Strategies for Sales Success – ACT! by Sage v. MSCRM

1. Strategies for Sales Success – ACT! by Sage v. MSCRM

2. Objectives • This presentation will: • Provide you with a better understanding of the relative positioning of ACT! in the marketplace. • Help you to identify and position the most appropriate Sage CRM Solutions product relative to the specific needs of your prospect. • Provide you with a better understanding of the specific products, editions, messaging, and sales tactics that you are likely to encounter from our two primary competitors. • Provide you with specific, practical sales recommendations that you can use today in order to maximize your opportunity for sales success. • Highlight Microsoft and MSCRM weaknesses which you can exploit, as well as the Sage CRM Solutions strengths that you should leverage, in order to improve your win rate on an on-going basis.

3. Topics • Brief overview of competitive enablement program. • Overview of key market positioning of ACT!. • Overview of key market positioning and sales strategies of Microsoft CRM. • Detailed discussion of competitive scenarios accompanied by recommended sales strategy.

4. Introduction

5. Introduction to Competitive Enablement • Overview • Sage operates in a highly competitive, global marketplace and faces formidable competition on a daily basis. Notwithstanding this, we continue to provide world-class products and enjoy an unsurpassed reputation for service delivery and customer focus. Our challenge today, therefore, is to understand how we can leverage these significant market differentiators to maximum effect, and, in particular, equip our sales representatives to compete more effectively on a consistent basis. Global CRM, therefore, has launched a comprehensive competitive enablement program for FY09. This program is founded on a close partnership between GCRM and the OpCos and aims to further support OpCo revenue growth around the Sage CRM Solutions family of products - ACT!, Sage SalesLogix, and Sage CRM. • Objectives • Improve ACT!, Sage SalesLogix, and Sage CRM win rates against our primary competitors. • Increase the effectiveness of our tools. • Transform competitive knowledge into a key differentiator for sales. • Leverage the skills and expertise of the OpCos and their business partners. • Centrally coordinate competitive enablement through a dedicated resource.

6. Opportunity QualificationProspect functional needs and willingness to pay for them • Sage SalesLogix • Advanced CRM proposition • Advanced feature-set across sales, marketing , customer service and analytics • Connected and disconnected client • Flexible deployment models, rich mobile client • Web 2.0, RESTful architecture • Addresses the requirements of the Professional Sales Organisation in particular • Advanced process orchestration (workflow) • Highly capable OOTB, plus extensive customisation capabilities • Process solution which can address highly specific company / industry requirements Many-To-One Relationship Many-To-One Relationship • SageCRM • High usability - intermediate CRM proposition • Capable feature-set across sales, marketing and customer service • Ease-of-deployment • Fully web-architected, connected client • Ease-of-on-going-administration • Available on-premise or on-demand • Competitive TCO • OOTB integration with several Sage ERP solutions • Process solution which addresses mainly horizontal needs Workgroup Edition On-Premise MSCRM One-To-Many Relationship • ACT! • Highly focused on contact management • Basics of SFA and Marketing Automation • Ease-of-deployment • Tightly integrated with common productivity applications (e.g. Office/Outlook) • Ease-of-use, highly personalized • Ease-of-on-going-administration, Low TCO • Small business, sales workgroups • Easily customized + a number of vertical editions Professional Edition On-Premise Enterprise Edition On-Premise Professional Edition Online Professional Plus Edition Online • Advanced CRM proposition • Advanced feature-set across sales, marketing , customer service and analytics • Connected and disconnected client • Flexible deployment models, rich mobile client • Web 2.0, RESTful architecture • Addresses the requirements of the Professional Sales Organisation in particular • Advanced process orchestration (workflow) • Highly capable OOTB, plus extensive customisation capabilities • Process solution which can address highly specific company / industry requirements Many-To-Many Relationship Many-To-Many Relationship • High usability - intermediate CRM proposition • Capable feature-set across sales, marketing and customer service • Ease-of-deployment • Fully web-architected, connected client • Ease-of-on-going-administration • Available on-premise or on-demand • Competitive TCO • OOTB integration with several Sage ERP solutions • Process solution which addresses mainly horizontal needs One-To-One Relationship • Highly focused on contact management • Basics of SFA and Marketing Automation • Ease-of-deployment • Tightly integrated with common productivity applications (e.g. Office/Outlook) • Ease-of-use, highly personalized • Ease-of-on-going-administration, Low TCO • Small business, sales workgroups • Easily customized + a number of vertical editions

7. Opportunity Qualification20 Questions to Help Qualify Your Opportunity • What are your prospect’s headline functional requirements: Contact management? Sales force automation? Marketing automation? Customer service automation? • To what extent do departments in your prospect’s organization need to collaborate with each other? • Does your prospect operate primarily in B2B or B2C markets? • Does your prospect’s staff need to access information and capabilities over the Web? • Does your prospect’s staff need to access information and capabilities over mobile devices? • What is your prospect’s budget per user? • How many of your prospect’s users need to access the system initially? • How scalable does your prospect need the new system to be? • Does the prospect need to customize the solution to meet company-specific or industry-specific needs? • Would your prospect prefer to have the application managed by a 3rd party? • If marketing automation capabilities are required by your prospect, what features will users need: Planning? Budgeting? List management? Marketing templates? Response tracking? • If sales automation capabilities are required by your prospect, what features will users need: Lead management? Forecasting? Pipeline management? Proposal generation? • If customer service automation capabilities are required by your prospect, what features will users need: Case management? Knowledge base? SLA management? • Does your prospect need workflow capabilities? • Does your prospect require dashboards? • Does your prospect need to produce reports? • Does your prospect need to use information which is contained in other applications such as an ERP solution? • What is your prospect’s incumbent IT environment? Do they use Exchange? Do they use SQL? Do they use Windows Server? • How many internal IT staff does your prospect have? • How soon does your prospect need to go live?

8. Opportunity QualificationCore Drivers and Influencers • Drivers • Significant investment in Microsoft technologies already • Has volume purchase / EA agreement with Microsoft • Needs significant internationalization capabilities • Purchase driven by technology decision maker • Looking to customize significantly • Scalability is very important • Drivers • Low IT complexity • Low TCO • Ease of use • Ease of deployment • Ease of on-going administration • Limited internal IT resource • Focus on contact management • Focus on personal productivity • Purchase driven by business decision maker Some of the key drivers and influencers that come into play when a prospect is comparing ACT! with MSCRM. Some drivers / influencers point to a very strong fit for MSCRM, while others suggest a potentially better fit through another Sage CRM Solution. MSCRM / Other Sage CRM Solution ACT! Premium • Influencers • Native Outlook experience is important • Availability of internal IT resource • Incumbent Microsoft technology partner • Intermediate sales productivity requirements • Intermediate marketing automation requirements • Intermediate customer service automation requirements • Influencers • Requires an all inclusive solution • Requires non-IT administration • Simple route-to-purchase – retail, download or consultant • Previous experience of Sage business applications • Requires a solution that can be personalized by each user • Basic sales productivity requirements • Basic marketing automation requirements

9. Competitor’s Sales Strategy • What to Expect from Microsoft • Using MSCRM as a bridgehead for the cross-sell: (1) software infrastructure e.g. Sharepoint Server, SQL Server, Biztalk Server and PerformancePoint Server and (2) multi-year Software Assurance. • Leveraging Microsoft volume licensing and enterprise agreements with multi-year Software Assurance, and discounting aggressively in mid-market and enterprise segments. • Overselling its ease-of-use, MS Office integration, and Outlook integration in particular. • Leveraging platform extensibility and locking in the TDM (technology decision maker) in particular. • Positioning MSCRM as a development platform for other business processes – xRM. • Delivering a strong product demonstration which relies heavily on the extended capabilities which are leveraged from other Microsoft solutions, but failing to highlight the additional licensing and cost considerations. • Evangelizing its long term and ever changing product roadmap to good effect. • Pushing aggressively into enterprise to supplant SAP and Oracle in ‘hub and spoke’ opportunities. • Pushing scalability and internationalization capabilities in large, multi-territory deals. • Aggressively targeting SFDC on price at the lower end through Online Editions. • Targeting competitor partner channels through: (1) generous co-op funding for marketing, (2) direct pre-sales and implementation support for larger deals, (3) free sales training, (4) every new deal gets five leads, and (5) increased partner margin including Net 65 day billing terms in North America.

10. Competitive Scenarios for ACT!

11. Competitive Scenarios Workgroup Edition On-Premise MSCRM Professional Edition On-Premise ACT! v. MSCRM Enterprise Edition On-Premise Professional Edition Online Professional Plus Edition Online SFDC • IT Complexity • Cost • Ease-of-Use • Market Specialization Group Edition Professional Edition Enterprise Edition Unlimited Edition Developer Edition

12. ACT! v. MSCRM Competing on IT Complexity • Market Situation • According to Microsoft, Dynamics CRM “works the way your IT staff wants it to ”. MSCRM is based on standard MS technologies which MS claims provides a rapid, low-cost deployment with low support costs and ease-of-scalability. • Microsoft is using MSCRM to broaden its software infrastructure footprint within customer organizations and move its positioning beyond commodity components to business strategy-supporting technologies. • What You Need to Do • Expose the inherent complexity of MSCRM; even at its most basic level. • Expose MSCRM’s reliance on other Microsoft technologies. • Expose the MSCRM product demonstration. • Emphasize the associated software infrastructure cost implications for MSCRM. • Emphasize the associated professional services cost implications for MSCRM. • Emphasize the on-going risk and administrative overhead associated with the Microsoft technology stack. • Highlight the simplified, optimized technology platform that ACT! provides for SMB organizations which minimizes complexity and on-going administration.

13. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting on IT Complexity • Proof Points – Additional Software Complexity • ACT! is supplied out-of-the-box with SQL Express or Standard Editions. • Since there is no server license, ACT! does not require an application server. • Windows XP can be used as a database server for shared database ACT! Deployments. • ACT! works with office productivity solutions but is not dependent on them. • By contrast, MSCRM has complex technology considerations; even for small deployments.

14. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting on IT Complexity • Proof Points - Additional Software Infrastructure Complexity • MS attempts to position a list of complex dependencies as a positive selling point: ‘the MS technology stack.’ The MS Dynamics CRM technology stack is a complex and costly interaction of moving parts, each of which are potentially points of failure. This equates to a long and complex IT deployment and on-going maintenance risk. • Specific examples of complexity and risk include: (1) Exchange Server is not designed to manage mass email marketing, (2) the Outlook client configuration/upgrade is complex and involves installing the .NET Framework 2.0 on every desktop, (3) Outlook was never intended to operate as an application portal; this potentially exposes the Outlook client to functional performance issues if overburdened by extended CRM capabilities, and (4) integrating with MS Dynamics back-office products is complex and costly. • MS CRM 4.0 introduced further inter-relationships with Microsoft applications and technologies. These included: (1) adoption of Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) as workflow engine in CRM, (2) recommended use of MS System Management Service (SMS) and Windows System Centre Manager (SMS) for CRM application management in larger deployments, (3) MS Office Communications Server required for presence management and IM capabilities, and (4) ‘Best CRM experience’ provided through the use of MS Office 2007 e.g. ribbon interface for CRM only available when used in conjunction with MS Office 2007. • Significantly, while companies may have licenses for several of these components already, MS CRM generally necessitates the use of the latest versions of these components, and the company, therefore, will need to remain current on Software Assurance and carry out product upgrades when they become available.

15. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting on IT Complexity • Proof Points - Additional Software Infrastructure • Advanced capabilities such as: presence management, instant messaging, business scorecarding, advanced business analytics, and dashboards are included in MSCRM product demonstrations by Microsoft and their partners. These capabilities are provided by products such as: Communications Server, Performancepoint Server, and Sharepoint Server; rather than by MSCRM itself. All of these capabilities, therefore, have additional licensing and significant cost considerations in most cases.

16. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost • Market Situation • Microsoft is actively targeting smaller opportunities moving to contact management / CRM for the first time, as well as attacking established customer segments for competitive products such as ACT!. • This is being done primarily through MSCRM Workgroup Edition and Online Editions. • They are competing and positioning on cost: fixed pricing in the case of Workgroup Edition and discounted subscription modelling in the case of Online Edition. • What You Need to Do • Exploit the MSCRM licensing and subscription weaknesses. • Exploit the inherent cost complexity in the MSCRM platform. • Emphasize the ACT! simplified platform. • Emphasize the ACT! scalable and cost-effective licensing structure. • Emphasize the ACT! low administration costs on an on-going basis.

17. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – MSCRM Workgroup Edition • What You Need to Know About MSCRM Workgroup Edition • Replaced MSCRM SBE since the launch of version 4.0 of the product. • SBE was limited to 75 users and required Windows SBS. • Workgroup is limited to 5 users and can run on either SBS or Windows Server. • Workgroup is fully packaged and fixed price. • Beyond 5 users, companies must move to Professional Edition.

18. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – MSCRM Workgroup Edition • Proof Points – Lack of License Scalability • MSCRM Workgroup Edition is licensed on a fixed cost basis to a maximum of 5 users. • ACT! is licensed on a variable cost basis which has built in volume discounting bands.

19. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – MSCRM Workgroup Edition • Proof Points – Lack of License Scalability • ACT! licensing can scale easily in line with growing customer requirements. • For 6 or more users, MSCRM Workgroup customers will have to purchase a Step Up License. • This Step Up License costs between $2,795 and $5,559 depending on stage in lifecycle. • These companies will also have to pay a higher price of $880 for each additional CAL. • MSCRM will be at least 40% more expensive than ACT!. • Furthermore, with MSCRM Software Assurance renewal charges at 25% of the Year 1 license cost, these companies can also expect to pay a considerable, recurring cost for their MSCRM deployment.

20. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – MSCRM Workgroup Edition Proof Points - Sample Costs for Additional Software Infrastructure

21. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – MSCRM Workgroup Edition • Proof Points – Additional Implementation Cost • As a standalone or workgroup deployment, ACT! can generally be rolled out on a self-install basis. • ACT! customer can elect to work with a CC to support this, particularly around Windows Admin, MS .NET and MS SQL. • For a 5-user deployment, this equates to half a day of professional services which may include basic customization and report writing. • Because the same implementation considerations for MSCRM Professional Edition apply to Workgroup Edition; smaller companies face the same complexities that larger organizations would normally only expect to encounter when rolling out MSCRM. • Based on feedback from MSCRM certified implementation partners, on average, 2 days of external professional services [charged at $850 to $1250 per day] will be required to support a 5-user deployment of MSCRM Workgroup Edition, with some MSCRM partners quoting as many as 5 days. • This equates to a minimum of 4x professional services cost when compared to comparable ACT! deployments.

22. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – MSCRM Workgroup Edition • Proof Points – Additional Implementation Cost • Microsoft Dynamics CRM is not an easy product to install and set up. • The implementation of the product requires a lot of upfront planning time. When it is time to install the product, users have to go through numerous steps to get it running. • The implementation guide provided by Microsoft for users is 222 pages long. • The chart below demonstrates the steps to install MS CRM. According to a participant who attended a Microsoft Technical Seminar, the “7-click” install shown in the chart below took the presenter four hours to demonstrate!

23. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – MSCRM Workgroup Edition For 5 users For 10 users

24. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – MSCRM Workgroup Edition Without infrastructure for 5 users With basic infrastructure for 5 users

25. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – MSCRM Online Editions • What You Need to Know About MSCRM Online Edition • MSCRM was re-architected to support multi-tenancy in the 4.0 release of the product. These new multi-tenancy capabilities have been used to underpin MSCRM Online, the Microsoft-hosted version of the product which was launched in North America at the end of 2007. • The two editions of Online; Professional and Professional Plus, provide identical capabilities apart from the availability of offline access and additional storage within Professional Plus. Both editions are priced competitively to go head-to-head with Salesforce.com.

26. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – MSCRM Online Editions For 1 year For 5 years

27. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost – Pay Extra for Features that Should be Standard • Proof Points – The Reality of Microsoft Dashboards and Their Added Expense • Microsoft claims to provide ‘an extensive range of sales, service, and operations dashboards, as well as predictive analytics that deliver statistical guidance across lead and sales management’. • Configurable, analytical dashboards do not ship as standard with MSCRM and are not mentioned anywhere within its 500 page user guide. • Microsoft has recently launched its Analytics Accelerator which it claims offers extended BI capabilities for MSCRM 4.0. It also claims that this is offered free-of-charge to customers. • While the Analytics Accelerator is offered at no cost, a company would have to license Sharepoint Server (Sharepoint Services from Windows Server will not provide analytical dashboard capabilities) or PerformancePoint Server(BSM), both of which have significant additional licensing and PSG services cost implications. • Partners are encouraged to use these products to ‘deliver a killer BI demo or POC and use as a tie breaker in competitive situations.’ Partners are also encouraged to cross-sell these capabilities and solutions to existing MSCRM customers in order to ‘reinforce their investment in Software Assurance’. • By contrast, ACT! provides configurable dashboards out-of-the box at no additional cost.

28. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Cost - Pay Extra for Features that Should be Standard Extra Cost in MSCRM Standard in ACT!

29. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Ease-of-Use • Market Situation • Ease-of-use has been a cornerstone for Microsoft’s messaging around MSCRM since the product’s launch. • Through native Outlook integration, Microsoft claims that the product ‘works the way you work’. • It also claims that this gets rid of the ‘ALT-tab’ syndrome of having to toggle between CRM and Outlook. • It claims that this combination drives user adoption and productivity. • What You Need to Do • Exploit MSCRM’s multiple pop-up windows, cumbersome menu structures, and complex user experience. • Highlight the ACT! core focus on ease-of-use and market-leading levels of user adoption.

30. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Ease-of-Use 1 2 3 • Proof Points - Even for simple tasks, MSCRM is complex to use • Multiple pop-up • windows • Cumbersome menus • High click volume per • interaction

31. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Ease-of-Use • Proof Points – ACT! provides effective, intuitive navigation without screen clutter • Context-based • tab structure • Central, fully • configurable • activity area • Action buttons • Main menu items • With over 2.8m ACT! users today, the product’s ease-of-use credentials are validated comprehensively when compared to MSCRM’s 625k

32. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Ease-of-Use - Application Availability across Multiple Access Scenarios • Proof Points – ACT! Advantage for Disconnected Environments • Even when disconnected, the ACT! Desktop client provides a seamless and consistent user experience. • By contrast, and despite a major overhaul of its offline client in version 4.0, MSCRM still does not provide a wide range of key capabilities and features to offline users.

33. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting Effectively on Ease-of-Use • Other examples of the ACT! ease-of-use advantage over MSCRM • Ad hoc searches: MSCRM users need to use the Advanced Find feature to carry out a wide variety of simple search types e.g. using the condition ‘contains’. By contrast, ad hoc queries can be constructed and carried out with ease within ACT! using the product’s lookup and search capabilities. • Static groups can be created on-the-fly within ACT!, whereas a user would have to use the Marketing Groups function within MSCRM to carry out a similar task. • MSCRM does not allow the user to carry out multiple selections from drop down menus. • Carrying out a mail-merge in MSCRM takes 19 steps compared to 5 in ACT! and contact details can be amended during this process in ACT!, but not within MSCRM. • Unlike ACT!, field changes, such as an opportunity moving through the sales cycle for example, do not create history in Microsoft CRM. Information within histories can be opened and altered by users. Users can delete the history and manually create new histories. • Microsoft CRM does not offer the capability to link notes to multiple contacts – only to an individual contact.

34. ACT! v. MSCRM Competing on Market Specialization • Market Situation • While MSCRM was originally developed as an SMB solution, enterprise sales play an increasingly important role in the growth of the product. It is estimated that enterprise sales accounted for as much as 40% of new license sales during 2008. • Microsoft claims that it still delivers CRM solutions “for thousands of small and mid-sized businesses around the world with an intuitive user experience, easy configuration capabilities and rapid return on investment.” • What You Need to Do • Highlight the platform enhancements that have been made to version 4.0 of MSCRM in order to cater for more complex technology environments of enterprise-level organizations. • Highlight the fact that an increasing percentage of MSCRM’s user base is made up of enterprise organizations. • Highlight the fact that SMB and enterprise-level customer have very different technical and functional requirements. • Showcase that for over 20 years ACT! has primarily concentrated on the contact management needs of small and medium-sized businesses and workgroups where employees operate on a one-to-one or one-to-many basis with their customers.

35. ACT! v. MSCRMCompeting on Market Specialization • Proof Points - Microsoft Attempts to Address Multiple Market Segments with a ‘one size fits all’ product strategy • As much as 40% of new license sales in FY’08 for MSCRM were to enterprise customers. • MSCRM’s WWGM stated in 2008 that MSCRM now has more users in the enterprise space than SMB. • Microsoft has increased its focus on enterprise-sized organizations with the release of MS CRM 4.0. Specifically, MSCRM 4.0 caters more easily for: complex technology environments, large user deployments, and vertical market solutions. It also provides additional support for clustering, SQL throttling, and WAN performance optimization. • By covering such a broad addressable market with a single product, Microsoft risks diluting product segment focus or, more likely, disenfranchising SMB customers in order to address enterprise-level requirements for scalability, interoperability, and vertical functionality. • Sage, by contrast, maintains a singular focus on SMB applications. Even within the SMB market, Sage does not take a “one size fits all” approach to its products. Sage CRM Solutions has three distinct product lines to provide the most appropriate fit for SMB organizations.

36. Landmines for Microsoft

37. Landmines for Microsoft10 Questions Your Prospect Should Ask Microsoft • What is Investment Protection (Transformational Assurance) and why do I need it? • Are dashboards included out-of-the-box? • MSCRM does not run on non-Microsoft infrastructure, won’t that significantly limit the type of software that I can purchase going forward; even for general IT purposes? • What additional software do I need to buy in order to provide my users with the same features that I saw in the demo? • Is Microsoft committed to supporting this product for SMBs? If so, why are most of the enhancements in version 4.0 aimed at large companies with complex technology environments? And why has the general manager for the product stated that MSCRM is ‘an Enterprise product’ with more users in larger organizations than SMBs? • If I purchase MSCRM Workgroup Edition, what happens when I want to add a sixth user? • Why do I have to de-activate the pop-up blocker on my Internet browser in order to use the product? • How do I know who to contact if I have a problem? For example, if I have a problem with reporting in MSCRM, do I contact my MSCRM supplier or the company that installed SQL? • Can I roll-out MSCRM on a self-install basis? • Why are support and maintenance costs so high?

38. Landmines from Microsoft

39. Landmines from Microsoft • ‘MSCRM is significantly outgrowing Sage in the CRM space’ • Sage Response: • Microsoft’s growth figures are impressive but they are based on the growth of a relatively small customer footprint: 14,000 customers with 625,000 users compared to that of Sage CRM Solutions with 58,000 customers and 2.8million users. • By leveraging multi-year, volume purchase agreements for all Microsoft products, MSCRM is offered to many of its customers on the basis of no additional license cost. • Microsoft has been discounting significantly as it desperately seeks to grow market share. Most recently, it has doubled partner margin in order to increase orders and extended the billing net terms for NA partners to 65 days. • In many instances, MSCRM is viewed as a loss leader, as the company will recoup its cost over the medium term through extensive software infrastructure dependencies and Software Assurance. • When Microsoft’s own partner channel failed to deliver growth in real terms, Microsoft actively targeted competitor partner channels with generous co-op funding for marketing programs, pre-sales support, promises of leads, and additional margin. • ‘Analysts provide more favorable ratings to MSCRM than Sage products’ • Sage Response: • While analyst coverage is important, Sage has always prioritized feedback from its customers when planning product development roadmaps. We are confident, therefore, that the solutions which we deliver to the market are most closely aligned to the needs of our SMB customers; which analyst groups are not always attuned to, and provide the most competitive value proposition over their lifetime.

40. Landmines from Microsoft • ‘Sage lacks a long-term product roadmap and compelling product vision’ • Sage Response: • Sage published our CRM 2010 strategy in 2008 which offers a comprehensive and compelling trajectory for the three applications within the Sage CRM Solutions family of products. As a result of deep market and customer research, this product vision centers on the areas of solution interoperability, anywhere workforce experience, and front-to-back-office integration. Sage has already begun to deliver against this vision in highly practical terms through recent product releases. • By contrast, the Microsoft CRM product roadmap has focused on horizontal platform and generic user enhancements, as well as integration with a dizzying array of Microsoft technologies, rather than addressing the function-specific requirements of users. This largely “horizontal” approach to feature enhancement will not adequately address the requirements of SMB sales, marketing, and customer service professionals and relies instead on configuration and customization at the point of initial rollout to address these shortfalls. • ‘Sage is just a holding company for a portfolio of regional business applications which lacks unified R&D and product direction’ • Sage Response: • Product strategy, R&D, development, product management, and product marketing for Sage’s three CRM products are all managed by a single, worldwide organization which is headed by a single GM. • ‘Sage CRM Solutions are built on old technology’ • Sage Response: • All Sage CRM Solutions combine the benefits of a mature product and significant revision history with the advantages of leading Web technologies and modern platforms which deliver extensive feature sets which are easy, flexible, and cost effective to deploy and integrate with. By contrast, MSCRM limits its customer’s choice of technology environment. Significantly, Microsoft CRM is the only Microsoft business application that has been developed entirely in .NET. It’s ERP products are based on legacy platforms, e.g. Dexterity in the case of Microsoft Dynamics GP.

41. Questions