The downside, as a rule, is the painstaking integration effort yet to be devised for a number of remaining products in the Sage's/Best's family and to be subsequently exerted, as there is always a large time bracket from concept to actual materialization. The mitigating factor for impending integration was the fact that Best's progenitor and former Intercat had long formed the product alliance, so the integration task had not started from scratch. However, this might not be the case for the rest of the product portfolio, and as integration is never a simple feat anyway despite SalesLogix' proverbial Open CRM' initiative and a number of mid-market ERP product alliances and subsequent product integration experiences (deals with Exact Macola, Intuitive Manufacturing Systems, Made2Manage, and Expandable Software being some, as a matter of interest). A quite similar situation is with Abra HR/Payroll product that, likewise SalesLogix in the CRM market, has a prominence in the SME HR market, and has been used via many OEM or any other arrangements by a slew of vendors.
Best Software will still have to address other challenges in order to continue to thrive in this ruthless competitive environment. The competition is flying from many directions since the company competes in many diverse markets. To that end, in the traditional back-office market, the threat comes from the likes of Intuit and AccountMate in the small business accounting market, via its peers (e.g., MBS, ACCPAC, Exact Software, Epicor, and Scala to name only some), to the Tier 1 vendors storming down the market. In the pure HR/Payroll mid-market, its archrivals have long been ADP, Employease, Ultimate Software, Agresso, and Lawson, while in the pure-CRM mid-market, that would be the likes of Onyx, Pivotal, Kana, E.Piphany, Salesforce.com and FrontRange. Not to mention that SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards will likely be faced in all the above markets as well.
Also, despite the seemingly well crafted marketing campaign, the Best Software brand is still much less-known than those of its individual products, e.g., ACT!, SalesLogix, or Peachtree. The company will, for some time to come, still likely suffer from either the "Best who?" syndrome and/or will be confused with the former Abra or FAS provider only. Additionally, the wealth of corporate names and a likely unwieldy slew of products within each of Sage's divisions and groups, presents sales and marketing confusion for the company, both internally and externally across the globee. Sage is not exactly uniformly a global company, as its product offerings differ for different markets. For instance, while the Best brand will be applicable for the North American market, Sage offers for the other international markets a disparate line of products for small business comparable to the above-mentioned Best's line (e.g., Instant Accounting for a single user, Line 50 (for up to 5 users), Line 200 (5-25 users) and Line 500 (up to 1,000 users). While Best Software's (f.k.a. Sage Software) MAS 500 manufacturing modules come from last year's purchase of ERP vendor Haitek Solutions, Line 500 comes from the Sage Group's 1999 acquisition of Tetra, a UK-based mid-market ERP vendor. These deals have consequently resulted in different ERP products offered by different units of the Sage Group. After the Tetra acquisition, The Sage Group formed Sage Enterprise Solutions, based in the UK, which offered an ERP suite initially called Sage Enterprise (renamed recently into Line 500). Therefore, the one face to the customers' motto might only be applicable within certain markets per se, e.g., North America, the UK, or France, and very unlikely across the globe.
Furthermore, while Sage has a myriad of products in its portfolio that could benefit from integration with ACT!, Abra, FAS and/or SalesLogix, the company must clearly send the message that most of these already integrate with MAS 90, MAS 200 and MAS 500 (the only exception being ACT! and MAS 500), and articulate its plans and the timeline for any still outstanding integration for between its products. Otherwise, it may face confusion and/or anxiety amongst both its current and potential customers as well as within its VARs. While the idea to enable the R&D team to gain economies of scale by leveraging the same technology foundation to build common application components as commodities that can be deployed within the entire product portfolio is tempting and promising in a very long run, it will only happen in three years time in the best case scenario, and only for Best Software's offerings in North America. The mitigating factor is the fact that, before that long-term evolution takes place, data and personalization setups will be transferable all the way up from entry-level products to enterprise-class systems, making migrations smoother.
Room for functional enhancements remains too, despite some of the products' leading positions. To that end, Best will likely have to build or acquire additional CRM functional enhancements (e.g., database-based marketing management, data mining/analytics, and support for field service) to round out a complete CRM suite. Not to mention the need to bolster MAS 500's external/field service and multilingual capabilities, well beyond only English and Spanish. The vendor has also been working on extending its web integration side as to bolster its private trade exchange (PTX) and/or collaborative role-based portal solutions strategy and delivery. The company has also only recently extended its reach in the professional service automation (PSA) area, with the above-mentioned additional project management enhancements to MAS 500 Suite that should make it competitive with the above-mentioned peers. Nevertheless, Best Software is a company that delivers products based on understanding of its customers' needs, of the competitive forces in the market, and on constant adaptability.
Best Software will still have to address other challenges in order to continue to thrive in this ruthless competitive environment. The competition is flying from many directions since the company competes in many diverse markets. To that end, in the traditional back-office market, the threat comes from the likes of Intuit and AccountMate in the small business accounting market, via its peers (e.g., MBS, ACCPAC, Exact Software, Epicor, and Scala to name only some), to the Tier 1 vendors storming down the market. In the pure HR/Payroll mid-market, its archrivals have long been ADP, Employease, Ultimate Software, Agresso, and Lawson, while in the pure-CRM mid-market, that would be the likes of Onyx, Pivotal, Kana, E.Piphany, Salesforce.com and FrontRange. Not to mention that SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards will likely be faced in all the above markets as well.
Also, despite the seemingly well crafted marketing campaign, the Best Software brand is still much less-known than those of its individual products, e.g., ACT!, SalesLogix, or Peachtree. The company will, for some time to come, still likely suffer from either the "Best who?" syndrome and/or will be confused with the former Abra or FAS provider only. Additionally, the wealth of corporate names and a likely unwieldy slew of products within each of Sage's divisions and groups, presents sales and marketing confusion for the company, both internally and externally across the globee. Sage is not exactly uniformly a global company, as its product offerings differ for different markets. For instance, while the Best brand will be applicable for the North American market, Sage offers for the other international markets a disparate line of products for small business comparable to the above-mentioned Best's line (e.g., Instant Accounting for a single user, Line 50 (for up to 5 users), Line 200 (5-25 users) and Line 500 (up to 1,000 users). While Best Software's (f.k.a. Sage Software) MAS 500 manufacturing modules come from last year's purchase of ERP vendor Haitek Solutions, Line 500 comes from the Sage Group's 1999 acquisition of Tetra, a UK-based mid-market ERP vendor. These deals have consequently resulted in different ERP products offered by different units of the Sage Group. After the Tetra acquisition, The Sage Group formed Sage Enterprise Solutions, based in the UK, which offered an ERP suite initially called Sage Enterprise (renamed recently into Line 500). Therefore, the one face to the customers' motto might only be applicable within certain markets per se, e.g., North America, the UK, or France, and very unlikely across the globe.
Furthermore, while Sage has a myriad of products in its portfolio that could benefit from integration with ACT!, Abra, FAS and/or SalesLogix, the company must clearly send the message that most of these already integrate with MAS 90, MAS 200 and MAS 500 (the only exception being ACT! and MAS 500), and articulate its plans and the timeline for any still outstanding integration for between its products. Otherwise, it may face confusion and/or anxiety amongst both its current and potential customers as well as within its VARs. While the idea to enable the R&D team to gain economies of scale by leveraging the same technology foundation to build common application components as commodities that can be deployed within the entire product portfolio is tempting and promising in a very long run, it will only happen in three years time in the best case scenario, and only for Best Software's offerings in North America. The mitigating factor is the fact that, before that long-term evolution takes place, data and personalization setups will be transferable all the way up from entry-level products to enterprise-class systems, making migrations smoother.
Room for functional enhancements remains too, despite some of the products' leading positions. To that end, Best will likely have to build or acquire additional CRM functional enhancements (e.g., database-based marketing management, data mining/analytics, and support for field service) to round out a complete CRM suite. Not to mention the need to bolster MAS 500's external/field service and multilingual capabilities, well beyond only English and Spanish. The vendor has also been working on extending its web integration side as to bolster its private trade exchange (PTX) and/or collaborative role-based portal solutions strategy and delivery. The company has also only recently extended its reach in the professional service automation (PSA) area, with the above-mentioned additional project management enhancements to MAS 500 Suite that should make it competitive with the above-mentioned peers. Nevertheless, Best Software is a company that delivers products based on understanding of its customers' needs, of the competitive forces in the market, and on constant adaptability.
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