET.

Here’s hoping the meeting explains the reorganization better than the email.

---------------------------------
Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
---------------------------------