The Sage Group
Encyclopedia
The Sage Group plc commonly known as Sage, is a global enterprise software
Enterprise software
Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software , is software used in organizations, such as in a business or government, contrary to software chosen by individuals...

 company headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. It is the world's third-largest supplier of enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning systems integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application...

 software (behind Oracle
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...

 and SAP
SAP AG
SAP AG is a German software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. Headquartered in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, with regional offices around the world, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software...

), the largest supplier to small business
Small business
A small business is a business that is privately owned and operated, with a small number of employees and relatively low volume of sales. Small businesses are normally privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships...

es, and has 6.1 million customers worldwide. It has offices in 24 countries and its products and services are available in more than 160 countries. It was the patron of The Sage Gateshead music venue in Newcastle upon Tyne.

It is listed on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...

 and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index
FTSE 100 Index
The FTSE 100 Index, also called FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the footsie , is a share index of the 100 most highly capitalised UK companies listed on the London Stock Exchange....

.

Early history

The Company was founded by David Goldman
David Goldman (businessman)
David Goldman MBE was the founder of The Sage Group, the United Kingdom's largest software business.-Career:Born in Sunderland, David Goldman trained as an accountant before moving into sales and marketing: then for 20 years he managed a small printing business known as Campbell Graphics...

 together with Paul Muller and Graham Wylie in 1981 in Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

 to develop estimating and accounting software for small businesses.

A student at Newcastle University, Graham Wylie, took a summer job with an accountancy firm funded by a government small business grant to write software to help their record keeping. This became the basis for Sage Line 50. Next, hired by David Goldman to write some estimating software for his printing company, Campbell Graphics, Graham used the same accounting software to produce the first version of Sage Accounts. David was so impressed he hired Graham and academic Paul Muller to form Sage, selling their software first to printing companies, but then to a wider market through a network of resellers.

In 1984 the Company launched Sage software, a product for the Amstrad PCW
Amstrad PCW
The Amstrad PCW series was a range of personal computers produced by British company Amstrad from 1985 to 1998, and also sold under licence in Europe as the "Joyce" by the German electronics company Schneider in the early years of the series' life. When it was launched, the cost of a PCW system was...

 word processor, which used the CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...

 operating system. Sage software sales escalated in that year from 30 copies a month to over 300. The Company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...

 in 1989.

Appointment of Paul Walker as CEO

In 1994 Paul Walker was appointed Chief Executive. In 1998 Sage’s Professional Accountants Division was established. In 1999 Sage entered FTSE 100 and launched a dedicated Irish division, based in Dublin as well as its e-business strategy. In that same year the UK acquisition of Tetra saw Sage enter the mid-range business software market.

In 2000 Sage shares were named ‘best performing share of the 90s’ in the UK business press. In 2001 Sage acquired Interact Commerce Inc. and entered the CRM/contact management market and in 2002 Sage won 'Business of The Year' in National Business Awards. Also that year Sage sponsored the new Music Centre in Gateshead for £6m - now known as The Sage Gateshead - the largest ever UK arts/business sponsorship. By 2003 Sage was the only remaining technology stock in the FTSE 100 Index
FTSE 100 Index
The FTSE 100 Index, also called FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the footsie , is a share index of the 100 most highly capitalised UK companies listed on the London Stock Exchange....

. In 2003 at age 43 Graham Wylie retired with 108.5 million shares in Sage worth £146m. He was rated Britain's 109th richest person in the 2002 Sunday Times' rich list.

Appointment of Guy Berruyer as CEO

On 19 April 2010, Sage announced that its CEO, Paul Walker, had indicated an interest in stepping down from his position, which he had held for 16 years. The Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

reported that his departure would lead to speculation over Sage’s mergers and acquisitions, which have been a key component to the group’s growth in the past 20 years. In an interview with The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

, the CEO of Sage's UK business stated that: "Acquisitions are part of our DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

".

Walker was one of the longest serving CEOs of a FTSE100 company, only exceeded by Sir Martin Sorrell at WPP and Tullow Oil's Aidan Heavey. According to the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...

, Walker is likely to have left Sage with as much as £21 million given his shares, bonus plan and salary. Walker left the company on 1 December 2010.

On 1 October 2010 Guy Berruyer
Guy Berruyer
Guy Berruyer is French software executive and currently holds the position of CEO for Mainland Europe at The Sage Group a FTSE 100 listed public company.-Career:Guy Berruyer joined The Sage Group in 1997 to run its French operations...

 became CEO of Sage Group; Berruyer had previously been CEO of Sage's Mainland Europe & Asia operations.

Operations

Founded and headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, the company initially grew organically, but more recently has grown primarily through acquisitions. In 2004 the company's new headquarters was completed in the North Park
Gosforth
Gosforth is an area of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom, to the north of the city centre. Gosforth constituted an urban district from 1895 to 1974, when it became part of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne. It has a population of 23,620...

 area of Newcastle upon Tyne. It now operates worldwide. The company's US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 headquarters are in Irvine
Irvine, California
Irvine is a suburban incorporated city in Orange County, California, United States. It is a planned city, mainly developed by the Irvine Company since the 1960s. Formally incorporated on December 28, 1971, the city has a population of 212,375 as of the 2010 census. However, the California...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, the Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 headquarters are in Richmond
Richmond, British Columbia
Richmond is a coastal city, incorporated in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Part of Metro Vancouver, its neighbouring communities are Vancouver and Burnaby to the north, New Westminster to the east, and Delta to the south, while the Strait of Georgia forms its western border...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....

an headquarters are in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Sage has 6.1 million customers and 13,400 employees across the world. Key industry focus includes: Healthcare; HR & Payroll; Construction/ Real-Estate; Transport/ Distribution; Payment Processing; Accountancy; Not-for-Profit; Manufacturing; Retail; Automotive Distribution.

Financial Information

In the year to September 2009, Sage reported revenues of £1,439 million, an 11% increase in reported revenues and 4% decline in organic revenues (adjusting for currency moves and acquisitions). The company's profit margin (defines as EBITA, earnings before interest, tax and amortisation) fell 1% to 22% for the 2009 year & adjusted pre-tax profit was £308 million. Sage reported that 55% of its revenue came from the Accounting sector with 26% from Industry-specific customers, 10% from HR & payroll, 5% from payment processing and 4% from CRM. Net debt stood at £439m at the end of September 2009 with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.3 times.
Sept year-end, £ millions 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Revenue 552 560 688 760 936 1,158 1,295 1,439 1,435
Reported growth n/a n/a n/a n/a +12% +30% +7% +11% 0%
Underlying growth n/a n/a n/a n/a +7% +7% +3% -4% -1%
EBITA n/a n/a n/a 202 249 283 300 321 365
Pre-Tax Profit 129 151 181 194 221 223 241 267 319


In the year to September 2009, Europe represented the largest region by revenues generating £763 million and an EBITA profit of £192 million. This compares with the North American divisions revenues of £576 million and EBITA profit of £105 million with the rest of the world generating revenues of £100 million and EBITA profit of £24 million. Within Europe, the Mainland European division run by Guy Berruyer
Guy Berruyer
Guy Berruyer is French software executive and currently holds the position of CEO for Mainland Europe at The Sage Group a FTSE 100 listed public company.-Career:Guy Berruyer joined The Sage Group in 1997 to run its French operations...

 dominates on a revenues and profit basis generating circa 70% of all European revenues and circa 60% of profits.

Board of Directors

Sage's board of directors consists of 10 individuals with 6 non-executive independent directors including the chairman.
Name (Alphabetically) Title Executive/Non-Executive
Guy Berruyer
Guy Berruyer
Guy Berruyer is French software executive and currently holds the position of CEO for Mainland Europe at The Sage Group a FTSE 100 listed public company.-Career:Guy Berruyer joined The Sage Group in 1997 to run its French operations...

Chief Executive Executive
David Clayton Director of Strategy and Corporate Development Executive
Paul Harrison Group Finance Director Executive
Tony Hobson Chairman Non-executive Director
Tim Ingram Senior Independent Non-executive Director
Tamara Ingram Independent Non-executive Director
Ruth Markland Independent Non-executive Director
Ian Mason Independent Non-executive Director
Mark Rolfe Independent Non-executive Director


The Chairman, Tony Hobson is the Chairman of Northern Foods
Northern Foods
Northern Foods Ltd is a British food manufacturer headquartered in Leeds, England. It was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. The company was scheduled to merge with Greencore Group in 2011 to form Essenta Foods, the group being...

 plc and a non-executive director of Glas Cymru (Welsh Water) and eSure. He is also Chairman of the Trustees of Changing Faces, the leading UK disfigurement charity. He is a Chartered Accountant and an MBA and was previously Group Finance Director of Legal & General Group plc for 14 years retiring in 2001. He joined the Board in June, 2004 and became Chairman in May 2007.

Products

The company's product set can be divided into: Accounting; Payroll; Customer Relationship Management (CRM); Financial forecasting; Payment processing; Job costing; Human Resources; Business intelligence; Taxation and other products for accountants; Business stationery; Development platforms; E-business; Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

Sage's products include:

  • Abel Enterprise [Spain]
  • Abra HRMS [US]
  • Accounts Production (Apex Accounts Production)
  • Accounts Production Advanced
  • Accpac
    ACCPAC
    Accpac is the common name for the Sage ERP Accpac line of Accounting Applications, primarily serving small and medium sized businesses. Sage ERP Accpac is now produced by Sage following its acquisition in 2004....

     ERP [US]
  • ACT! by Sage
    ACT!
    Sage ACT! is a customer relationship management software application which is used to keep track of client and prospect details in a single database that can be shared by multiple users...

  • ACT! by Sage [Australia]
  • Best Practice [Australia]
  • Billing Boss
  • BOB 50
  • Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
  • BusinessVision
  • BusinessWorks
  • Classic Line
  • Construction Solutions
  • ContaPlus
  • Corporation Tax (Powered by Abacus)
  • Sage 50 Accounts (Line 50) [UK]
  • Sage 50 Payroll [UK]
  • Sage 50 P11d [UK]
  • Sage 200 (MMS) [UK]
  • Sage 1000 [UK]
  • Sage Accpac ERP [Australia]
  • Sage Accpac Pro Series [Australia]
  • Sage BI (IntelligentApps for Line 200, Line 500) [UK]
  • Sage Coretime [Ireland][UK]
  • Sage CRM [Australia]
  • Sage ERP X3 [Australia]
  • Sage One
  • Sage SalesLogix [Australia]
  • Sage Timberline Office [Australia]

  • DacEasy [US]
  • Document Manager [Australia]
  • FacturaPlus
  • Facturfacil
  • FAS Fixed Assets [US]
  • Financial Forecaster [UK]
  • Forte [Poland]
  • Geode X3 [Spain]
  • GS-Programme
  • HandiAsset [Australia]
  • HandiBiz [Australia]
  • HandiLedger [Australia]
  • HandiRegister [Australia]
  • HandiSecurity [Australia]
  • HandiSoft [Australia]
  • HandiTax [Australia]
  • HandiTrust [Australia]
  • Intelligent Reporting (IntelligentApps) [UK]
  • Intergy
  • Jehlen Manage Right package
  • Legend
  • Ligne 30 [France]
  • Ligne 100 [France]
  • Ligne 500 (Ciel) [France]
  • Ligne 1000 [France]
  • Line 100 (Sovereign)[UK]
  • Line 200 (Sage C/S)[UK]
  • Line 500 (Chameleon, Chameleon 2000, CS/3, Enterprise)[UK]
  • Logic Class
  • Sage ERP X3 (Adonix) [France]
  • Sage Instant Accounts [UK]
  • Sage Instant Payroll [UK]

  • MainLAN
  • MAS 90
    MAS 90
    Sage MAS 90, also known as MAS90, is accounting software offered by Sage.First offered in the mid 1980s by a company called State of the Art, Inc, the Master Accounting Series for the 90's gained significant market share by developing a reseller channel largely made up of Certified Public Accountants...

     [US]
  • MAS 200 [US]
  • MAS 500
    MAS 500
    Sage MAS 500 is ERP software offered by Sage Software.Sage MAS 500 operates in a client–server environment with a Microsoft SQL Server back end. The software is written in a mixture of Visual Basic 6 and VB.NET...

     [US]
  • Master Builder [US]
  • Master Production Schedule
    Master Production Schedule
    - What is Master Production Schedule or MPS? :A Master Production Schedule or MPS is the plan that a company has developed for production, inventory, staffing, etc. It sets the quantity of each end item to be completed in each week of a short-range planning horizon. A Master Production Schedule is...

     [US]
  • Medical Manager [US]
  • MicrOpay e-HR [Australia]
  • MicrOpay Ingenuity [Australia]
  • MicrOpay Meridian [Australia]
  • MicrOpay Outsourcing [Australia]
  • MicrOpay Payroll [Australia]
  • MIP Fund Accounting
  • My Business
  • NominaPlus
  • Office Line
  • Pastel Evolution [South Africa]
  • Pastel Partner [South Africa]
  • PayPoint ePOS [UK]
  • Payroll Services
  • PC-Kaufmann [Germany]
  • Peachtree Accounting
    Peachtree Accounting
    Peachtree Accounting is business management software published by Sage Software and sold primarily in the United States. There have been several generations of software sold under the Peachtree Accounting name....

     [US]
  • PFW (Platinum for Windows) [US]
  • Sage My Business online [Australia]
  • Sage Pocket [India]

  • Practice Manager [Australia]
  • Practice Solution
  • Practice Suite [UK]
  • Premier Plus [UK]
  • Prestige [UK]
  • Pro ERP
  • ProvideX
    ProvideX
    ProvideX is a computer language and development environment derived from Business Basic in the mid-1980s....

  • PymePlus
  • Sage CRM (Accpac CRM, MME, MH)
  • Sage Start Up [UK]
  • SalesLogix [US]
  • Simply Accounting [US] (Formerly Bedford Software
    Bedford Software
    Bedford Software created the platform that is now developed and sold by The Sage Group as Simply Accounting. Bedford Software developed Bedford Integrated Accounting for DOS in 1985 and for Macintosh in 1988, then naming it Simply Accounting. Bedford Software was acquired by Computer Associates...

    )
  • Softline VIP [South Africa]
  • SnowdropKCS
  • Symfonia [Poland]
  • Take Five, Accounting & Payroll [Ireland]
  • TAS [UK]
  • Taxation
  • Tetra 2000 [UK]
  • Tetraplan [UK]
  • Timberline Office [US]
  • Time+Billing [Australia]
  • Timeslips
  • TPVplus
  • V-ISAM database
    Database
    A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

  • Wage Easy [Australia]
  • XRT Treasury [Spain]


Competitors

According to the June 2009 Worldwide ERP survey by the Gartner Group, Sage had a 9% market share of total global ERP software revenues in 2008. With SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and Infor representing the major competition. In the Gartner article, the ERP market was estimated to be worth $23.8 billion in revenues in 2008 and $24.5 billion in 2009. However, an analysis by IDC in October 2006 of the small business market estimated Sage's market share at 21% versus Microsoft's 12%, Oracle's 9%, Intuit's 6% and SAP's 3%. A major part of the small business ERP market, 49%, is served by other providers.

Sage is increasingly seeing competition from web-based or cloud solutions from companies including Intacct
Intacct
Intacct provides financial management and accounting software solutions based on a cloud computing platform. Intacct is based in San Jose, California.- Background :...

, NetSuite
NetSuite
NetSuite Inc. is the leading vendor of cloud-based Software-as-a-Service integrated business management software for mid-market enterprises and divisions of large companies, with over 10,000 organizations and a +$225 billion market cap...

 and SAP
SAP AG
SAP AG is a German software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. Headquartered in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, with regional offices around the world, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software...

.

Sponsorship

The Sage Group is a patron of The Sage Gateshead, a Tyneside music venue designed by Sir Norman Foster
Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, OM is a British architect whose company maintains an international design practice, Foster + Partners....

. The Sage Gateshead was completed in 2004 at a cost of £70 million, and has since become a main sight on the River Tyne
River Tyne
The River Tyne is a river in North East England in Great Britain. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'.The North Tyne rises on the...

. It is primarily used for hosting music concerts, but is also used for other events including conferences.

In 2008 Sage funded the revival of The Krypton Factor
The Krypton Factor
The Krypton Factor was a British game show produced by Granada Television for broadcast on ITV. The show originally ran from 7 September 1977 to 20 November 1995, and was hosted by Gordon Burns and usually broadcast on the ITV network on Mondays at 19:00....

television series for ITV 1 as a part of the Business Brain Training campaign.

See also

  • Comparison of accounting software
    Comparison of accounting software
    The following comparison of accounting software documents the various features and differences between different professional accounting software and personal finance packages.- Free and open source software :- Proprietary software :...

  • Guy Berruyer
    Guy Berruyer
    Guy Berruyer is French software executive and currently holds the position of CEO for Mainland Europe at The Sage Group a FTSE 100 listed public company.-Career:Guy Berruyer joined The Sage Group in 1997 to run its French operations...

  • Tony Hobson
  • Susan G. Swenson
    Susan G. Swenson
    Susan G. Swenson is president and chief executive officer of the North American regional division of Sage Software, and a director of Wells Fargo & Company....


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK