Peachtree 2015 Annual Report Download - page 28

We identified the opportunity to focus our business within the 2012 strategy in order
to beer leverage our resources. Certain products were identified as non-core and
disposed of and remaining products were categorised as Invest, Harvestor Sunset in
order to direct resources in relation to priorities. We also recognised the requirement
for disciplined execution in areas such as application of our brand and strategic
partnering.Our successes in executing on this cornerstone have tended to be local
successes,mainly as aresult of our decentralised structure. Strategic priorities are
now defined globally,whereby, forinstance, we are replicating the success of local
product marketing with global campaigns.
Capacity for Growth
A global operating model that scales
Strategy continued
Our priorities
We will continue to focus our investment on our strongest and
most promising products but will only use two categories, Growth
and Heritage products. Growth products include both global products
and local on-premise growth products. Read more about our product
portfolio strategy on page 30.
As well as focusing ourinvestment on the Growth product category, we
will also focus our spending by function and establish a global operating
model. The model starts with the customer who will continue to be the
responsibility of the country managing director (“MD”) who leads the
sales and service experience and this will be their primary focus.
The country MD will also represent Sage in the country and as the
champion of Small & Medium Business.
Marketing, Product Delivery and Technology will be run globally but
will be strongly connected to the country and the customer. This allows
a more effective deployment of our investment and will over time drive
a stronger return on investment.
The support functions will be run globally and will be targeted to improve
both service and efficiency. Transaction-processing costs will be reduced
and processes and systems re-designed. Country MDs will be internal
customers for our global back-office functions and will no longer be
burdened with having to oversee these functions.
We are working to reduce the number of legacy systems and are
implementing best in class systems globally, including the Salesforce
CRM solution as well as our own X3 general ledger.
Why it’s important
There are many facets to implementing our Capacity for Growth
plansbut ultimately, this pillar of our strategy is centred on improving
efficiency to drive a consistently exceptional customer experience.
Spreading our investment too thinly between too many products
restricts our ability to truly revolutionise business. A global operating
model is essential to leverage our resources and achieve our ambition
of winning in the market to gain market share.
The risks that could impact our success
Business Model transition has been identified as a principal risk
considered on page 39.
How we will measure our progress
Our KPI linked to capacity for growth is the ratio of general and
administration spending as a percentage of revenue (G&A%). Wewill
work moreefficientlyinorderto release savings into global front office
functions such as marketing. Reshaping the structure of our operating
margin willensure thatour organisation has capacity for growth.
Read more about our KPIs on page 28.
“Sage will be organised to best serve our customers, removing duplication of effort,
simplifying processes andworking together as one team. We will sharedata, expertise
and resource to accelerate innovation and delight our customers.”
— Steve Hare, CFO
26 The Sage Group plc | Annual Report & Accounts 2015