Accounting software house Sage Group plc is to push into the UK upper mid market for the first time with the ERP X3 offering that stems from Adonix, the French company Sage bought for £100 million in 2006.
“It’s a complete suite that is feature rich, highly scalable and will move us up into the upper mid market,” Jim Scott, GM of Sage’s Enterprise Business told us.
ERP X3 is a proven product that is already installed in businesses in 38 countries around the world.
At present there are just 32 UK customers of Sage that are using the product, that came with the product acquisition. Over the next 12 months we want to target company’s that might be considering Microsoft Great Plains Exacta or entry level Oracle or SAP deployments,” Scott said.
He commented that the product can compete against rival options on total cost of ownership, and its speed of deployment.
“Businesses are very sensitive to cost and we believe now is the right time to bring it to the UK market. First and foremost, the licencing of the product is extremely competitive, and it is extremely fast to roll out and can be deployed in 35 to 55 days, depending on the level of complexity.”
Sage ERP X3 is said to be strong on international features and, as well as working out of the box in eight languages including several main European languages and Chinese, can handle multi-currency and multiple charts of accounts.
It comes with a net-native client which offers a web user exactly the same level of functionality as a client version of the software would, Scott claimed. Any mix of desktop and web clients can be deployed, and the system would suit 50 heavy ERP users and up to 1,100 concurrent users.
ERP X3 is aimed at any business with a turnover in excess of £5 million, but is likely to best suit companies nearing the £20 million mark with international trade links. It is already used by more than 150,000 users across the globe in 2,500 companies, such as Fiat or Saint-Gobain Semiconductor, Sage said.
“It’s been designed for this market space from day one, and is not a scale down or scaled back version of another package,” Scott noted.
There are few virgin ERP sites in the UK, but businesses do tend to reassess their situation every five to seven years, and Sage believes it can tap into its massive installed base for likely prospects. On average, a Sage ERP X3 licence should run to around £50,000 to £100,000.
