Sage Summit: It’s All About Connections

I have been at Sage Software’s Summit conference this week where they have attempted to bridge their partner channel and customers together for the first time. As author of the Practical CRM blog I am always looking at how processes or technology make our lives easier and I have to take my hat off to the executives at Sage. This week has been a great opportunity for many of us to spend time informally with customers and collaborate with our other Sage Partners, Extended Solutions, and Sage team members that sell, support and develop products.

It has been amazing to see how many of the issues and challenges facing our customers are common and many of them have been learning from each other as well as collaborating with the publisher to communicate their common needs with their software implementations.  In one dinner setting we had three X3 ERP customers on three different CRM platforms all with the same needs and common desires for future integration. Now we have heard them and have made Sage aware of their desires to reach one truly integrated platform. In another instance at breakfast we had two customers that were trying to implement two new modules of their financial system and run similar businesses in different parts of the country. They gave each other ideas on how go about implementing these modules and now our team members will work with both accounts to make sure there is a mind share going on.

Summit is great for learning and knowledge but connecting the right customers with each other has been an invaluable benefit and great learning experience.