Important information
Sage Update | Professional Services and Future Working Models
Dear Sage Customer
Aligned with our vision to become a great SaaS company, we are continuously evolving our business operating model to set us up for future success. Sage South Africa is moving to an indirect business model where we will focus on providing high-value expertise in product functionality, support, and technical advice, while our partners will sell and implement our software.
These changes are a continuation of a process that we started almost a year ago, as we focus our business on customer and partner success. At the start of FY20, we appointed distributors outside of SA to help us drive the indirect model in the regions. We are dedicated to increasing our partner footprint to support our ambition of transitioning to an indirect model.
Professional Services.
This morning, we announced that the Professional Services (PS) team would be moving to an Expert Services model. In our current PS model, Sage does everything in the customer life cycle, from lead generation through to implementation. Under an Expert Services model, Sage will focus on providing high-value expertise in product functionality, support, and technical advice. Our partners, the key pillars of the indirect business model, will deliver most of the former PS customer-facing work, including installation and enablement.
This announcement impacts the following teams:
• Sage X3 and Sage X3 People
• Sage 300 People
• Sage Premier
• Sage Business Cloud Payroll Professional
• Sage Pastel Payroll
• Special Solutions
This move is a strategic business decision that was already in progress and is unrelated to COVID-19. These changes are part of our longer-term operating model changes. They allow us to align the Professional Services organisation to our long-term strategy and ways of working, as we continue to focus on becoming a great SaaS company.
The Future Centre of Excellence Model.
A strong central team will provide the following services:
• Deep expertise in functional and technical subjects
• Methodology and best practices – STREAM, Fast Start
• Global Enablement
• Standard presales demo applications
• Presales support for large accounts
• (ISV limited operational support) [not existing today]
• Escalations
To support this model, we will consolidate and realign our local resources to:
• Deliver high-value Expert Services, methodology and best practices;
• Manage escalations with lean, local partner-facing teams; and
• Provide appropriate Expert Services coordination in suitable time zones and local language.
If you use any other Sage product and you are already linked to a business partner, you can continue to work through your existing business partner.
You are welcome to review the list of business partners available on our website for any professional services that you require:
https://www.sage.com/en-za/find-a-partner/
As a customer, you have the right to choose any Sage certified business partner to provide Professional Services.
In future, your invoice for Professional Services will be sent from the business partner you have chosen to work with.
Future Working Model
As part of our strategy, we have also been reviewing our future working model. To achieve our ambition, we know that a more flexible approach to where and how we work is needed, and COVID-19 has further proved that this is possible, and desirable among colleagues. We also know that proximity matters, and that our ability to spend time together during the working week will continue to be important in the long term for collaboration and engagement.
So, we are going to work differently and more dynamically in the long term, which means our utilization of office space will change. In alignment with Sage Group’s strategy, where we aim to create key operating hubs and satellite offices across our regions, we undertook a review of our geographical spread of colleagues, capabilities and resources across our existing office locations in South Africa. We are planning for this new way of working carefully and thoughtfully.
Following a comprehensive review, we decided to close our regional offices in the following cities across South Africa on 31 July 2020:
• Cape Town
• Durban
• Pretoria
Colleagues currently based at these offices will continue to operate remotely. We are in the process of sourcing a new, smaller office in Pretoria, and we are also exploring small serviced offices in Durban and Cape Town. We will share more information in due course.
Thank you for your loyalty and ongoing support. We look forward to continuing this journey with you.
Best regards,
Pieter Bensch
EVP | Africa & the Middle East
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Sage South Africa (Pty) Ltd.