Sage CRM Solutions, part of the Sage Group, has announced its global CRM strategy.

 

"Sage CRM Solutions 2010" is described by the Sagians as "a comprehensive product and technology vision to guide development of the Sage CRM Solutions product family that includes ACT! by Sage, SageCRM, and Sage SalesLogix."

 

The strategy addresses distinct business requirements, and "applies open Web standards to enable a connected front and back-office and incorporates Web 2.0 technologies."

 

Joe Bergera, executive vice president and global general manager, Sage CRM Solutions, said in his opinion CRM has "reached a critical turning point. Customers tell us their requirements have moved beyond the on-premise versus hosted debate. They want a pragmatic approach that delivers a fully functional 'anywhere user experience' supported by a connected front-office and back-office environment, and interoperability between our contact management products and CRM suites."

 

The strategy, "developed through research among the Sage customer base," company officials say, identifies opportunities that "small and mid-sized businesses and divisions of enterprises can take advantage of this year, with additional capabilities being delivered incrementally through 2010."

 

While "some businesses work one-to-one with their customers, others have more distributed organizations that need to manage one-to-many or many-to-many relationships," Sage officials say, adding that Sage's CRM strategy "accounts for each organization's customer interaction model, as well as its performance enhancement strategy, and CRM buyer type."

 

Sage's "holistic technology approach" for supporting its global CRM strategy, according to company officials, includes common components for a consistent user experience, services-based integration to help organizations manage end-to-end business processes and "interoperability to enable organizations to migrate from one CRM application to another," as well as a SaaS (News - Alert) business platform and "context aware services," to incorporate Internet and Web 2.0 services, "allowing customers to add on-demand business functionality to their CRM products."

   

"The wealth of transactional data in the back-office must be presented in a meaningful way to CRM users," said Sheryl Kingstone, Yankee Group (News - Alert) director of enterprise research.

 

Earlier this year Sage Software (News - Alert) announced ACT! for Palm OS 3.0, for use with the ACT! by Sage 2008 (10.0) and ACT! by Sage Premium (10.0) contact and CRM products.

 

ACT! for Palm OS runs as a native application to enable ACT! feature use on Palm OS handheld devices, including a linked calendar and task list, contact record access from scheduled appointments, and viewing customer interactions.

 

David van Toor, senior vice president and general manager for Sage CRM Solutions, said ACT! for Palm OS is a way to address data portability needs.

 

Alternative data synchronization tools do not provide Palm OS users with true contact management, Sage officials believe, because "these applications require use of their device's date book and address book." ACT! for Palm OS, running as a native application on Palm OS devices, lets users access information and track schedules while synchronizing with their desktop or Web versions of ACT!.

 

The product lets users attach notes or history to multiple contact records without having to enter the same data multiple times, and a custom field view can be used to create a snapshot of ten data fields. Application graphics, activities and calendars all appear in color so users can view items by priority.