Sage sets up in Saudi

Sage's Saudi office, will work closely with the channel to develop the right solutions for Saudi businesses.

"We have been running our regional business out of the head office in Dubai, but business growth creates the demand for physical presence and greater commitment," said Marc Van der Ven, managing director, Sage Software Middle East.

"Sage has invested in setting up a local Saudi operation to be closer to our business partners and provide them with marketing and technical support and training to assist customers. The Saudi business environment is becoming increasingly competitive, and moving fast towards WTO compliance. This means that organisations will need to build greater efficiency into their business operations, and need to have reliable systems in place to ensure immediate data availability and also data integrity. There is a good level of awareness in the Kingdom today of these requirements, and businesses are realizing the need to invest in their infrastructure, whether it's to manage their accounts, their people or their sales & marketing processes."

The Kingdom makes up 55% of the market in the region for most industries including the IT business. Businesses operating in the Kingdom need to have greater control of their budgets, streamline their business processes, improve customer satisfaction and track their marketing spend to ensure their products and product messages are reaching the right audiences. Sage has the widest range of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions to help local businesses become more competitive and identify and leverage potentially lucrative opportunities.

Another important area where Sage has shown its commitment to the region is the delivery of a world class, localized HRMS solution. With competition on the rise, recruiting and retaining the right talent is vital to an organization's success. Sage has invested significant time and resources to customize its flagship HRMS solution, Sage Abra HRMS, for the region. It has been Arabized, supports the Hijri calendar and local government regulations, which makes it user friendly for the local market.

Sage Software Middle East today has over 1500 customers, 10,000 software users and 45 highly skilled partners in the region. In Saudi Arabia, Sage has business partners in all major cities with aggressive plans to expand the channel in the Kingdom.