Sage reseller Acuity targets SMB growth

Sage reseller split in two earlier this year to offer a dedicated SMB service

Sage partner Acuity has set its sights on increasing its SMB activity after undergoing a business restructuring that saw it form a dedicated SMB arm.

Acuity split the business in two parts in April, with the On-Demand side focusing on SMBs and the Enterprise side continuing with the firm's heritage approach of targeting enterprises.

The firm also has Acuity Solutions, which encompasses support teams for financing, marketing and business development.

Marcus Leathwood, CMO at Acuity and managing director of the On-Demand business, told CRN that although around 92 to 95 per cent of Acuity's revenue still comes from the enterprise side of the business, the new structure has formed a healthy competition within Acuity.

"We have to act and behave like a start-up [in the On-Demand the business]," he said.

"We have a huge opportunity to grow the number of customers for On-Demand, probably at a much faster rate than you'd imagine that we can grow the number of customers for Enterprise, but they obviously don't deliver the same level of revenue.

"We still want to be one team; I don't envisage a time in the next 24 months when I'll be going out to look for an office, because we still want to leverage the Acuity brand, but we have this healthy competition now."

Acuity had traditionally worked solely with Sage but recently partnered with Salesforce and Kimble after Sage itself formed new alliances.

Leathwood explained that these new partnerships with Salesforce and Kimble have allowed Acuity to broaden its portfolio and its offering to Sage customers.

He claimed that Acuity is currently the only Platinum Sage partner to offer the entire global portfolio and that the firm has given itself a head start ahead of other partners.

"The concept of building these alliances is really futureproofing how we perceive to go to market," he said.

"I believe the rest of the Sage channel in the UK will catch up; it's a question of how many of them and how quickly. But we do feel that we've given ourselves a head start in this process.

"It's not a fast process to become a Salesforce partner and it's not an easy decision to make, but it feels like the support and engagement we're getting in the Salesforce ecosystem is going to pay off, probably in the first 12 months of being a partner."