Smart Business Magazine, Dec 2012

S age North America was a company in hiding or at least its name was When Pascal Houillon was appointed president and CEO of Sage North America in 2011 the specialty software solutions company was known to the North American marketplace by many different brand names But Sage wasnt one of them Depending on which of Sages products or services you used you might have known Sage by any number of names and your experience as a customer might have varied greatly from brand to brand Houillon who had led various global regions for parent company Sage Group PLC since 1997 knew Sage North America would never leverage all of its resources and realize its full potential under such a fragmented setup In my vision I wanted to bring this group of brands together as a singular company with a consistent customer service experience and a consistent way to go to market Houillon says The flag that Ive tried to focus everyone on is the Sage flag the Sage brand Right after I took this position we dropped all of the product brands which we have become known for throughout North America and merged everything into one master brand called Sage sage HOW PASCAL HOUILLON UNIFIED SAGE NORTH AMERICA AROUND A SINGLE BRAND AND A SINGLE CUSTOMER SERVICE PHILOSOPHY B Y E R I K C A S S A N O e c a s s a n o @ s b n o n l i n e c o m December 2012 Smart Business Orange County 9 ADVICE