Corporate Vision and Strategy

As Sage Software has grown, we’ve been guided by a simple statement of purpose: to help make it easier for our customers to manage their business processes. Standing behind that purpose are our principles for operating the business – with a focus on agility, innovation, trust and integrity, and simplicity – all of which keep us closely connected with our customers.

As a company, we have grown both through internal development and through acquisition, selecting those companies and partners who most exemplify the innovative spirit, customer focused approach, and established products that our customers desire. This strategy has enabled us to develop a portfolio of products and services designed to meet specific needs within our selected industries. We deliver them through four divisions, providing clear focus on supporting the needs and success of the customers they serve: Business Management Division that offers core business management applications such as accounting, enterprise resource management and customer relationship management for small and midsized businesses; Payment Solutions Division, offering merchant services for retailers; Healthcare Division serving the business automation needs of medical practices; and Industry & Specialized Solutions Division, serving the needs of the construction, real estate, and nonprofit industries as well as the employer-related needs of businesses in general.

Today, working in unison across all our products and markets, our employees, business partners, and advisors are tied by a common bond: being connected with our customers to help them to succeed.

We are confident in achieving those successes for our customers and have developed a strategy to guide our efforts. With the support of our customers, and through the dedication of our employees and partners, we invite you to share in that vision.

Our Purpose

To help make it easier for our customers to manage their business processes.

Our Aspiration

To be the most admired business software and services provider in the world.

Our Principles

Agility: We anticipate and act on the changing needs of our business. We have the willingness and capability to change. We execute quickly and precisely. We question what needs to change in order to continually evolve and improve.

Innovation: We are committed to continuously improving how we serve all of our customers, partners, and employees by anticipating their needs and exceeding their expectations through a culture of creativity and forward thinking.

Trust and Integrity: We are ethical and honest in our intentions, words, and actions. We believe our end results and how we obtain them are equally important. We are accountable for both successes and failures and we learn and improve from both. We practice any challenges or behaviors that threaten our reputation with no fear or reprisal. We model the Sage principles in all interactions with stakeholders. We are good corporate citizens in our communities.

Simplicity: We are committed to making our products, services, and business processes easier to understand and use. We create value by providing products and services that streamline complex processes and boost productivity. We embrace continuous improvement as a way to simplify our business. We support and foster an attitude of helpfulness in everything we do. Above all, we deliver unique and positive Sage experiences by being easy to work with.

Our Strategic Objectives

To achieve our goals, our corporate strategy guides how we work with our customers, partners, and employees, how we serve our markets, how we grow our company, and how we achieve our financial goals.

Our strategy comprises seven key objectives that ensure we remain customer-connected in everything we do:

Present One Face to Customers and Partners

Sage Software is a company of many products and services. Indeed, this quality is a key strength, as we can offer our customers a broad selection of applications most suited to their unique needs and industries.

Many of our products are well known by such recognizable brand names as ACT! by Sage, Peachtree by Sage, Sage Accpac ERP, Sage CRM SalesLogix, Sage MAS 90 ERP, Sage MAS 200 ERP, Sage MAS 500 ERP, and Sage Timberline Office. While maintaining these strong brand identities, we also want to make our company easy to work with, and allow our customers to communicate more easily with us. Our business unit structure enables us to do this by serving our customers with highly focused resources in the markets we serve.

Target Acquisitions for Success

To expand our expertise and broaden our offerings to meet the growing needs of our customers, we have sought the best in the business. Through selective acquisitions, we enable complementary business strengths, share common experiences, and pursue collective goals with companies that are leaders in their industries.

By expanding our product portfolio, we are better positioned to meet the evolving needs of our customers. We now provide a broad range of solutions—such as human resources, accounting, customer relationship management, fixed assets, and others—that is unequalled in our industry. We have sharpened our focus on specific vertical industry needs including manufacturing, distribution, nonprofit, healthcare, construction, and real estate.

We are selective in our acquisitions, choosing those companies that complement Sage Software in terms of their corporate leadership, comparable goals and objectives, culture, products and markets, corporate stability, and product and market experience.

Deliver high-quality relevant products and services for target markets

We have built our product direction through the involvement of our business partners, our advisors, and most importantly, our customers. Through ongoing discussions, we explore with our customers their needs, wants, and desires for applications that can help their businesses perform and grow.

From those discussions we have mapped a unique strategy that focuses on customer requirements. That strategy spans the business management needs of small and midsized businesses, and takes into account specific requirements of our selected vertical industries.

For emerging small businesses, we offer entry-level solutions that are suited to their requisite business activities. As those businesses flourish, they can integrate additional products—all from the Sage Software family—to handle more personnel, expanding sales, and growing reporting requirements. In time, our customers can migrate to advanced Sage Software solutions to keep pace with the more demanding requirements of accounting or customer relationship management.

We have furthered our market and product strategy by:

Establishing direct ties to our customers to gain their input about service and product needs;
Providing integration among our products, making it easier for our customers to address their business requirements with connected applications throughout their business: accounting, manufacturing, inventory and warehousing, customer relationship management, human resources, payroll, and others;
Delivering a range of industry-specific business management systems for manufacturers, distributors, nonprofits, retailers, construction firms, real estate companies, and healthcare practices.

Keep Customers for Life

We are creating lasting relationships with our customers in many ways. With our full complement of products, and supported by our market and product strategy, our customers can now easily migrate from starter products to our more advanced applications. ACT! by Sage users, for example, can stay within the Sage Software family and move up to Sage CRM or Sage SalesLogix, which offer advanced customer relationship management features. Peachtree by Sage users can move Peachtree Quantum or Sage MAS 90. Construction businesses can move from Peachtree to Sage Master Builder or Sage Timberline Office.

Well beyond the initial software sale, we help our customers maximize their software investment and further increase their efficiencies by offering ongoing training and award-winning service and support. We call this focus on surrounding customers with products and resources for success, Sage 360° (www.sage360.com).

In striving for our objective of Customers for Life we have:

Developed a migration path from small business applications to more advanced solutions for larger businesses;
Created multiple opportunities for our customers to access a broad selection of business management products as their business needs expand;
Established a high level of service beyond the initial software sale, by repeatedly achieving annual Support Center Practices (SCP) Certification in our key areas of customer support and through such recognition as our SSPA Hall of Fame award for customer service from the Service & Support Professionals Association.

Attract New Customers

Many of our customers have come to Sage Software through acquisition. Others have joined the Sage Software family as first-time purchasers of our business management products. From these points of entry, new and existing customers continually offer us suggestions and insight to help refine our products and services. We encourage this participation through ongoing surveys and special programs. We gain thousands of new customers annually both through acquisition and through attracting new business to our solutions.

Become a Great Employer in Our Markets

Many employees have joined Sage Software through our company acquisitions. With these transactions, we have ensured that our acquired companies share a similar set of core values to help successfully merge cultures.

To the advantage of our customers, these employees bring new ideas, fresh perspectives, and solid experience in their respective products and industries. And because of our decentralized approach, we can leverage individual employee strengths and specialties across the company regardless of employee location.

In retaining these employees, and in attracting the best and the brightest, we offer:

Career advancement to not only move up, but across the organization;
Ability to leverage employee strengths and specialties, without relocation;
Multiple avenues of communication to keep employees informed, from the CEO on through to front-line managers.

Consistently Achieve Financial Results

Sage Software believes in investment—in people, in products, and in the markets we serve. By maintaining our profit and growth, we can invest in our customers' successes through continuous product development and a continuous understanding of our customers' needs.

We believe we are on the right path to success. With our strategic objectives, we have set a course that is yielding the results we want. Sage Software now accounts for nearly half of the global business of our parent company, The Sage Group, plc. Our business with existing customers is driven by a broad range of established, market-leading products, services that encourage a loyal customer following, clear product migration paths, and a focus on serving the specific needs of vertical markets.

Our strategy as a customer-connected company is solid:

We offer our customers products and services for the lives of their businesses;
We can provide them with products that span the full range of business management needs;
We offer migration paths to more advanced products and services for customers as their businesses grow;
We have strength in key vertical industries, offering integration among our products and providing a common face to customers in the markets we serve;
We leverage employee strengths, companywide, across all product lines;
We have built a solid network of professional business partners whose expertise and guidance our customers have come to rely on.

In sum, with our strategy we have positioned Sage Software to be a leading supplier of business management products and services to small and midsized businesses.